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Nobody here criticized the value of reason. The problem is when you overvalue reason. Water is good for you, too much water kills you. Saying "too much water i
by chobeat 8y ago
Nobody here criticized the value of reason. The problem is when you overvalue reason. Water is good for you, too much water kills you.
Saying "too much water is bad" or "water is not good when your problem is that your socks are wet" is not an attack on water itself. You waterists should all calm down.
- gr__or 8y agoThis argument needs some reason tbh.
- chobeat 8y agoA good part of the 20th century's philosophy is about this. I mean, many philosophers talked about it extensively even before (Kant? Hume?). It's not an argument, it's a whole branch of philosophy and epistemology. I've never read a book specific to this topic but if you want one, here's one that looks good, engineer-friendly and simple enough: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/outer-limits-reason https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/outer-limits-reason
- leereeves 8y agoNobody here denied there are limits to rationality; as you point out, reason itself has in fact proven that there are. But as far as I know there's no proof that consciousness is beyond the limits of reason. The mere fact that reason is limited is not a universal argument against all rational discussion.
- chobeat 8y agoNo, it's not, but the problem with his argument is that he gives a narrow and extremely specific definition of consciouness and then all the structure works. I'm not really that much in the debate about consciousness but I'm a lot into the one about intelligence: there are many definitions of intelligence and none of them seems satisfying. You can define intelligence from a rational point of view, as some kind of function or model, but it's extremely narrow, arbitrary and limited. That's the trick he uses. To me it's not enough. The very idea of intelligence is restrictive, antropocentric and confusing. That's because with the existing tools we have (including reason) we cannot converge to a satisfying idea of intelligence, that eludes our analysis.
- fossuser 8y agoI think part of it is that the grandparent’s comment feels like a thinly veiled defense of religion - which is mostly just tedious.
- staplers 8y agoYou can also take rationality to religious extremes and ignore things outside our perception.
- dingoegret 8y agoNo the Rick & Morty cult of Athiest pounding Dawkins books is getting tedious. I get it though, I was also once 14 years old and thought being nihilistic was cool. Do you realize human civilization is a result of religion? The first cities were built as communities around temples. No one was irrational until suddenly, magically they were; with the accidental discovery of coal. The most impressive history of human development coincides with with the worship of rationality by pure accident. That's what transitioning to a powerful new energy source to replace agrarianism will do. Not because people stopped being religious. Are you kidding me
- chobeat 8y agoWhy? There's not a single reference to religion or any hint that the author might be religious.
- fossuser 8y agoI suppose it’s the tone and the comment about “growing up in a rationality loving western tradition of thought”. Maybe I’m paranoid, but in experience what comes next is typically some mystic mumbo-jumbo or talk about things we “just can’t understand” etc. then usually the speaker is religious. I’d be happy to be wrong. The religion argument is just boring.
- chobeat 8y agothe alternative to reason is not religion. It can be empathy, emotion, spirituality. You can call it mumbo jumbo if you want to, but it's an integral part of how humans experience themselves, the others and the world.