“Be reasonable” is often a type of cultural immunity to crazy ideas. And someone who wants to “be rational” instead of “being reasonable” may actually be in a position where his “rationality” is bypassing this cultural immunity.
It could be that you’re just rational enough to understand that “be reasonable” isn’t a rational argument, but you’re not rational enough to explicitly figure out what’s wrong with this specific idea now that you’ve bypassed the general immunity to bad ideas.
Good point. Would you say that this is the problem: when you are rational, you deem your conclusions more valuable than those of non-rational people. This can end up being a problem as you are less likely to update your beliefs when they are opposed. This adds the risk that if you make a one false belief and then rationally deduce a plethora of others from it you will be less likely to update any erronous conclusions.
I think that the predicament highlights the fact that going against what is reasonable is not something that you should do lightly. Maybe, I should make this more explicit.
If you are going against the crowd, then there is a good chance that you have made a mistake somewhere in your reasoning and that your conclusion is crazy or does not work. Reasonable things are not normally like this because they need to be circulated and disseminated. If they were crazy or didn’t work, then this could not happen. But, this doesn’t mean that they are optimal or that they are right.
If you are going against what is reasonable, then this is a serious reason to doubt your beliefs. It is not a reason in and of iteself to believe that something untrue or irrational.
What do you think is the best way to overcome this problem?
This is from the post:
How can you tell when you have removed one set of blind spots from your reasoning without removing its counterbalances? One heuristic to counter this loss of immunity, is to be very careful when you find yourself deviating from everyone around you. I deviate from those around me all the time, so I admit I haven’t found this heuristic to be very helpful. Another heuristic is to listen to your feelings. If your conclusions seem repulsive to you, you may have stripped yourself of cognitive immunity to something dangerous.
I would add that it is a good idea to try and explain your beliefs to other people, preferably someone you believe is rational and the more people the better. Try to seriously doubt your beliefs and to see them anew. If other people reach the same conclusion, then you can become more sure of your beliefs.
Remember reason as memetic immune disorder.
“Be reasonable” is often a type of cultural immunity to crazy ideas. And someone who wants to “be rational” instead of “being reasonable” may actually be in a position where his “rationality” is bypassing this cultural immunity.
It could be that you’re just rational enough to understand that “be reasonable” isn’t a rational argument, but you’re not rational enough to explicitly figure out what’s wrong with this specific idea now that you’ve bypassed the general immunity to bad ideas.
Good point. Would you say that this is the problem: when you are rational, you deem your conclusions more valuable than those of non-rational people. This can end up being a problem as you are less likely to update your beliefs when they are opposed. This adds the risk that if you make a one false belief and then rationally deduce a plethora of others from it you will be less likely to update any erronous conclusions.
I think that the predicament highlights the fact that going against what is reasonable is not something that you should do lightly. Maybe, I should make this more explicit.
If you are going against the crowd, then there is a good chance that you have made a mistake somewhere in your reasoning and that your conclusion is crazy or does not work. Reasonable things are not normally like this because they need to be circulated and disseminated. If they were crazy or didn’t work, then this could not happen. But, this doesn’t mean that they are optimal or that they are right.
If you are going against what is reasonable, then this is a serious reason to doubt your beliefs. It is not a reason in and of iteself to believe that something untrue or irrational.
What do you think is the best way to overcome this problem? This is from the post:
I would add that it is a good idea to try and explain your beliefs to other people, preferably someone you believe is rational and the more people the better. Try to seriously doubt your beliefs and to see them anew. If other people reach the same conclusion, then you can become more sure of your beliefs.