Can it be ratonal to be irrational?

[monkeydust]

You may be expecting some kind of rhetorical balls that demonstrates by ability to "play words" until I can make rationality irrational and then feel great about it. This isn't what I'm trying to do here. I'm going to offer a somewhat personal argument for acting irrationaly on a rational basis. Let's see what you think.

Some of you may be familiar with Pascal's argument for believing in God. Towards the end of this, he says that even if you don't truly believe, as it "makes sense" to do so, you should go "thorugh the motions" until you truly do come to believe.

Well I'm going to leave religious speculation aside for a moment here and pose this question: Does the relentless questioning, with scant few answers, necessitated by the philosophical outlook really make you happy?

I've got to say that me answer to this question is a definitive no. I actually get pretty depressed havig a sense of doubt, feeling "ungrounded" in most, if not all, my conviction - of which there are few anyway. For me, looking at the world objectively actually makes me despair; it is, quite frankly, a shithole.

I was much happier believing the dominant ideas that are "in fashion", accepting commonplace rhetorical platitudes as truth, and viewing the world from a pleasantly, if unquestioningly, subjective point of view. Thinking back now to Pascal's point, I don't it would be too hard to get back into old "grooves" of thinking and to go back to such a state of mind - to abandon curiosity, as it were.


So here's the question that I put to you:

On the basis that being "happy" is self-evidently a "good" thing, and given the fact that relentless questioning and objective perspectivves on the world, life and the like can invoke doubt and despair, would it not be a rational decision to abandon the search for truth, accept things as they are, and "move on" as most people do?

Or would you all be proponents of J.S. Mill's view - that it is better to be Socrates unhappy than a fool happy?

Thoughts?

[DarkReaver13]

That's actually a really interesting question you raise. One which I have been thinking about a lot.

Before all the thinking and debating about philosophy, society and politics, ] I just had interests such as art, making music, watching movies etc. I studied Sociology for one of my subjects at A-Level which started making me think about the way the world works. Marxism was a major part of the course and it made me a communist type thinker. Since leaving secondary education (about 8 months ago) I have been debating a lot on forums (36 pages of me vs objectivists :o) and started to get deeper and deeper into things, from sociology to politics, from politics to ethics, and from ethics to metaphysics and epistemology. Now I am working my way back up and writing my own philosophy in the process.


Originally posted by "(monkeydust)"
For me, looking at the world objectively actually makes me despair; it is, quite frankly, a shithole.

I must admit, I still see the world in a very dim light and I see a lot of people as narrow minded neanderthals. It's not good. Trying to understand why is the only way I can cope with it really. "Higher" levels of thought is what I enjoy. You hear "most" people talking about what they did at the weekend, television, drinking, sex, local gossip and other such monotonous topics. They don't question or think outside the day-to-day stuff. I couldn't stand that. Sure I like to talk about what's on TV, what good films are out, computer games etc. But more intellectual topics are so much more interesting, even if it leaves lots of questions unanswered.

Thinking about "the bigger picture" makes me happy, alongside my more "inside-it-all" interests such as making art and music, going for meals, etc.

I may have gone of at a slight tangent there so I'll address the question directly. "Can it be rational to be irrational?"

Well, it depends. A bit of irrationality makes me laugh. Too much irrationality will probably make me die. You seem to equate "thinking philosophically" with being rational, i.e. knowing all the theoretical mumbo-jumbo in order to understand exactly what you should be doing in the world, but really, sometimes ordering a chinese or taking a stroll around whilst making very loud sounds just to see how people react can be equally "rational".

I think some of that makes sense. If it doesn't it's because I just woke up.

[apathy maybe]

Philosophy does not make most (I can't say none) people happy. Asking questions is a fun way of passing time, but in the end it doesn't do anything.

I have found that the thing that will make you happy is to be loved (and love the person back, and be able to be with them etc). I could be wrong.

