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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: "rational"

On 01/07/2014 12:15 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

WE have lost any sense of why it is important to try to come of a shared view of our inevitably common future.

Why is it important?

Marcus

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Nick Thompson

Re: "rational"

= On 01/07/2014 12:15 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

WE have lost any sense of why it is important to try to come of a shared view of our inevitably common future.

And then, Marcus wrote:

“Why is it important?”

And so, Nick Thompson wrote: Well, I guess I believe that it gives us some power to regulate that future for the better. Not sure how a behaviorist CAN believe that, but I guess I do.

And thus life continues.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 12:29 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

On 01/07/2014 12:15 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

WE have lost any sense of why it is important to try to come of a shared view of our inevitably common future.

Why is it important?

Marcus

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glen ropella

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

OK. But what you're proposing here is that "rational" is a dependent
measure. One can measure the rationality of the actor based on
different things, e.g. their beliefs, empirical evidence, status quo, etc.

I don't really buy that at all. A person who commits either of the 2
errors you mention: 1) argument from authority or 2) judgment of the
conclusion absent the reasoning process by which it was derived, doesn't
have a rational basis at all. Perhaps they have good cause to reject
(any) reasoning or any empirical evidence. And that cause is some
non-rational (genetic determinism?) mechanism that objectively benefits
them (e.g. white men supporting social structures that benefit white
men). But that doesn't make it _rational_. It's not a rational thing
to behave irrationally. It might be a beneficial thing, but not a
rational thing.

The people who are behaving absent rationality are not rationally
irrational. They are simply irrational (which as Steve points out, may
not be a bad thing).

But I suppose the extent to which behavior can be dependent on
thought/reason, we might be able to say that those who think about what
they will do before they do it are more rational than those who do not.
If all thought is just a rationalization, then none of us _ever_ behave
rationally.

On 01/07/2014 11:06 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

> There are two things reading Altemeyer would clear up.
>
> 1) He calls them Right Wing Authoritarians not because they're
> necessarily right wingers politically, but because they're invested in
> maintaining the status quo in their world. He believes the rank and
> file Stalinists were probably as authoritarian as the rank and file
> National Socialists. It's one of the many ways that Altemeyer
> undermines his own claims with carelessness.
>
> 2) When he says "their reasoning is sloppy", he means: they will accept
> fallacious logical arguments if they like the conclusion; they will
> reject sound logical arguments if they dislike the conclusion; they will
> invent empirical evidence if their arguments require it; and they will
> deny empirical evidence that contradicts their beliefs, even if it
> happens right in front of their noses.
>
> And when I say that this kind of behavior is irrational, I mean that it
> defies all standards of rationality. But that doesn't mean that it
> doesn't have a rational basis -- if your beliefs are more important than
> behaving rationally, then it is rational to be as irrational as is
> necessary to destroy the opposition. If your beliefs are more important
> than objective reality, then denying objective reality is a rational
> thing for you to do. But don't expect me to describe your irrationality
> as rationality, just because you have a reason to behave batshit crazy
> doesn't make batshit crazy any less crazy.

Roger Critchlow-2

Re: "rational"

Glen --

I thought you were arguing exactly the opposite, that emotional behavior, however irrational it might appear, should be judged rational if it had some selective benefit at some point in its historical development. Like thus:

people actually use irrational reasoning procedures. I think even
so-called "irrational" things like _emotions_ are, somewhere deep down,
rational. Those emotions are an evolutionarily selected decision-making

ability that has its own calculus.

But now you're saying that irrationality is just irrational, no matter what justification one can think up for it.

Meanwhile, we've reached the curious situation where we have human actors making irrational arguments which attempt to disguise themselves as rational thought. That is, they don't say: "I'm going to do this because I'm batshit crazy"; they say: "I'm going to do this because of <fallacious logic> and <more fallacious logic> and <non-existent evidence>." We're actually quite rational by habit, we regulate most of our lives according to logic and evidence, we make most decisions rationally. It's only a few subjects that drive us batshit, but we still justify the batshit as if it were the result of a rational decision.

-- rec --

On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 1:53 PM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

OK. But what you're proposing here is that "rational" is a dependent
measure. One can measure the rationality of the actor based on
different things, e.g. their beliefs, empirical evidence, status quo, etc.

I don't really buy that at all. A person who commits either of the 2
errors you mention: 1) argument from authority or 2) judgment of the
conclusion absent the reasoning process by which it was derived, doesn't
have a rational basis at all. Perhaps they have good cause to reject
(any) reasoning or any empirical evidence. And that cause is some
non-rational (genetic determinism?) mechanism that objectively benefits
them (e.g. white men supporting social structures that benefit white
men). But that doesn't make it _rational_. It's not a rational thing
to behave irrationally. It might be a beneficial thing, but not a
rational thing.

The people who are behaving absent rationality are not rationally
irrational. They are simply irrational (which as Steve points out, may
not be a bad thing).

But I suppose the extent to which behavior can be dependent on
thought/reason, we might be able to say that those who think about what
they will do before they do it are more rational than those who do not.
If all thought is just a rationalization, then none of us _ever_ behave
rationally.

On 01/07/2014 11:06 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> There are two things reading Altemeyer would clear up.
>
> 1) He calls them Right Wing Authoritarians not because they're
> necessarily right wingers politically, but because they're invested in
> maintaining the status quo in their world. He believes the rank and
> file Stalinists were probably as authoritarian as the rank and file
> National Socialists. It's one of the many ways that Altemeyer
> undermines his own claims with carelessness.
>
> 2) When he says "their reasoning is sloppy", he means: they will accept
> fallacious logical arguments if they like the conclusion; they will
> reject sound logical arguments if they dislike the conclusion; they will
> invent empirical evidence if their arguments require it; and they will
> deny empirical evidence that contradicts their beliefs, even if it
> happens right in front of their noses.
>
> And when I say that this kind of behavior is irrational, I mean that it
> defies all standards of rationality. But that doesn't mean that it
> doesn't have a rational basis -- if your beliefs are more important than
> behaving rationally, then it is rational to be as irrational as is
> necessary to destroy the opposition. If your beliefs are more important
> than objective reality, then denying objective reality is a rational
> thing for you to do. But don't expect me to describe your irrationality
> as rationality, just because you have a reason to behave batshit crazy
> doesn't make batshit crazy any less crazy.

