Posted by
glen ropella on
Jan 08, 2014; 6:27pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/11-American-Nations-tp7584250p7584679.html
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
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe
http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com