Posted by
John Kennison on
Jan 04, 2014; 6:19pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/11-American-Nations-tp7584250p7584627.html
Hi Merle,
Your workshop looks like an excellent place to find answers. I live in Massachusetts and won't be coming to the workshop, but would appreciate any suggested readings.
I am interested in two things. One is to explore the conundrum that it seems to be rational to sometimes engage in non-rational behavior. How can this be the case? Do humans have a need to be irrational at times? If so, how what is the nature of this need? How deep is it? How did it arise? I have some theories (hardly original with me) but I first wanted to pose the question in a neutral way.
The other question is related, but more practical. What are reasonable ways for a supposedly rational people to deal with their apparent non-rational needs? Again I have done some personal exploring but didn't want to the question to get mixed up with what I take to be my religious outlook. In any case, I am always seeking.
Thanks, John
________________________________________
From: Friam [
[hidden email]] on behalf of Merle Lefkoff [
[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 10:54 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"
John,
If you were attending the Zen Brain workshop at Upaya in Santa Fe (where I teach applied complexity in the Buddhlst Chaplaincy program)--along with some of the most famous neuroscientists in the world and Neil Theise, a remarkable complexity guy--you might find the answer to your question. The workshop starts the end of January.
Merle
On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 6:17 AM, John Kennison <
[hidden email]<mailto:
[hidden email]>> wrote:
I consider myself a rational person because I believe what I observe and I believe in what is observed by any group of people I trust (such as a near consensus of scientists). I further believe in whatever follows logically. I believe I can predict the likely consequences of my actions and this helps make me a reasonably happy person. Belief in God or belief in the inerrancy of the bible do not pass my tests. But there is scientific evidence that religious people are healthier and happier than non-religious people. This seems to be so even though people who would apparently be neither healthy nor happy are almost always religious. So what should I make of this?
________________________________________
From: Friam [
[hidden email]<mailto:
[hidden email]>] on behalf of glen [
[hidden email]<mailto:
[hidden email]>]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 7:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "rational"
On 01/03/2014 03:47 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Or the `successful' may just be apex predators, but still just one of
> many possible species of person. They feed on the productivity of these
> other species. Perhaps not wanting to be one of them, the drug addict
> (unconsciously) denies the predator that productivity... As Arnade
> observes, everyone makes mistakes, so perhaps we can just enumerate the
> wolves and note that's what wolves do but that they get no further honor.
Well, it seems to me that the ascription of honor (or any other
honorific) is a dynamic thing. Not only is society fickle like that,
but it's also difficult to predict what your arbitrary weirdo might take
_pride_ in. Witness:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/man-dies-eating-roaches-587314or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_MeiwesSo, we can't prescribe what honor the wolves get. In fact, merely
counting them might encourage more people to want to be them. I think
the answer lies in creating/facilitating wolf-eating species.
--
⇒⇐ glen
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Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merlelefkoff
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