--

⇒⇐ glen

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glen ropella

Re: "rational"

On 01/07/2014 01:43 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

> I thought you were arguing exactly the opposite, that emotional
> behavior, however irrational it might appear, should be judged rational
> if it had some selective benefit at some point in its historical
> development. Like thus:
>
> people actually use irrational reasoning procedures. I think even
> so-called "irrational" things like _emotions_ are, somewhere deep down,
> rational. Those emotions are an evolutionarily selected decision-making
> ability that has its own calculus.
>
>
> But now you're saying that irrationality is just irrational, no matter
> what justification one can think up for it.

Sorry, I wasn't clear about what I think versus inference based on
others' positions. My main point is that rationality requires multiple
options. If there's only a single option, then whatever process you use
to get to that option is non-rational.

However, if Arlo's (or Nick's Peircian channeling) is correct, then as
long as a method can be identified, then it could be called rational,
perhaps weak or strong.

My counter argument to your post is simply that, if behavior is
unrelated to a mental process of rationality, then it is _unrelated_.
Hence, it would boil down to whether thought can drive behavior.

> Meanwhile, we've reached the curious situation where we have human
> actors making irrational arguments which attempt to disguise themselves
> as rational thought. That is, they don't say: "I'm going to do this
> because I'm batshit crazy"; they say: "I'm going to do this because of
> <fallacious logic> and <more fallacious logic> and <non-existent
> evidence>." We're actually quite rational by habit, we regulate most of
> our lives according to logic and evidence, we make most decisions
> rationally. It's only a few subjects that drive us batshit, but we
> still justify the batshit as if it were the result of a rational decision.

If thought _always_ drives behavior, or if thought _is_ behavior, then
no matter what one does, we can call it rational (absent any requirement
for transparency/observability of the inner logic). But if thought can
(sometimes) be separate from behavior, then one can behave irrationally
yet still think rationally.

My counter argument to your post was simply that latter... that
non-rational behavior would not be "rational irrationality". It would
be simply irrational.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Nick Thompson

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by glen ropella

Could we profitably distinguish between:

(1) Not sharing the conclusions of the speaker.
(2) In sensitivity to relevant facts: reasoning with incorrect factual premises
(3) Reasoning illogically -- Clearly violating fundamental rules of logic. All swans are white; this bird is a crow; this bird is white.
(4) Acting imprudently: i.e., acting in ways that are contrary to one's own self interest.

Which are right wingers doing that we are not doing in this very argument? Can you describe an ARGUMENT in which a right winger makes one of these violations.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 1:53 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

OK. But what you're proposing here is that "rational" is a dependent measure. One can measure the rationality of the actor based on different things, e.g. their beliefs, empirical evidence, status quo, etc.

I don't really buy that at all. A person who commits either of the 2 errors you mention: 1) argument from authority or 2) judgment of the conclusion absent the reasoning process by which it was derived, doesn't have a rational basis at all. Perhaps they have good cause to reject
(any) reasoning or any empirical evidence. And that cause is some non-rational (genetic determinism?) mechanism that objectively benefits them (e.g. white men supporting social structures that benefit white men). But that doesn't make it _rational_. It's not a rational thing to behave irrationally. It might be a beneficial thing, but not a rational thing.

The people who are behaving absent rationality are not rationally irrational. They are simply irrational (which as Steve points out, may not be a bad thing).

But I suppose the extent to which behavior can be dependent on thought/reason, we might be able to say that those who think about what they will do before they do it are more rational than those who do not.
If all thought is just a rationalization, then none of us _ever_ behave rationally.

On 01/07/2014 11:06 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:

> There are two things reading Altemeyer would clear up.
>
> 1) He calls them Right Wing Authoritarians not because they're
> necessarily right wingers politically, but because they're invested in
> maintaining the status quo in their world. He believes the rank and
> file Stalinists were probably as authoritarian as the rank and file
> National Socialists. It's one of the many ways that Altemeyer
> undermines his own claims with carelessness.
>
> 2) When he says "their reasoning is sloppy", he means: they will
> accept fallacious logical arguments if they like the conclusion; they
> will reject sound logical arguments if they dislike the conclusion;
> they will invent empirical evidence if their arguments require it;
> and they will deny empirical evidence that contradicts their beliefs,
> even if it happens right in front of their noses.
>
> And when I say that this kind of behavior is irrational, I mean that
> it defies all standards of rationality. But that doesn't mean that it
> doesn't have a rational basis -- if your beliefs are more important
> than behaving rationally, then it is rational to be as irrational as
> is necessary to destroy the opposition. If your beliefs are more
> important than objective reality, then denying objective reality is a
> rational thing for you to do. But don't expect me to describe your
> irrationality as rationality, just because you have a reason to behave
> batshit crazy doesn't make batshit crazy any less crazy.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: "rational"

On 1/7/14, 3:04 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Could we profitably distinguish between:
>
> (1) Not sharing the conclusions of the speaker.
> (2) In sensitivity to relevant facts: reasoning with incorrect factual premises
> (3) Reasoning illogically -- Clearly violating fundamental rules of logic. All swans are white; this bird is a crow; this bird is white.
> (4) Acting imprudently: i.e., acting in ways that are contrary to one's own self interest.
And 5) introducing arbitrary premises that are not interesting to
everyone. For example, a preference for institutions like heterosexual
& monogamous marriage, a desire to not have people/animals starve to
death or experience predation/chronic disease, defining life/value as
having interesting boundaries in time/development or across species, or
asserting that certain social organizations be accommodated by the
government (e.g. tax breaks for charities and churches). All of these
things are just things human organizations have invented. Some of them
are reflected in law (ok, so what, laws can change). But they don't
necessarily have any first-principles truth behind them. War and
economic inequality endure for millennia -- if there were some universal
truth that said it was too expensive or inefficient for the species, it
would stop.

It's not that communication has fallen apart, it's that there is nothing
left to talk about.
X are alien and dangerous to the Y way of life.

"Save it, just keep it off my wave."

Marcus

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John Kennison

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick, There are several perfectly rational ways in which someone might decide to oppose gay marriage. I indicated one way, based on the premise that homosexuality is perverse. You indicated another way. A third possibility is that the speaker really believes the stated reason that gay marriage would threaten traditional marriage.
Your example of a possible reconstruction of the reasoning is interesting because, if correct, it would appear to be highly irrational as the opposition to gay marriage seems to be based on homophobia.

