I think that we can take something clear and simple from the posts below: rationality should not only help you to accomplish your goals, but also to define goals clearly and identify easy and (more importantly) useful goals that are likely to induce a prolonged (preferably indefinitely so) period of well being.
Can we at least agree that these three imperatives
Believe true things
Achieve goals
Induce well-being
are not identical? There seems to a be “rationality thesis” here that the best way to go about 2. and 3. is to sort out 1. first. I would like to see this thesis stated more clearly.
This may very well be the case today, or in our society, but it’s not really difficult to imagine a society in which you have to ‘hold’ really crazy idea in order to win.
Also, believing true things is an endeavour which is never completed per se: it surely is not possible to have it sorted out simpliciter before attaining 2 (the third imperative I really see as a subgoal of the second one).
The thesis after all conflicts with basically all history of humanity: homo sapiens has won more and more without attaining a perfect accuracy. However it seems to me that it had won more where it accumulated a greater amount of truths.
So I won’t really say that in order to win you have to be accurate, but I think a strong case can be made that accuracy enhances the probability of winning.
What is then the real purpose of rationality? I’m perfectly fine if we accept the conjunction “truth /\ winning”, with the provision that
P(winning | high degree of truth) > P(winning | low degree of truth). However, if Omega is going to pop-up and ask:
You must choose between two alternatives. I can give you the real TOE and
remove your cognitive bias if you accept to live a miserable life, or you can live a
very comfortable and satisfying existence, provided that you let me implant the
belief in the flying spaghetti monster.
I think that we can take something clear and simple from the posts below: rationality should not only help you to accomplish your goals, but also to define goals clearly and identify easy and (more importantly) useful goals that are likely to induce a prolonged (preferably indefinitely so) period of well being.
Can we at least agree that these three imperatives
Believe true things
Achieve goals
Induce well-being
are not identical? There seems to a be “rationality thesis” here that the best way to go about 2. and 3. is to sort out 1. first. I would like to see this thesis stated more clearly.
This may very well be the case today, or in our society, but it’s not really difficult to imagine a society in which you have to ‘hold’ really crazy idea in order to win. Also, believing true things is an endeavour which is never completed per se: it surely is not possible to have it sorted out simpliciter before attaining 2 (the third imperative I really see as a subgoal of the second one).
The thesis after all conflicts with basically all history of humanity: homo sapiens has won more and more without attaining a perfect accuracy. However it seems to me that it had won more where it accumulated a greater amount of truths.
So I won’t really say that in order to win you have to be accurate, but I think a strong case can be made that accuracy enhances the probability of winning.
What is then the real purpose of rationality? I’m perfectly fine if we accept the conjunction “truth /\ winning”, with the provision that P(winning | high degree of truth) > P(winning | low degree of truth). However, if Omega is going to pop-up and ask:
I confess I would guiltily choose the second.