Rationality is indeed about following reason where it takes you. This is very different from following wherever someone would have their feelings hurt if you didn’t go. Of course, rationality also involves the use of priors, evidence, and accumulated information over your entire lifetime. You are not merely allowed but required to assign a very low prior, in the range of “bloody ridiculous”, to propositions which contradict all your available information, or require some massively complex rationalization to be compatible with all your available information.
his is very different from following wherever someone would have their feelings hurt if you didn’t go.
What did you have in mind specifically?
Of course, rationality also involves the use of priors, evidence, and accumulated information over your entire lifetime.
Rationality also involves paradigm shifts, revolutions and inversions. “Use priors” is not, should not be, a call for fundamental conservatism.
You are not merely allowed but required to assign a very low prior, in the range of “bloody ridiculous”, to propositions which contradict all your available information, or require some massively complex rationalization to be compatible with all your available information.
One person’s complex rationalisation is another’s paradigm shift.
Evolution, relativity and quantum physics are paradigm shifts. Some people still aren’t aboard with some of them, finding them against “logic”, “reason”, “common sense”, etc. The self-professed rationalist Ayn Rand rejected all three: do you want to be another Ayn Rand?
The conservative incremental paradigm, applied retroactivley, would lead lwrationalists to reject good science. So they kind of don’t believe in it as the only paradigm. But they also kind of do, since it is the only paradigm they use when discussing theology., or other things they don’t like.
Evolution, relativity and quantum physics are paradigm shifts.
Not sure what “paradigm shift” is supposed to mean, but it sounds to me like “nobody had the slightest suspicion, then came a prophet, told something completely unexpected, and everyone’s mind was blown”. Well, if it is supposed to be anything like that, then evolution and relativity are poor examples (not completely sure about quantum physics).
With evolution, people already had millenia of experience with breeding. Darwin’s new idea was, essentially: “if human breeders can achieve some changes by selecting individuals with certain traits… couldn’t the forces of nature, by automatically selecting individuals who have a greater chance to survive or a greater chance to reproduce, have ultimately a similar effect on the species?”
With relativity, people already had many equations, already did the experiments that disproved the aether, etc. A large part of the puzzle was already known, Einstein “only” had to connect a few pieces together in a creative way. And then it was experimentally tested and confirmed.
By “paradigm shift”, I mean a certain amount of unlearning, overturning previously established beliefs—the fixity of species ion the case of evolution, absolute simultaneity in the case of relativity, determinism in the case of quantum mechanics.
ETA:
You are not merely allowed but required to assign a very low prior, in the range of “bloody ridiculous”, to propositions which contradict all your available information, or require some massively complex rationalization to be compatible with all your available information.
Note the contradicitions to “available information” listed above.
Rationality is indeed about following reason where it takes you. This is very different from following wherever someone would have their feelings hurt if you didn’t go. Of course, rationality also involves the use of priors, evidence, and accumulated information over your entire lifetime. You are not merely allowed but required to assign a very low prior, in the range of “bloody ridiculous”, to propositions which contradict all your available information, or require some massively complex rationalization to be compatible with all your available information.
What did you have in mind specifically?
Rationality also involves paradigm shifts, revolutions and inversions. “Use priors” is not, should not be, a call for fundamental conservatism.
One person’s complex rationalisation is another’s paradigm shift.
Evolution, relativity and quantum physics are paradigm shifts. Some people still aren’t aboard with some of them, finding them against “logic”, “reason”, “common sense”, etc. The self-professed rationalist Ayn Rand rejected all three: do you want to be another Ayn Rand?
The conservative incremental paradigm, applied retroactivley, would lead lwrationalists to reject good science. So they kind of don’t believe in it as the only paradigm. But they also kind of do, since it is the only paradigm they use when discussing theology., or other things they don’t like.
Not sure what “paradigm shift” is supposed to mean, but it sounds to me like “nobody had the slightest suspicion, then came a prophet, told something completely unexpected, and everyone’s mind was blown”. Well, if it is supposed to be anything like that, then evolution and relativity are poor examples (not completely sure about quantum physics).
With evolution, people already had millenia of experience with breeding. Darwin’s new idea was, essentially: “if human breeders can achieve some changes by selecting individuals with certain traits… couldn’t the forces of nature, by automatically selecting individuals who have a greater chance to survive or a greater chance to reproduce, have ultimately a similar effect on the species?”
With relativity, people already had many equations, already did the experiments that disproved the aether, etc. A large part of the puzzle was already known, Einstein “only” had to connect a few pieces together in a creative way. And then it was experimentally tested and confirmed.
By “paradigm shift”, I mean a certain amount of unlearning, overturning previously established beliefs—the fixity of species ion the case of evolution, absolute simultaneity in the case of relativity, determinism in the case of quantum mechanics.
ETA:
Note the contradicitions to “available information” listed above.