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable
Married people are allowed to neck in public.
Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned
Therefore Gay marriage should be banned.

My dilemma (which I imagine you intended) is that I would like to say that the above thought process is a good example of irrational thinking but, strangely enough, it has the appearance, and structure, of a logical argument. I think I would wonder how the supposed speaker would acquire the belief or premise that "anything that makes me feel uncomfortable should be banned". I doubt that right-wingers would feel that you are defending them well if you said that this is a typical right wing rationale.

AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the above type of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson [[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 1:57 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

At last.
Ok, so to claim that this is irrational, we have to know the chain of
premises and conclusions that leads to this conclusion.
As you rightly point out, we can supply premises that make the reasoning
look crazy or we can supply premises that make it look reasonable. But
isn't it bad reasoning to claim that reasoning is bad without having done
that?

I assume that the reasoning behind bans on gay marriage goes something like
this:

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable
Married people are allowed to neck in public.
Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned
Therefore Gay marriage should be banned.

Perfectly RATIONAL
N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 10:35 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

I think one example might be "I oppose gay marriage because it would
undermine my own (straight) marriage".
One could interpret the reason given as a false premise (you could always do
that whenever someone gives a reason for a belief) but here it looks more
like a rationalization. Of course I can't be certain, but I suspect that the
real reason is the false premise that homosexuality is a pervasion and a
different premise is substituted because it was felt to be more effective
politically.
________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson
[[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 12:53 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Speaking of shoddy reasoning, I wish somebody would give an example of
shoddy reasoning by a Right Winger that was NOT an example of reasoning from
false premises.

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 9:28 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Glen sed, responding to what REC sed about what Bob Altemeyer sed:

>> Bob Altemeyer's research on right-wing authoritarian (RWA)
>> personalities
>> -- pdf at http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
>> <http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/> -- finds that high scoring
>> RWAs suffer from severe cognitive disabilities which essentially
>> render them immune to reason. (Note that "right-wing" here is a
>> technical term meaning "adherent of the status quo".)
>>
>> But research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life
>> under the influence
>> of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting
>> sloppy reasoning,
>> highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy,
>> self-blindness, a
>> profound ethnocentrism, and--to top it all off--a ferocious
>> dogmatism that makes it
>> unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or

logic.
> Excellent!
I do have a strong sympathy for this description, though I don't fully defer
it to "Right Wing" only... after a year in Berkeley, a bastion of Left Wing
thinking, I can say that both wings can fumble their way to an extremism.
For example, try to get anything done that requires either city council or
citizen referendum, and you will get a *real*
taste of "Authoritarianism". In Berkeley (to their credit) there was
an annual celebration/parade entitled "How Berkeley can you be?" which
allowed the populace to lampoon themselves (or actually, one another) in
a semi-self-aware way that I could only hope for the far Right. I have
to admit that I can't even imagine what that would look like.
> This helps refine "reasoning about reasoning" in the way that
> worries me. The idea being that a "brain in a vat" might still be
> rational in some technical/strict sense of the word. But that's not
> what normal people mean when they _use_ the word "rational." What
> normal people mean is a combination of the ability to "think well" and
> be open to multiple options. It seems like the "openness" is the
> fulcrum of the concept.
I think that people who I find familiar, comfortable, easy to converse with
do roughly hold that connotation of the term. And I'm thankful for that.

That said, I present that *most* people (normal or not) mean "rational
thought" to be thought and descriptions of said thought which is familiar
and aligned with their own thinking. In that sense, I feel most people
conflate "rational thought" with the colloquial "common sense".
> One of the aspects that worries me most is the _surety_ with which
> most people go about their daily thinking. But I find this in lots of
> people who would normally be considered quite rational. To me, it
> doesn't much matter how intelligent one is, or how many facts they may
> claim to have at their fingertips. What matters is the confidence
> with which they hold their own beliefs. The more confident you are,
> the _less_ rational you are.
And I go about my daily activities with as much of this form of
_irrationality_ (confidence?) as possible. Not because I think it is more
defensible or will lead to a better outcome in the moment, than a more open
and thought through ("well thought") set of responses, but because A) I can
be hyper self-conscious which can lead to overthinking and getting "stuck"
and B) because I am aware that my _best self_, my _best problem solver_ is
my self (body/brain/sensorium + extended phenotype (technology mostly) )
when it is highly trained as roughly a "learning classifier system"... which
requires lots of variation and
testing. My best self _satisfices_ for the immediate problem (good
enough for GubMent work) while _optimizing_ against the long haul. I
know that by being _confident_ in my actions, I reduce the noise in the
_execution_ of my intent and leave room for natural selection (making and
recognizing mistakes?) to do it's work.

I think this particular aspect of any extremist is what makes up for their
propensity for trying to conjure, enforce and often even *follow* rules. In
their (often misplaced) confidence... they have the opportunity to make
mistakes that a more _thoughtful_ and _open_
(_rational_?) person might be. Otherwise they would be more regular
winners of the Darwin Award than they seem to be.
>> Just because there is a reason to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch
>> mob reasonable. I think you're confounding the rationality of
>> explanation with the rationality of the explained.
I like this statement (REC)... this is one of my biggest battles with my
strongest "liberal" friends... that the idea that their _righteousness_
when forming their lynch mob makes up for the _wrongness_ of lynching in the
first place. My _conservative_ friends of course, don't bother with either
question... they know they are right, whether they are truly _righteous_ or
not, and they have no doubt that a lynch mob is the first/best solution for
anything and everything (stand your ground, hawk up mutherf*kker, etc.) as
long as they lead it.
> I don't know what you mean, here, which probably means you're right
> about my conflation. ;-) The use of "reason" to mean _cause_ seems
> like an abuse of the word. So, I read what you write as "Just because
> there is cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable."
> And, I fully agree with that rewriting. But I don't know that's what
> you
meant.
I don't know what anyone means... but when I read your rewriting, I want to
rewrite it one unit of base-26 hamming distance away "Just because there is
*a* cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable." Or in
greater divergence lexicographically, "Just because, your lynch mob was
formed in response to one of your "causes", doesn't make the fact of
lynching reasonable."

I probably just caused a fork in the discussion which only you (Glen) and I
can fully enjoy... but... I think this is all a very important if subtle
point we are working over here.

- Steve

PS... Happy New Year to one and all (Left, Right, Centrist, Fascist,
Anarchist, Green, Progressive, Conservative, Whig, Tory, Rational, and even
Wankers and @ssh0l3s)!

