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I certainly like logic and rationality. Rational thought is a super fine tool, and for the purpose of what I'm gonna say maybe it is okay to reduce "rational t

I certainly like logic and rationality. Rational thought is a super fine tool, and for the purpose of what I'm gonna say maybe it is okay to reduce "rational thought" to "logic" for the sake of thinking about it: I find it difficult to use logic when a) you don't really know all the premises that you're starting from and b) you have a material / emotional / ideological / or identity-driven stake in the outcome. If you have a simple closed system where you can know how everything works and you're just trying to get the system to some state, then logic is very good for that. If you have a more complex system where you are open to being wrong about premises and are open to reworking those premises when you come to paradoxes, that seems okay. Unfortunately much of my life has come down to systems where I have to just give up having a rational view of a process or object and intuit my way through things or guess about stuff. Simply guessing is a rational process, but I do it a lot in my life. Or, conversely I've occasionally rationalized my into believing things about the world that aren't true because I wanted them to be true. I've seen other folks do that often. I've seen a lot of people make technical decisions where they think they are using a "superior" technology when in fact they are driven by a fear of missing out, a need to identify with what they think is cool technology, or simply need to find a solution to a technical problem so they don't have to solve a more difficult to solve non-technical problem.

dkersten 8y ago
> I find it difficult to use logic when a) you don't really know all the premises that you're starting from and b) you have a material / emotional / ideological / or identity-driven stake in the outcome. Does it being difficult mean that other approaches are better? Point b is basically saying you have a vested interest (emotionally) in it (the topic, whatever it may be) being a certain way. Foregoing rationality and logic in favour of something else isn’t going to get you better results. Most often, it means you will instead argue based on feelings and emotion. Better would be to find a way to take a step back and re-evaluate your stance. As for point a, the only solution I can see to that is to seek more information.
maroonblazer 8y ago
>I find it difficult to use logic when a) you don't really know all the premises that you're starting from and b) you have a material / emotional / ideological / or identity-driven stake in the outcome. When you discover a non-logical way of making progress on one of those types of problems do you attempt to re-use that approach on other problems of that same type? Or perhaps change the approach slightly to account for the slightly different nature of the problem? If so then you're using rationality/logic. >I've seen other folks do that often. The observation you're making is that they're not being logical/rational, but rather merely pretending to be.

dkersten 8y ago

> I find it difficult to use logic when a) you don't really know all the premises that you're starting from and b) you have a material / emotional / ideological / or identity-driven stake in the outcome. Does it being difficult mean that other approaches are better? Point b is basically saying you have a vested interest (emotionally) in it (the topic, whatever it may be) being a certain way. Foregoing rationality and logic in favour of something else isn’t going to get you better results. Most often, it means you will instead argue based on feelings and emotion. Better would be to find a way to take a step back and re-evaluate your stance. As for point a, the only solution I can see to that is to seek more information.

maroonblazer 8y ago

>I find it difficult to use logic when a) you don't really know all the premises that you're starting from and b) you have a material / emotional / ideological / or identity-driven stake in the outcome. When you discover a non-logical way of making progress on one of those types of problems do you attempt to re-use that approach on other problems of that same type? Or perhaps change the approach slightly to account for the slightly different nature of the problem? If so then you're using rationality/logic. >I've seen other folks do that often. The observation you're making is that they're not being logical/rational, but rather merely pretending to be.