Do you act all rational at home . . or do you switch out of work mode and stuff pizza and beer in front of the TV like any normal akrasic person? (and if you do act all rational, what do your partner/family/housemates make of it? do any of them ever give you a slap upside the head?)
no, not at all, I don’t think rational = unemotional (and I liked EY’s article explaining how it is perfectly rational to feel sad … when something sad happens).
But rationality does seem to be stongly associated with a constant meta-analytical process: always thinking about a decision, then thinking about the way we were thinking about the decision, and then thinking about the self-imposed axioms we have used to model the way that we were thinking about the meta-thinking, and some angst about whether there are undetected biases in the way that .. yada yada yada.
which is all great stuff,
but I wondered whether rationalists are like that all the time, or whether they ever come home late, open a beer or two and pick their nose while transfixed by czechoslvakian wrestling on ESPN, without stopping to wonder why they are doing it, and wouldn’t it be more rational to go to bed already.
I recently started to notice this very question popping up in my head when I find myself in a situation like the one you described :) I didn’t consciously install this habit, it just started to manifest itself some time ago, probably several months.
But I do find myself in similar situations, usually after a good workday—just substitute a cup of tea (or a small shot of Becherovka) for the beer, and mindless internet surfing for the wrestlers :)
A popular belief about “rationality” is that rationality opposes all emotion—that all our sadness and all our joy are automatically anti-logical by virtue of being feelings. Yet strangely enough, I can’t find any theorem of probability theory which proves that I should appear ice-cold and expressionless.
But rationally maximizing utility will still look different from going where your whims take you. Hopefully! Otherwise there would be no value to rationality.
Even if you assume that it’s about decisions rather than roles, the question is either “are you fallible?” or “what compromises do you make between sending proper signals to your partner/family/housemates and between doing what you believe makes your (and possibly their) life better?” The former is poorly conceived—what do you want him to say, “yes, but less than other people”? - and the latter poorly expressed.
Do you act all rational at home . . or do you switch out of work mode and stuff pizza and beer in front of the TV like any normal akrasic person? (and if you do act all rational, what do your partner/family/housemates make of it? do any of them ever give you a slap upside the head?)
:-)
How does it look like when a person “acts rationally”? Do I hear connotations with dreaded Mr. Spock?
no, not at all, I don’t think rational = unemotional (and I liked EY’s article explaining how it is perfectly rational to feel sad … when something sad happens).
But rationality does seem to be stongly associated with a constant meta-analytical process: always thinking about a decision, then thinking about the way we were thinking about the decision, and then thinking about the self-imposed axioms we have used to model the way that we were thinking about the meta-thinking, and some angst about whether there are undetected biases in the way that .. yada yada yada.
which is all great stuff,
but I wondered whether rationalists are like that all the time, or whether they ever come home late, open a beer or two and pick their nose while transfixed by czechoslvakian wrestling on ESPN, without stopping to wonder why they are doing it, and wouldn’t it be more rational to go to bed already.
I recently started to notice this very question popping up in my head when I find myself in a situation like the one you described :) I didn’t consciously install this habit, it just started to manifest itself some time ago, probably several months.
But I do find myself in similar situations, usually after a good workday—just substitute a cup of tea (or a small shot of Becherovka) for the beer, and mindless internet surfing for the wrestlers :)
(Related: Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?)
*coughs*
But rationally maximizing utility will still look different from going where your whims take you. Hopefully! Otherwise there would be no value to rationality.
Even if you assume that it’s about decisions rather than roles, the question is either “are you fallible?” or “what compromises do you make between sending proper signals to your partner/family/housemates and between doing what you believe makes your (and possibly their) life better?” The former is poorly conceived—what do you want him to say, “yes, but less than other people”? - and the latter poorly expressed.