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: "rational"

On 1/7/14, 3:50 PM, John Kennison wrote:
> I indicated one way, based on the premise that homosexuality is perverse.
Ok, then take another premise that actions of the minority are the most
valuable: The people that model & navigate risk (imposed by dittohead
majority) and expand the social world to be more interesting than it
was. It's an instance of a class, that goes to the difference between
Left vs. Right world views.

Marcus

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glen ropella

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by John Kennison

On 01/07/2014 02:50 PM, John Kennison wrote:
> Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable
> Married people are allowed to neck in public.
> Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned
> Therefore Gay marriage should be banned.
>
> AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the above type of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

Well, we've been discussing exactly this. If discomfort is a) opaque to
analysis and b) not shared by the audience, then it would fail to meet
some of the definitions of rational we've been discussing.

Similarly, if we adopt the distinction made by Roger's citing of
Altemeyer (or Steve's satisficing for the immediate and optimizing the
distal), then we could say that although the behavior may be beneficial,
it contains gaps in rationality.

But I also think it's flawed in the sense I tried to identify with
libertarians. (Or as Marcus just pointed out.) The dependence between
discomfort and banning behavior is myopic because it _selectively_
considers only a subset of the logical consequences of that premise.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Steve Smith

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick with wonderfully trollish eyebrows!

I am admittedly being trollish here, and as you all know who know me, I am no stranger to confused thought, but ....

confused thought, what?

He who criticizeth the reasoning of another without spelling out the reasoning thus criticized engageth in poor reasoning.

He who useth CAPs or emboldened or boosted text doth engage in conflating emphasis with persuasiveness <grin>

I say this not (just) to be a troll, but because I honestly feel we in this country have a terrible problem of communication. WE have lost any sense of why it is important to try to come of a shared view of our inevitably common future. And if people in FRIAM cannot talk to one another in a reasonable way, how are the people in washington ever to do so.

I do believe that we FriAMites *do* talk in a mostly reasonable, albeit oftentimes, argumentative fashion. I believe that *many* people in Washington talk reasonably with eachother much of the time. But I *don't* think the system of legislation (or adjudication or execution) necessarily support reasonableness. It definitely is being "gamed" a great deal.

Now I know there are some right wingers on the FRIAM list. I talk to them every week. And I wager that they are just rolling their eyes and saying, “Wow! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

and the pots and the kettles were all covered in soot...

And while I agree with your conclusions, mostly, I cannot find any tools to defend this conversation against that patently just accusation.

In short, “Who’s that crossing my bridge!”

Me... Carl has talked me into attending FriAM en verite!

I prefer Glen's regular exhortation: "Get off my lawn!"

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John Kennison

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by glen ropella

Good point. I think I have a better understanding of what you have been saying. I guess there are two ways of using the word "rational" --one might be called logical (regardless of the crazyness of the premises), the other might be reasonable or responsible or something like that.

--John
________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of glen [[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 6:24 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

On 01/07/2014 02:50 PM, John Kennison wrote:
> Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable
> Married people are allowed to neck in public.
> Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned
> Therefore Gay marriage should be banned.
>
> AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the above type of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

Well, we've been discussing exactly this. If discomfort is a) opaque to
analysis and b) not shared by the audience, then it would fail to meet
some of the definitions of rational we've been discussing.

Similarly, if we adopt the distinction made by Roger's citing of
Altemeyer (or Steve's satisficing for the immediate and optimizing the
distal), then we could say that although the behavior may be beneficial,
it contains gaps in rationality.

But I also think it's flawed in the sense I tried to identify with
libertarians. (Or as Marcus just pointed out.) The dependence between
discomfort and banning behavior is myopic because it _selectively_
considers only a subset of the logical consequences of that premise.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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glen ropella

logic can be irrational

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

On 01/07/2014 02:04 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> (3) Reasoning illogically -- Clearly violating fundamental rules of logic. All swans are white; this bird is a crow; this bird is white.

I think this is the most difficult problem to identify. However, back
when we were discussing tautologies, this thought nagged at me. The
validity of conjunction elimination (P,Q => P) relies fundamentally on a
kind of static, small universe. If the universe is dynamic and/or too
large, then the use of conjunctive elimination (normally considered a
truth preserving rule) puts our argument at risk of false conclusions. E.g.

Let's assert:

A
C
B is, as yet, indeterminate.

A,C => A is a valid rule. But if we later discover B, ~(B^A), then that
entire link in the _chain_ of reasoning becomes a rat hole... a waste of
time, perhaps so cognitively jarring as to prevent people from accepting
B and - from now on - rejecting A. The people wallowing in that
reasoning link will have forgotten that we had a _choice_ in our
conjunctive elimination. We could have eliminated A rather than C.

I speculate that utopians like the libertarians do this a lot: i.e. use
locally valid rules that turn out to be distally invalid. But they
don't do it because they're stupid, only because they accept
simplification as a globally valid rule.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Owen Densmore

Re: logic can be irrational

Administrator

Logic has difficulties. But interestingly enough, this logic was proven valid recently by two computer scientists/mathematicians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_ontological_proof

Basically:

Gödel's ontological proof is a formal argument for God's existence by the mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978).

On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 5:25 PM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 01/07/2014 02:04 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> (3) Reasoning illogically -- Clearly violating fundamental rules of logic. All swans are white; this bird is a crow; this bird is white.

I think this is the most difficult problem to identify. However, back
when we were discussing tautologies, this thought nagged at me. The
validity of conjunction elimination (P,Q => P) relies fundamentally on a
kind of static, small universe. If the universe is dynamic and/or too
large, then the use of conjunctive elimination (normally considered a
truth preserving rule) puts our argument at risk of false conclusions. E.g.

Let's assert:

A
C
B is, as yet, indeterminate.

A,C => A is a valid rule. But if we later discover B, ~(B^A), then that
entire link in the _chain_ of reasoning becomes a rat hole... a waste of
time, perhaps so cognitively jarring as to prevent people from accepting
B and - from now on - rejecting A. The people wallowing in that
reasoning link will have forgotten that we had a _choice_ in our
conjunctive elimination. We could have eliminated A rather than C.

I speculate that utopians like the libertarians do this a lot: i.e. use
locally valid rules that turn out to be distally invalid. But they
don't do it because they're stupid, only because they accept
simplification as a globally valid rule.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Nick Thompson

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by John Kennison

IS THERE A LOGICIAN IN THE HOUSE?

