When I’m dealing with someone who’s not practicing rationality, I have to be very aware of their particular worldview, and only thoughtfully challenge it -
A person who is ‘thinking’ irrationally can only be challeneged to the degree that they’re being rational. If they eschew rationality completely, there isn’t any way to communicate with them.
What have you actually accomplished, if you use social signals to get someone to switch their concept-allegiances?
I thought we’d already defined “practicing rationality” as “intentionally trying to make rational decisions and intentionally trying to become more rational”. Whether we had or not, that was what I meant by the term.
Someone can be being somewhat rational without ‘practicing’ rationality, and to the degree that they can accurately predict what effects follow what causes, or accomplish other tasks that depend on rationality, every person I know is at least somewhat rational. Even animals can be slightly rational—cats for example are well known for learning that the sound of a can opener is an accurate sign that they may be fed in the near future, even if they aren’t rational enough to make stronger predictions about which instances of that sound signal mealtime.
While social signaling can be used on its own to cause someone to switch their allegiances to concepts that they don’t value especially highly, that’s not the only possible use of it, and it’s not a use I consider acceptable. The use of social-signaling that I recommend is intended to keep a person from becoming defensive while ‘rationality-level appropriate’ rational arguments are used to actually encourage them to change their mind.
I thought we’d already defined “practicing rationality” as “intentionally trying to make rational decisions and intentionally trying to become more rational”.
No, only if you rationally try to make rational decisions and rationally try to become more rational.
If you’re acting irrationally, you’re not practicing rationality, in the same way that you’re not practicing vegetarianism if you’re eating meat.
A person who is ‘thinking’ irrationally can only be challeneged to the degree that they’re being rational. If they eschew rationality completely, there isn’t any way to communicate with them.
What have you actually accomplished, if you use social signals to get someone to switch their concept-allegiances?
I thought we’d already defined “practicing rationality” as “intentionally trying to make rational decisions and intentionally trying to become more rational”. Whether we had or not, that was what I meant by the term.
Someone can be being somewhat rational without ‘practicing’ rationality, and to the degree that they can accurately predict what effects follow what causes, or accomplish other tasks that depend on rationality, every person I know is at least somewhat rational. Even animals can be slightly rational—cats for example are well known for learning that the sound of a can opener is an accurate sign that they may be fed in the near future, even if they aren’t rational enough to make stronger predictions about which instances of that sound signal mealtime.
While social signaling can be used on its own to cause someone to switch their allegiances to concepts that they don’t value especially highly, that’s not the only possible use of it, and it’s not a use I consider acceptable. The use of social-signaling that I recommend is intended to keep a person from becoming defensive while ‘rationality-level appropriate’ rational arguments are used to actually encourage them to change their mind.
No, only if you rationally try to make rational decisions and rationally try to become more rational.
If you’re acting irrationally, you’re not practicing rationality, in the same way that you’re not practicing vegetarianism if you’re eating meat.