I’m replying to you now before reading your suggestions, I’ve not had the time so far. They’re on my list but for now I’d like to adress what you reply either way.
The Joe Biden quote is very effective, and I agree with the general sentiment. But not with how that relates to questions of rationality. I tend to use rationality as any thinking at all. Illogical thinking is may be bad rationality, but it is still rationality.
My objection to assuming rationality isn’t that you shouldn’t look at how these or those actions may have some sort of function. My criticism is that, that when you do observe that a certain function is served, you shouldn’t impose rationality upon the people involved. In my experience, as a bachelor of sociology and as a human being with a habit of self-reflection, people don’t act upon their thoughts, but much more upon their knowledge of how to act in certain situations, on their social ‘programming’ and emotions, on their various loyalties.
We tend to define mankind as a being capable of thinking. I think we are wrong in this in the same way we would be wrong to define a scorpion as a being capable of making a venomous sting. The statement isn’t false, but most of the time the scorpion isn’t stinging anything. It’s just walking, sitting, eating, grabbing something with it’s claws. The stinging isn’t everything that’s going on, it’s not nearly even most of what’s going on.
Thanks again for the reply, I’ll be looking around and I’ll try to add something where I think it is fruitfull.
I’m having trouble figuring out whether we agree or disagree. So, you tell me this:
My criticism is that, that when you do observe that a certain function is served, you shouldn’t impose rationality upon the people involved.
and I agree that’s an excellent assumption for the goal of doing good sociology (and several other explanatory pursuits). I think (hope!) it will become clearer to you as your read the things I linked you to that this attitude is both (1) a very good one to take in many many instances, and (2) not in conflict with the goal of becoming more rational.
I snuck a key word by in that last sentence: assumption. When thinking about humans and societies, it’s become a very common and useful assumption to say that they don’t deliberate or make rational decisions; they’re products of their environments and they interact with those environments. At LessWrong, we usually call this the “outside view” because we’re viewing ourselves or others as though from the outside.
Note that while this is a good way to look at the world, we also have real, first-hand experiences. I don’t live my personal life as a bucket of atoms careening into other atoms, nor as an organism interacting with its environment; I live my day-to-day life as a person making decisions. These are three different non-wrong ways of conceptualizing myself. The last one, where I’m a person making decisions, is where the use of this notion of rationality that we’re interested in comes along and we sometimes call this the “inside view”. At those other levels of explanation, the concept of rationality truly doesn’t make sense.
I also can’t resist adding that you point out very rightly that most people don’t act on their thoughts and pursue their goals, opting instead to execute their social-biological programming. Many people here are genuinely interested in getting these two realms (goals and actions) to synch up and are doing some amazing theorizing as to how they can accomplish this goal.
Fburnaby, thank you for the long reply.
I’m replying to you now before reading your suggestions, I’ve not had the time so far. They’re on my list but for now I’d like to adress what you reply either way.
The Joe Biden quote is very effective, and I agree with the general sentiment. But not with how that relates to questions of rationality. I tend to use rationality as any thinking at all. Illogical thinking is may be bad rationality, but it is still rationality. My objection to assuming rationality isn’t that you shouldn’t look at how these or those actions may have some sort of function. My criticism is that, that when you do observe that a certain function is served, you shouldn’t impose rationality upon the people involved. In my experience, as a bachelor of sociology and as a human being with a habit of self-reflection, people don’t act upon their thoughts, but much more upon their knowledge of how to act in certain situations, on their social ‘programming’ and emotions, on their various loyalties.
We tend to define mankind as a being capable of thinking. I think we are wrong in this in the same way we would be wrong to define a scorpion as a being capable of making a venomous sting. The statement isn’t false, but most of the time the scorpion isn’t stinging anything. It’s just walking, sitting, eating, grabbing something with it’s claws. The stinging isn’t everything that’s going on, it’s not nearly even most of what’s going on.
Thanks again for the reply, I’ll be looking around and I’ll try to add something where I think it is fruitfull.
-Kouran
Hey Kouran,
I’m having trouble figuring out whether we agree or disagree. So, you tell me this:
and I agree that’s an excellent assumption for the goal of doing good sociology (and several other explanatory pursuits). I think (hope!) it will become clearer to you as your read the things I linked you to that this attitude is both (1) a very good one to take in many many instances, and (2) not in conflict with the goal of becoming more rational.
I snuck a key word by in that last sentence: assumption. When thinking about humans and societies, it’s become a very common and useful assumption to say that they don’t deliberate or make rational decisions; they’re products of their environments and they interact with those environments. At LessWrong, we usually call this the “outside view” because we’re viewing ourselves or others as though from the outside.
Note that while this is a good way to look at the world, we also have real, first-hand experiences. I don’t live my personal life as a bucket of atoms careening into other atoms, nor as an organism interacting with its environment; I live my day-to-day life as a person making decisions. These are three different non-wrong ways of conceptualizing myself. The last one, where I’m a person making decisions, is where the use of this notion of rationality that we’re interested in comes along and we sometimes call this the “inside view”. At those other levels of explanation, the concept of rationality truly doesn’t make sense.
I also can’t resist adding that you point out very rightly that most people don’t act on their thoughts and pursue their goals, opting instead to execute their social-biological programming. Many people here are genuinely interested in getting these two realms (goals and actions) to synch up and are doing some amazing theorizing as to how they can accomplish this goal.