John kennison asked:

AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the [below]
type of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

[see below]

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 3:51 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Nick, There are several perfectly rational ways in which someone might
decide to oppose gay marriage. I indicated one way, based on the premise
that homosexuality is perverse. You indicated another way. A third
possibility is that the speaker really believes the stated reason that gay
marriage would threaten traditional marriage.
Your example of a possible reconstruction of the reasoning is interesting
because, if correct, it would appear to be highly irrational as the
opposition to gay marriage seems to be based on homophobia.

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable Married people are
allowed to neck in public.
Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned Therefore Gay marriage
should be banned.

My dilemma (which I imagine you intended) is that I would like to say that
the above thought process is a good example of irrational thinking but,
strangely enough, it has the appearance, and structure, of a logical
argument. I think I would wonder how the supposed speaker would acquire the
belief or premise that "anything that makes me feel uncomfortable should be
banned". I doubt that right-wingers would feel that you are defending them
well if you said that this is a typical right wing rationale.

AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the above type
of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson
[[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 1:57 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

At last.
Ok, so to claim that this is irrational, we have to know the chain of
premises and conclusions that leads to this conclusion.
As you rightly point out, we can supply premises that make the reasoning
look crazy or we can supply premises that make it look reasonable. But
isn't it bad reasoning to claim that reasoning is bad without having done
that?

I assume that the reasoning behind bans on gay marriage goes something like
this:

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable Married people are
allowed to neck in public.
Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned Therefore Gay marriage
should be banned.

Perfectly RATIONAL
N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 10:35 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

I think one example might be "I oppose gay marriage because it would
undermine my own (straight) marriage".
One could interpret the reason given as a false premise (you could always do
that whenever someone gives a reason for a belief) but here it looks more
like a rationalization. Of course I can't be certain, but I suspect that the
real reason is the false premise that homosexuality is a pervasion and a
different premise is substituted because it was felt to be more effective
politically.
________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson
[[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 12:53 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Speaking of shoddy reasoning, I wish somebody would give an example of
shoddy reasoning by a Right Winger that was NOT an example of reasoning from
false premises.

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 9:28 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Glen sed, responding to what REC sed about what Bob Altemeyer sed:

logic.
> Excellent!
I do have a strong sympathy for this description, though I don't fully defer
it to "Right Wing" only... after a year in Berkeley, a bastion of Left Wing
thinking, I can say that both wings can fumble their way to an extremism.
For example, try to get anything done that requires either city council or
citizen referendum, and you will get a *real*
taste of "Authoritarianism". In Berkeley (to their credit) there was
an annual celebration/parade entitled "How Berkeley can you be?" which
allowed the populace to lampoon themselves (or actually, one another) in
a semi-self-aware way that I could only hope for the far Right. I have
to admit that I can't even imagine what that would look like.
> This helps refine "reasoning about reasoning" in the way that
> worries me. The idea being that a "brain in a vat" might still be
> rational in some technical/strict sense of the word. But that's not
> what normal people mean when they _use_ the word "rational." What
> normal people mean is a combination of the ability to "think well" and
> be open to multiple options. It seems like the "openness" is the
> fulcrum of the concept.
I think that people who I find familiar, comfortable, easy to converse with
do roughly hold that connotation of the term. And I'm thankful for that.

That said, I present that *most* people (normal or not) mean "rational
thought" to be thought and descriptions of said thought which is familiar
and aligned with their own thinking. In that sense, I feel most people
conflate "rational thought" with the colloquial "common sense".
> One of the aspects that worries me most is the _surety_ with which
> most people go about their daily thinking. But I find this in lots of
> people who would normally be considered quite rational. To me, it
> doesn't much matter how intelligent one is, or how many facts they may
> claim to have at their fingertips. What matters is the confidence
> with which they hold their own beliefs. The more confident you are,
> the _less_ rational you are.
And I go about my daily activities with as much of this form of
_irrationality_ (confidence?) as possible. Not because I think it is more
defensible or will lead to a better outcome in the moment, than a more open
and thought through ("well thought") set of responses, but because A) I can
be hyper self-conscious which can lead to overthinking and getting "stuck"
and B) because I am aware that my _best self_, my _best problem solver_ is
my self (body/brain/sensorium + extended phenotype (technology mostly) )
when it is highly trained as roughly a "learning classifier system"... which
requires lots of variation and
testing. My best self _satisfices_ for the immediate problem (good
enough for GubMent work) while _optimizing_ against the long haul. I
know that by being _confident_ in my actions, I reduce the noise in the
_execution_ of my intent and leave room for natural selection (making and
recognizing mistakes?) to do it's work.

I think this particular aspect of any extremist is what makes up for their
propensity for trying to conjure, enforce and often even *follow* rules. In
their (often misplaced) confidence... they have the opportunity to make
mistakes that a more _thoughtful_ and _open_
(_rational_?) person might be. Otherwise they would be more regular
winners of the Darwin Award than they seem to be.
>> Just because there is a reason to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch
>> mob reasonable. I think you're confounding the rationality of
>> explanation with the rationality of the explained.
I like this statement (REC)... this is one of my biggest battles with my
strongest "liberal" friends... that the idea that their _righteousness_
when forming their lynch mob makes up for the _wrongness_ of lynching in the
first place. My _conservative_ friends of course, don't bother with either
question... they know they are right, whether they are truly _righteous_ or
not, and they have no doubt that a lynch mob is the first/best solution for
anything and everything (stand your ground, hawk up mutherf*kker, etc.) as
long as they lead it.
> I don't know what you mean, here, which probably means you're right
> about my conflation. ;-) The use of "reason" to mean _cause_ seems
> like an abuse of the word. So, I read what you write as "Just because
> there is cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable."
> And, I fully agree with that rewriting. But I don't know that's what
> you
meant.
I don't know what anyone means... but when I read your rewriting, I want to
rewrite it one unit of base-26 hamming distance away "Just because there is
*a* cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable." Or in
greater divergence lexicographically, "Just because, your lynch mob was
formed in response to one of your "causes", doesn't make the fact of
lynching reasonable."

I probably just caused a fork in the discussion which only you (Glen) and I
can fully enjoy... but... I think this is all a very important if subtle
point we are working over here.

