#RATIONALITY

[katherinakaina]

I keep seeing once in a while people pondering on an apparent contradiction in Daniil’s character – he is said to be a rationalist but he is evidently extremely emotional. Those things do not go together, right? People notice their confusion. They find all sorts of interesting explanations. From him being manipulative and performative, using his displays of emotion like tools to control people. To him not being rational at all actually, him lying to himself and others, not even knowing who he is, pretending and failing.

Every time I get over it and completely forget and then another one of these hits me in the face. What I forget is that in common understanding rationality is opposed to being emotional. While in the community it is a basic level understanding that there are rational emotions and irrational ones. The same way there are rational beliefs and irrational beliefs (which is to say true and false basically).

From here:

A popular belief about “rationality” is that rationality opposes all emotion—that all our sadness and all our joy are automatically anti-logical by virtue of being feelings. …

For my part, I label an emotion as “not rational” if it rests on mistaken beliefs, or rather, on mistake-producing epistemic conduct. “If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm.” Conversely, an emotion that is evoked by correct beliefs or truth-conducive thinking is a “rational emotion”; and this has the advantage of letting us regard calm as an emotional state, rather than a privileged default. …

Becoming more rational—arriving at better estimates of how-the-world-is—can diminish feelings or intensify them. Sometimes we run away from strong feelings by denying the facts, by flinching away from the view of the world that gave rise to the powerful emotion. If so, then as you study the skills of rationality and train yourself not to deny facts, your feelings will become stronger. …

I visualize the past and future of humankind, the tens of billions of deaths over our history, the misery and fear, the search for answers, the trembling hands reaching upward out of so much blood, what we could become someday when we make the stars our cities, all that darkness and all that light—I know that I can never truly understand it, and I haven’t the words to say. Despite all my philosophy I am still embarrassed to confess strong emotions, and you’re probably uncomfortable hearing them. But I know, now, that it is rational to feel.

Daniil probably suppresses some of his emotions to be taken seriously. But this is masking. And he is bad at it. He has strong emotions and strong convictions and they spill out of him regardless. He also values truth and honesty and that’s another reason why he can’t fully suppress his authenticity.

But all of it is about how to behave in polite society. How not to freak out neurotypicals. It has nothing to do with his thinking process, his beliefs and his goals. His rationality.

Now you can argue that his sincerity and his openness are irrational instrumentally, which is to say they lead to his downfall. He should have masked better and become more cynical if he wanted to succeed. Maybe? But that would also have its downsides, I’m pretty sure. (we’ll see what apathy meter does to his decision making soon enough)

Anyway, that is not the point I see people make. And I just really want people to stop making it. Strong emotions, strong ideals, passionate belief in a better future for humanity – those are all perfectly rational if they align with truth. And he does fail as a rationalist quite a lot as well, but this is purely an epistemological issue that has nothing to do with him being emotional.

[philosophybits]

With the spread of the bourgeois commodity economy the dark horizon of myth is illuminated by the sun of calculating reason, beneath whose icy rays the seeds of the new barbarism are germinating.

Max Horkheimer & Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment

[thirdity]

“I don’t know,” “I refuse to judge”: as scandalous as an agrammatical sentence: doesn’t belong to the language of the discourse. Variations on the “I don’t know.” The obligation to “be interested” in everything that is imposed on you by the world: prohibition of noninterest, even if provisional.

Roland Barthes, The Neutral

[cthulhubert]

A news site called WindowsCentral just posted a headline: "57% of all content on the web is AI-generated."

They're misquoting a Forbes article that said, "57% of all text-based content on the web is AI-generated."

Which itself was also a misquote of a study saying "57% of all text translations on the web are machine generated."

Figured I should give everyone a heads up

for all the "OMG dead Internet theory is real!" posting coming up.

[hexagr]

The paradox of binding your identity to victimhood is that it tends to generate social currency, but in a longer, broader perspective, it makes you spiritually and mentally weaker. This is true even if you're really a victim.

[artist-issues]

Yesterday my German coworker yelled at me because she firmly believes no world religion can know anything, for sure, about God, so there’s no way to call anyone “right” or “wrong.”

