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This doesn't feel particularly insightful to me. "We have to realise that rationality, particularly in the form of scientific thought, cannot provide us with a
by awillen 4y ago
This doesn't feel particularly insightful to me.
"We have to realise that rationality, particularly in the form of scientific thought, cannot provide us with a value system." Yeah, that's true, but it's not the point of rationality - rationality is a system of thinking and decision making designed to optimize for the best outcome, but you have to define what's best and thus what you want to optimize for.
Rationality won't provide you with a value system, but I don't think anyone who understands it would claim that it does. This is sort of like saying culinary school will teach you how to cook, but it won't pick what's for dinner.
- kiba 4y agoRationality won't provide you with a value system, but I don't think anyone who understands it would claim that it does. This is sort of like saying culinary school will teach you how to cook, but it won't pick what's for dinner. Someone's belief and value system is the difference between being shunned or supported, like a gay teenager being disowned by their parent. We should definitely examine our value system.
- awillen 4y agoSure, examining value systems is good and we should certainly do that. That's not really relevant to the article or my response, though.
- licebmi__at__ 4y agoPlenty of people think Sam Harris understands rationality.
- Dracophoenix 4y agoBut even the pursuit of optimality is a value, is it not? Even if you define what's best, could one then not choose to do the opposite? No individual is required to live an optimal life, and many purposely and self-righteously shun one.
- awillen 4y agoI would disagree - the value is about what you're optimizing for. When you say "No individual is required to live an optimal life, and many purposely and self-righteously shun one." it feels like you're assuming some value for which you're optimizing. If you're not trying to make a lot of money or be traditionally successful, you're still optimizing for something. You could be optimizing for the most relaxing life, or the life in which you do the most to help others. You can also go for more specific optimizations - maybe you want to help others but don't want to get investment banking and live like a pauper while donating every cent you can (which is generally going to be a more effective way to help others than, say, volunteering), then you might be optimizing for helping others while achieving some minimal level of enjoyment in your life. This is all to say that I would argue that you can't pursue optimality in and of itself, because you have to be optimizing for something.
- starkd 4y agoIt does seem like a truism. However, given how many of us are so quick to try to solve every problem with technology, perhaps there is a bigger lesson here than we realize. Entire businesses seem to be formed more on whether we CAN do something without first answering whether we should. Although a lot that probably comes from the business environment of cheap credit.
- Joeri 4y agoI also felt that paragraph didn’t hit the mark. All value systems apply rationality to a set of assumptions. Religion starts from the assumption “what is in our holy writing is true” and then applies logic to derive a complete value system. In that sense religious and atheist value systems only differ by their priors, not their use of rationality.
- Tao3300 4y agoUtilitarians. There actually are some people out there who claim to be.