- Steve

PS... Happy New Year to one and all (Left, Right, Centrist, Fascist,
Anarchist, Green, Progressive, Conservative, Whig, Tory, Rational, and even
Wankers and @ssh0l3s)!

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John Kennison

Re: "rational"

Okay, here's my dilemma in a slightly different form. Suppose a person acts entirely on the basis of messages received from a Ouija board. This certainly appears to be irrational. But it could be said to be based on a premise that the Ouija board is infallible. If we accept this, then I doubt that there is any such thing as an irrational action.

Or, if I get angry and punch the wall, leaving an awful hole in the wall and a painful bruise on my hand, was I acting rationally on a fleetingly held premise, that the wall needed punching? What can we do to rescue the term "irrational" ? I had thought that Glen's approach was going far beyond what irrationality really is, but now it looks like the best one out there.

--John

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson [[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 11:03 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

IS THERE A LOGICIAN IN THE HOUSE?

John kennison asked:

AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the [below]
type of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

[see below]

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 3:51 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Nick, There are several perfectly rational ways in which someone might
decide to oppose gay marriage. I indicated one way, based on the premise
that homosexuality is perverse. You indicated another way. A third
possibility is that the speaker really believes the stated reason that gay
marriage would threaten traditional marriage.
Your example of a possible reconstruction of the reasoning is interesting
because, if correct, it would appear to be highly irrational as the
opposition to gay marriage seems to be based on homophobia.

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable Married people are
allowed to neck in public.
Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned Therefore Gay marriage
should be banned.

My dilemma (which I imagine you intended) is that I would like to say that
the above thought process is a good example of irrational thinking but,
strangely enough, it has the appearance, and structure, of a logical
argument. I think I would wonder how the supposed speaker would acquire the
belief or premise that "anything that makes me feel uncomfortable should be
banned". I doubt that right-wingers would feel that you are defending them
well if you said that this is a typical right wing rationale.

AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the above type
of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson
[[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 1:57 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

At last.
Ok, so to claim that this is irrational, we have to know the chain of
premises and conclusions that leads to this conclusion.
As you rightly point out, we can supply premises that make the reasoning
look crazy or we can supply premises that make it look reasonable. But
isn't it bad reasoning to claim that reasoning is bad without having done
that?

I assume that the reasoning behind bans on gay marriage goes something like
this:

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable Married people are
allowed to neck in public.
Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned Therefore Gay marriage
should be banned.

Perfectly RATIONAL
N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 10:35 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

I think one example might be "I oppose gay marriage because it would
undermine my own (straight) marriage".
One could interpret the reason given as a false premise (you could always do
that whenever someone gives a reason for a belief) but here it looks more
like a rationalization. Of course I can't be certain, but I suspect that the
real reason is the false premise that homosexuality is a pervasion and a
different premise is substituted because it was felt to be more effective
politically.
________________________________________
From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson
[[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 12:53 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Speaking of shoddy reasoning, I wish somebody would give an example of
shoddy reasoning by a Right Winger that was NOT an example of reasoning from
false premises.

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 9:28 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Glen sed, responding to what REC sed about what Bob Altemeyer sed:

logic.
> Excellent!
I do have a strong sympathy for this description, though I don't fully defer
it to "Right Wing" only... after a year in Berkeley, a bastion of Left Wing
thinking, I can say that both wings can fumble their way to an extremism.
For example, try to get anything done that requires either city council or
citizen referendum, and you will get a *real*
taste of "Authoritarianism". In Berkeley (to their credit) there was
an annual celebration/parade entitled "How Berkeley can you be?" which
allowed the populace to lampoon themselves (or actually, one another) in
a semi-self-aware way that I could only hope for the far Right. I have
to admit that I can't even imagine what that would look like.
> This helps refine "reasoning about reasoning" in the way that
> worries me. The idea being that a "brain in a vat" might still be
> rational in some technical/strict sense of the word. But that's not
> what normal people mean when they _use_ the word "rational." What
> normal people mean is a combination of the ability to "think well" and
> be open to multiple options. It seems like the "openness" is the
> fulcrum of the concept.
I think that people who I find familiar, comfortable, easy to converse with
do roughly hold that connotation of the term. And I'm thankful for that.

That said, I present that *most* people (normal or not) mean "rational
thought" to be thought and descriptions of said thought which is familiar
and aligned with their own thinking. In that sense, I feel most people
conflate "rational thought" with the colloquial "common sense".
> One of the aspects that worries me most is the _surety_ with which
> most people go about their daily thinking. But I find this in lots of
> people who would normally be considered quite rational. To me, it
> doesn't much matter how intelligent one is, or how many facts they may
> claim to have at their fingertips. What matters is the confidence
> with which they hold their own beliefs. The more confident you are,
> the _less_ rational you are.
And I go about my daily activities with as much of this form of
_irrationality_ (confidence?) as possible. Not because I think it is more
defensible or will lead to a better outcome in the moment, than a more open
and thought through ("well thought") set of responses, but because A) I can
be hyper self-conscious which can lead to overthinking and getting "stuck"
and B) because I am aware that my _best self_, my _best problem solver_ is
my self (body/brain/sensorium + extended phenotype (technology mostly) )
when it is highly trained as roughly a "learning classifier system"... which
requires lots of variation and
testing. My best self _satisfices_ for the immediate problem (good
enough for GubMent work) while _optimizing_ against the long haul. I
know that by being _confident_ in my actions, I reduce the noise in the
_execution_ of my intent and leave room for natural selection (making and
recognizing mistakes?) to do it's work.

I think this particular aspect of any extremist is what makes up for their
propensity for trying to conjure, enforce and often even *follow* rules. In
their (often misplaced) confidence... they have the opportunity to make
mistakes that a more _thoughtful_ and _open_
(_rational_?) person might be. Otherwise they would be more regular
winners of the Darwin Award than they seem to be.
>> Just because there is a reason to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch
>> mob reasonable. I think you're confounding the rationality of
>> explanation with the rationality of the explained.
I like this statement (REC)... this is one of my biggest battles with my
strongest "liberal" friends... that the idea that their _righteousness_
when forming their lynch mob makes up for the _wrongness_ of lynching in the
first place. My _conservative_ friends of course, don't bother with either
question... they know they are right, whether they are truly _righteous_ or
not, and they have no doubt that a lynch mob is the first/best solution for
anything and everything (stand your ground, hawk up mutherf*kker, etc.) as
long as they lead it.
> I don't know what you mean, here, which probably means you're right
> about my conflation. ;-) The use of "reason" to mean _cause_ seems
> like an abuse of the word. So, I read what you write as "Just because
> there is cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable."
> And, I fully agree with that rewriting. But I don't know that's what
> you
meant.
I don't know what anyone means... but when I read your rewriting, I want to
rewrite it one unit of base-26 hamming distance away "Just because there is
*a* cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable." Or in
greater divergence lexicographically, "Just because, your lynch mob was
formed in response to one of your "causes", doesn't make the fact of
lynching reasonable."