And it took all my strength not to say, “so you’re saying I’m wrong”

because truth in love, truth in love

But seriously. What actually is the deal with the discourse that goes: “you can’t know anything for sure about God.”

“Wait, yes you can, like I know you well enough to know for sure that you’re from ____ Place—“

“—no no, no, that’s different. This is about God.”

“How’s it different?”

“You can’t say someone’s wrong about God.”

“…Well, can I say anything that’s wrong about you? Like, if I say, ‘_____ Person likes to kick puppies,’ can’t you say I’m wrong about you?”

“Yes but I’m not God.”

“Right, but you’re a real person who exists, so there are some things that I can know for sure about you—“

“THAT’S DIFFERENT”

No it’s not! It’s not ‘different.’ Quit acting like it’s different. Christians don’t believe in a set of ideals or the properties of rocks or some mystical vibe that nobody can be right or wrong about. We believe in a living and existing deity with an unchanging, eternally constant personality, and will, and DESIGN, outside of ourselves. So we can be wrong about Him. You can be wrong about Him. Everyone can be wrong—OR RIGHT—about Him, because He actually exists.

He’s not some imaginary friend who’s open to anybody’s interpretation. You get to claim an independent identity, character traits, and a personal history, but the God of the universe doesn’t? What is happening?

I’ll tell you what’s happening. You’re fine with me believing in an imaginary figment that’s only real to me, but as soon as He starts having an effect on the outer world, as if He actually exists and you have to start making some decisions based on that fact, THEN you’re not fine.

[victoriadallonfan]

I find “rational” Worm fanfics amusing

Because the authors never realize that Worm already has a “rational” character and his name is Accord.

And everyone in setting hates Accord because he’s a smug asshole, and his optimal way of thinking ends with him cut in half by his own actions.

[serial-port]

The concept of antisocial behavior is strange. Are you telling me that you're spending the energy you have now in ways that destroy your opportunities to give or receive energy in the future? This seems like a losing strategy.

If you're so smart, why aren't you prosocial? Why haven't you realized that connection is the best part of life? And missing out on it is like missing the whole vibe.

[areadersquoteslibrary]

"The lesson of Wuthering Heights, of Greek tragedy and, ultimately, of all religions, is that there is an instinctive tendency towards divine intoxication which the rational world of calculation cannot bear."

— Georges Bataille, Literature and Evil

[catmint1]

I don't know why people expect art to make sense. Life doesn't make sense.

—David Lynch

[strangelittlestories]

There’s a thing which really gets my goat, right.

And I mean *really* yanks my yak. Snatches my sheep. Appropriates my antelope.

It’s when a certain kind of person claims to be a rational, emotionless and objective being … with such certainty and with such zeal that it is *extremely irrational*.

Like they’re trying to be Spock or Data and have totally missed the point of those stories about finding and balancing humanity. 

And I think that’s very unsexy of them (which is tragic, given the sexiness of Spock/Data).

And it’s not just the near-religious fervour with which they fellate the rationality fallacy.

It’s that these Very Rational Men™ (because they are so often men) fully ignore how *unscientific* their view is.

Like how the best way to convince someone is to empathise with them, not to confront or antagonise them or just tell them they’re wrong.

Like how emotions are deeply connected to decision-making, helping to make choices quickly and in line with your values.

Is there a word for this kind of rational zealotry? If there isn’t one, can I suggest Toxic Spock Syndrome.

p.s. I realise I’m also coming at this from a place of certainty/antagonism, but hey: I’m an emotional person and I’m having an emotionally informed opinion, buttfaces.

[enesl]

so scared of being left behind that I go ahead and humiliate my own self

[philosophybits]

The habit of logical thinking kills imagination.

Lev Shestov, All Things Are Possible

[thirdity]

The world is, ultimately, an aesthetic phenomenon. That is to say, the world (all there is) cannot, ultimately, be justified. Justification is an operation of the mind which can be performed only when we consider one part of the world in relation to another — not when we consider all there is.

Susan Sontag, "On Style"

[cpericardium]

[hexagr]

Objects decay. Information decays. Let's periodically reiterate obvious concepts as a safety measure.