So rationality is desirable because it gets rid of crap? What if crap makes me happy? What if my entire culture is based on crap?
Is there a paper here that addresses this meta-question of “why be rational?” I can think of many reasons, but mostly it seems to come down to this: rationality confers power. Bertrand Russell called Western thought “power thought,” which seems pretty accurate. Rationality is good because it wins, and eliminates the competition. I haven’t had any conversations with any pre-rational Stone Agers lately, though they were once common in my neighborhood. Did they lose a philosophical debate with rationalists, or were they simply exterminated?
So it seems to me that the lasting appeal of irrationality, spirituality, religion, etc. is that, for some strange reason, people aren’t quite comfortable worshipping this Terminator-like god of reason.
EDIT: I take it from the response that people here don’t want to discuss this meta-question? Is rationality perhaps a sacred cow which plays a role similar to God in other faiths?
I take it from the response that people here don’t want to discuss this meta-question?
I certainly wouldn’t mind discussing it, just not with someone who is behaving like a rude jerk and uses trollish attempts to annoy people into discussing it.
“Terminator-like god of reason”? Seriously? And every past post of yours you seem to be using some attempt to attribute characteristics to people that you ought know they don’t have “Oh, you ought support banning birth control, then; Oh, you are like genocidal criminals then; Oh, you’re like megalomaniacal villains, then”
So, no, no “sacred cows” here, not for me atleast. Just the lack of desire on my part to engage in conversation someone as unpleasant as you currently are.
What if crap makes me happy? What if my entire culture is based on crap?
Then I guess you have a decision to make: do you want to be happy, or do you want all the things you care about to have the best chance possible in working out how you want them to? Personally, having a computer not work, or having intermittent beeping for eight hours, or pointlessly arguing DON’T make me happier, and if I can fix such problems I will. But if you want to stew in the unexamined life, allowing other people or situations to control you because you feel like thinking makes you unhappy, then I can only hope that you make as little of an impact on the world as possible before you go happily into the grave.
Short version: What do you want? That is your reason to be rational.
I can think of many reasons, but mostly it seems to come down to this: rationality confers power. Bertrand Russell called Western thought “power thought,” which seems pretty accurate.
That seems accurate to you, because power is what you want. You have said this explicitly yourself: “Well I just want to rule the world.” Because power is what you want, you assume that it is what everyone else wants. So when you read that rationality “wins”, you interpret winning as “defeating other people”. That is only “winning”, in the sense of the slogan “rationality wins”, if what you want is to subjugate or exterminate “the competition”. You see everyone as “the competition”, and your solution is to take over the world. Bertrand Russell gives you delightful cold prickles (I’m sure you have no use for warm fuzzies) because you hear in him something you want to hear: everyone is everyone’s enemy. (BTW, here’s some context for that phrase of his. Plato’s totalitarian dream, 1931 edition.)
So it seems to me that the lasting appeal of irrationality, spirituality, religion, etc. is that, for some strange reason, people aren’t quite comfortable worshipping this Terminator-like god of reason.
You are the would-be Terminator God, the self-styled AlphaOmega.
How’s that going? What do you do when you’re not reading LessWrong and being pissed on? Not that LW karma means anything in the greater scheme of things, but you keep coming back for more. It is said that he who would be Pope must think of nothing else. How much more so for he who would rule the world!
So rationality is desirable because it gets rid of crap? What if crap makes me happy? What if my entire culture is based on crap?
Is there a paper here that addresses this meta-question of “why be rational?” I can think of many reasons, but mostly it seems to come down to this: rationality confers power. Bertrand Russell called Western thought “power thought,” which seems pretty accurate. Rationality is good because it wins, and eliminates the competition. I haven’t had any conversations with any pre-rational Stone Agers lately, though they were once common in my neighborhood. Did they lose a philosophical debate with rationalists, or were they simply exterminated?
So it seems to me that the lasting appeal of irrationality, spirituality, religion, etc. is that, for some strange reason, people aren’t quite comfortable worshipping this Terminator-like god of reason.
EDIT: I take it from the response that people here don’t want to discuss this meta-question? Is rationality perhaps a sacred cow which plays a role similar to God in other faiths?
I certainly wouldn’t mind discussing it, just not with someone who is behaving like a rude jerk and uses trollish attempts to annoy people into discussing it.
“Terminator-like god of reason”? Seriously? And every past post of yours you seem to be using some attempt to attribute characteristics to people that you ought know they don’t have “Oh, you ought support banning birth control, then; Oh, you are like genocidal criminals then; Oh, you’re like megalomaniacal villains, then”
So, no, no “sacred cows” here, not for me atleast. Just the lack of desire on my part to engage in conversation someone as unpleasant as you currently are.
Then I guess you have a decision to make: do you want to be happy, or do you want all the things you care about to have the best chance possible in working out how you want them to? Personally, having a computer not work, or having intermittent beeping for eight hours, or pointlessly arguing DON’T make me happier, and if I can fix such problems I will. But if you want to stew in the unexamined life, allowing other people or situations to control you because you feel like thinking makes you unhappy, then I can only hope that you make as little of an impact on the world as possible before you go happily into the grave.
Yes.
Short version: What do you want? That is your reason to be rational.
That seems accurate to you, because power is what you want. You have said this explicitly yourself: “Well I just want to rule the world.” Because power is what you want, you assume that it is what everyone else wants. So when you read that rationality “wins”, you interpret winning as “defeating other people”. That is only “winning”, in the sense of the slogan “rationality wins”, if what you want is to subjugate or exterminate “the competition”. You see everyone as “the competition”, and your solution is to take over the world. Bertrand Russell gives you delightful cold prickles (I’m sure you have no use for warm fuzzies) because you hear in him something you want to hear: everyone is everyone’s enemy. (BTW, here’s some context for that phrase of his. Plato’s totalitarian dream, 1931 edition.)
You are the would-be Terminator God, the self-styled AlphaOmega.
How’s that going? What do you do when you’re not reading LessWrong and being pissed on? Not that LW karma means anything in the greater scheme of things, but you keep coming back for more. It is said that he who would be Pope must think of nothing else. How much more so for he who would rule the world!