I probably just caused a fork in the discussion which only you (Glen) and I
can fully enjoy... but... I think this is all a very important if subtle
point we are working over here.

- Steve

PS... Happy New Year to one and all (Left, Right, Centrist, Fascist,
Anarchist, Green, Progressive, Conservative, Whig, Tory, Rational, and even
Wankers and @ssh0l3s)!

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glen ep ropella

Re: logic can be irrational

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

Formalization, Mechanization and Automation of Gödel's Proof of God's
Existence
Christoph Benzmüller, Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo
http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.4526v4

All those links and I still had to use Google to find the actual
article. ;-) Do you use a program (like the journalism sites seem to)
that automatically links keywords in your e-mails? If so, what program
do you use?

On 01/07/2014 06:27 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:

> Logic has difficulties. But interestingly enough, this logic was proven
> valid recently by two computer scientists/mathematicians.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_ontological_proof
>
> Basically:
>
> *Gödel's ontological proof* is a formal argument for
> God<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God>'s
> existence by the mathematician Kurt
> Gödel<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del>
> (1906-1978).

--
glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: logic can be irrational

On 1/8/14, 11:03 AM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> Formalization, Mechanization and Automation of Gödel's Proof of God's
> Existence
> Christoph Benzmüller, Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo
> http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.4526v4
>
And the Coq repository...

https://github.com/FormalTheology/GoedelGod/tree/master/Formalizations/Coq

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glen ropella

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by John Kennison

On 01/08/2014 03:59 AM, John Kennison wrote:
>
> Okay, here's my dilemma in a slightly different form. Suppose a person acts entirely on the basis of messages received from a Ouija board. This certainly appears to be irrational. But it could be said to be based on a premise that the Ouija board is infallible. If we accept this, then I doubt that there is any such thing as an irrational action.
>
> Or, if I get angry and punch the wall, leaving an awful hole in the wall and a painful bruise on my hand, was I acting rationally on a fleetingly held premise, that the wall needed punching? What can we do to rescue the term "irrational" ? I had thought that Glen's approach was going far beyond what irrationality really is, but now it looks like the best one out there.

I think there are two banal ways in which "rational" can be vernacular:

1) evidence of deliberation
2) evidence of the weighing of multiple options.

I don't much like (1) because, well, I have cats ... and they seem to
deliberate on various things quite a bit yet still make what I'd call
the wrong decisions in the end. (1) evokes the old joke when observing
someone think: "I can smell the wood burning."

So, I still like (2) for a best approximation to what normal people mean
by the word "rational". But, I'd accept (1) in pretty much any context.

By either (1) or (2), I think both your scenarios above fail and would
be called irrational.

--
⇒⇐ glen

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Nick Thompson

Re: "rational"

In reply to this post by John Kennison

Hi, John

Your first example, getting advice from a Ouija board because one believes it to be Infallible illustrates the basic problem of the triumphant declaration of our friam colleagues that right-wingers are irrational. I think that Peirce believed that all thought was rational because rationality was built into the nervous system. Induction, deduction, and abduction is just what nervous systems DO! We call it conditioning. And at the very minimum, one can tell a story make any behavior, however aberrant to appear rational.

I am not sure how to judge the rationality of behavior. Doesn't rationality really apply to propositions I suppose that "I should punch the wall" might be said to be rational if it follows from, Punching walls cures itchy knuckles, my knuckles are itching, therefore I should punch the wall."

To call the rightwing irrational is to way-underestimate the problem we have as a nation. If the problem were rationality, we could give everybody a short course in practical logic, and our national nightmare would be over. But the different parties are reasoning from vastly different facts and values, and we have no mechanism come to an agreement on which facts are true and which values we want to live by.

My son called my attention to an excellent aphorism, something like:

Conservatives get upset when somebody gets something they earned; Liberals get upset when somebody doesn't get something they did earn.

Wouldn’t be wonderful if one of the right wingers on the list would agree to explore the foundations of this value difference. But I don’t think that is going to happen. For years, I have wanted somebody to create a website …. Call it PurpleAmerica.com. It would have two subsites, “Argue.with.a.Liberal.com and argue.with.a.conservative.com. It would be like a dating service, but once two arguers were “mated” the site would guide them through the argument by asking questions, such as, “Please state all the says in which you and your fell-arguer AGREE. And when you had typed in your answer, the website would send it to the other guy with the instruction, “Are these premises you share with your fellow-arguer? “ Etc. In my wildest dream, the whole thing would be automated, but to start, I thought I would pretend that it was automated, and provide the questions myself …Like the Turk, I would lurk inside the machine. The reason you are not ALL pig-rich with google ad money is that you did not take me up on this suggestion.

By the way, did you understand why I closed my argument with the words, “Who’s that going over my bridge?” Apparently nobody did. Ach! This younger generation.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:59 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Or, if I get angry and punch the wall, leaving an awful hole in the wall and a painful bruise on my hand, was I acting rationally on a fleetingly held premise, that the wall needed punching? What can we do to rescue the term "irrational" ? I had thought that Glen's approach was going far beyond what irrationality really is, but now it looks like the best one out there.

--John

________________________________________

From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson [[hidden email]]

Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 11:03 PM

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

IS THERE A LOGICIAN IN THE HOUSE?

John kennison asked:

AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the [below] type of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

[see below]

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison

Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 3:51 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Your example of a possible reconstruction of the reasoning is interesting because, if correct, it would appear to be highly irrational as the opposition to gay marriage seems to be based on homophobia.

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable Married people are allowed to neck in public.

Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned Therefore Gay marriage should be banned.

My dilemma (which I imagine you intended) is that I would like to say that the above thought process is a good example of irrational thinking but, strangely enough, it has the appearance, and structure, of a logical argument. I think I would wonder how the supposed speaker would acquire the belief or premise that "anything that makes me feel uncomfortable should be banned". I doubt that right-wingers would feel that you are defending them well if you said that this is a typical right wing rationale.

AT any rate, my question would be: Is there a sense in which the above type of thinking (based on the premises Nick assumed) is irrational.

________________________________________

From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson [[hidden email]]

Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 1:57 PM

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

At last.

Ok, so to claim that this is irrational, we have to know the chain of premises and conclusions that leads to this conclusion.

As you rightly point out, we can supply premises that make the reasoning

look crazy or we can supply premises that make it look reasonable. But

isn't it bad reasoning to claim that reasoning is bad without having done that?

I assume that the reasoning behind bans on gay marriage goes something like

this:

Watching men neck in public makes me uncomfortable Married people are allowed to neck in public.

Anything that makes me uncomfortable should be banned Therefore Gay marriage should be banned.

Perfectly RATIONAL

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of John Kennison

Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 10:35 AM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

I think one example might be "I oppose gay marriage because it would undermine my own (straight) marriage".

One could interpret the reason given as a false premise (you could always do that whenever someone gives a reason for a belief) but here it looks more like a rationalization. Of course I can't be certain, but I suspect that the real reason is the false premise that homosexuality is a pervasion and a different premise is substituted because it was felt to be more effective politically.

________________________________________

From: Friam [[hidden email]] on behalf of Nick Thompson [[hidden email]]

Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 12:53 AM

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Speaking of shoddy reasoning, I wish somebody would give an example of shoddy reasoning by a Right Winger that was NOT an example of reasoning from false premises.

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith

Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 9:28 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"

Glen sed, responding to what REC sed about what Bob Altemeyer sed:

>> Bob Altemeyer's research on right-wing authoritarian (RWA)

>> personalities

>> -- pdf at http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

>> <http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/> -- finds that high scoring

>> RWAs suffer from severe cognitive disabilities which essentially

>> render them immune to reason. (Note that "right-wing" here is a

>> technical term meaning "adherent of the status quo".)

>> But research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life

>> under the influence

>> of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting

>> sloppy reasoning,

>> highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy,

>> self-blindness, a

>> profound ethnocentrism, and--to top it all off--a ferocious

>> dogmatism that makes it

>> unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or

logic.

> Excellent!

I do have a strong sympathy for this description, though I don't fully defer it to "Right Wing" only... after a year in Berkeley, a bastion of Left Wing thinking, I can say that both wings can fumble their way to an extremism.

For example, try to get anything done that requires either city council or citizen referendum, and you will get a *real*

taste of "Authoritarianism". In Berkeley (to their credit) there was

an annual celebration/parade entitled "How Berkeley can you be?" which allowed the populace to lampoon themselves (or actually, one another) in

a semi-self-aware way that I could only hope for the far Right. I have

to admit that I can't even imagine what that would look like.

> This helps refine "reasoning about reasoning" in the way that

> worries me. The idea being that a "brain in a vat" might still be

> rational in some technical/strict sense of the word. But that's not

> what normal people mean when they _use_ the word "rational." What

> normal people mean is a combination of the ability to "think well" and

> be open to multiple options. It seems like the "openness" is the

> fulcrum of the concept.

I think that people who I find familiar, comfortable, easy to converse with do roughly hold that connotation of the term. And I'm thankful for that.

That said, I present that *most* people (normal or not) mean "rational thought" to be thought and descriptions of said thought which is familiar and aligned with their own thinking. In that sense, I feel most people conflate "rational thought" with the colloquial "common sense".

> One of the aspects that worries me most is the _surety_ with which

> most people go about their daily thinking. But I find this in lots of

> people who would normally be considered quite rational. To me, it

> doesn't much matter how intelligent one is, or how many facts they may

> claim to have at their fingertips. What matters is the confidence

> with which they hold their own beliefs. The more confident you are,

> the _less_ rational you are.

And I go about my daily activities with as much of this form of _irrationality_ (confidence?) as possible. Not because I think it is more defensible or will lead to a better outcome in the moment, than a more open and thought through ("well thought") set of responses, but because A) I can be hyper self-conscious which can lead to overthinking and getting "stuck"

and B) because I am aware that my _best self_, my _best problem solver_ is my self (body/brain/sensorium + extended phenotype (technology mostly) ) when it is highly trained as roughly a "learning classifier system"... which requires lots of variation and

testing. My best self _satisfices_ for the immediate problem (good

enough for GubMent work) while _optimizing_ against the long haul. I

know that by being _confident_ in my actions, I reduce the noise in the _execution_ of my intent and leave room for natural selection (making and recognizing mistakes?) to do it's work.

I think this particular aspect of any extremist is what makes up for their propensity for trying to conjure, enforce and often even *follow* rules. In their (often misplaced) confidence... they have the opportunity to make mistakes that a more _thoughtful_ and _open_

(_rational_?) person might be. Otherwise they would be more regular

winners of the Darwin Award than they seem to be.

>> Just because there is a reason to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch

>> mob reasonable. I think you're confounding the rationality of

>> explanation with the rationality of the explained.

I like this statement (REC)... this is one of my biggest battles with my strongest "liberal" friends... that the idea that their _righteousness_ when forming their lynch mob makes up for the _wrongness_ of lynching in the first place. My _conservative_ friends of course, don't bother with either question... they know they are right, whether they are truly _righteous_ or not, and they have no doubt that a lynch mob is the first/best solution for anything and everything (stand your ground, hawk up mutherf*kker, etc.) as long as they lead it.

> I don't know what you mean, here, which probably means you're right

> about my conflation. ;-) The use of "reason" to mean _cause_ seems

> like an abuse of the word. So, I read what you write as "Just because

> there is cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable."

> And, I fully agree with that rewriting. But I don't know that's what

> you

meant.

I don't know what anyone means... but when I read your rewriting, I want to rewrite it one unit of base-26 hamming distance away "Just because there is

*a* cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable." Or in greater divergence lexicographically, "Just because, your lynch mob was formed in response to one of your "causes", doesn't make the fact of lynching reasonable."

I probably just caused a fork in the discussion which only you (Glen) and I can fully enjoy... but... I think this is all a very important if subtle point we are working over here.

- Steve

PS... Happy New Year to one and all (Left, Right, Centrist, Fascist, Anarchist, Green, Progressive, Conservative, Whig, Tory, Rational, and even Wankers and @ssh0l3s)!

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