And yes it is better to be happy and a fool then a genius and unhappy. After fools get to watch the sun going down.

[Xvall]

In some instances, yes. However, being spontaniously irrational and claiming that it is actually rationality is both idiotic and confusing.

Can it be smart to be dumb?

[fallen camarade]

It was interesting how you used the term "socrates unhappy". I've been feeling like that for a while now. The whole thing where you realize that you "don't know shit" is always a little stunning, but eventually quite helpful.

There is a very simple answer here, as there is with most questions that "intellectuals" enjoy complicating. Everything is chaotic, and so little is solid. As someone said already, questioning is a fun and healthy thing to do when in the realms of philosophical thought. However, regardless of what some may think, you are not going to figure it all out by sitting around and thinking about it.

I've been away from these message boards for some time now, and it's because so many people here think that because they've read some book by Descartes, that they've got everything all figured out. It's quite funny actually. Although it can be hard to cope with at times, approaching things from a socratic stand point, if you can pull it off, is probably the best way to go. He truly was the wisest of his time, simply because he was able to admit that he knew nothing, and instead of being depressed about it, he worked with it, and tried to let people know that they really didn't know a whole lot either.

The point is that once you are the kind of person who takes pleasure in questioning, you can't really get out of it entirely. However, laying off is beyond a good idea if you find yourself getting down. I'm not sure if it's biological or not yet, but I have this perpetual problem of absolutely having to know the answer to these unanswerable questions. You know what it got me? A lovely case of depersonalization disorder. You want to talk about not enjoyable, go google that. Question when the time is right, but spend more time realizing how beautiful everything is, and the worry tends to go away. Don't let some 14 year old, self-proclaimed philosophe on here tell you that you are a wuss for not doing anything with your life aside from reading philosophy books. Go as long as you can without feeling bad, and then take a break and go visit some friends or something.

Move on in the sense that these thoughts don't consume you anymore, but never be rid of your ability to think and question. It's that simple.

[redstar2000]

I don't think that people who live "as though they were asleep" are happy.

Except in the sense that a well-fed domestic animal is happy.

The world is a shithole...and people who don't grasp that are the most likely to find themselves in the shit, completely bewildered about how they got there.

Trying to both understand and change the world is a defining characteristic of fully developed humans.

Our "unhappiness" comes from the fact that the world is difficult to understand and even more difficult to change.

Our "happiness" comes from the fact that both of those things are nevertheless possible.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[pedro san pedro]

i agree with redstar - i think ignorence is probably bliss, but kinda boring. i sometimes wish that i hadnt begun to learn about the problems that the world faces, as they have a tendency to make me feel somewhat small, insignificant and powerless.

i have found though, that i am now at my most happy when i am campaigning hard for change, and have comrades at my side doing the same. t doesnt pay the bills very well, but it is something that provides 'meaning' to a day to day life.

it also tends to lead to some pretty damned interesting friendships with some amazing people.


I have found that the thing that will make you happy is to be loved (and love the person back, and be able to be with them etc). I could be wrong.

you aint wrong :)

[encephalon]

A sense of community, I think, is what most makes an individual happy. I think rationality as rather arbitrary in this. People, though capable of being rational, are far from rational beings. We are social beings, and that which makes us the least happy is true isolation and alienation. Which is one of the things that made me start to read a lot of marx.

It was this sense of community, however misled, that Hitler and the Nazi party fed upon to get support from the German Public.

Those who generally enjoy "higher thought" (as it is put, though I don't think that really accurately describes it) are usually less likely to enjoy that same sense of community in today's world than those who simply accept things as they are unquestionably. However, the issue isn't the act of higher thought itself, but the lack of others within a close vicinity to share this enjoyment with. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm assuming the case is the same here as it is everywhere: there are very few people that actually enjoy thinking, and they are spread thin across the world. Even in the academic world, this problem exists (much to my sincere displeasure; I once thought that if I went to college, I'd find more people like myself--god I was wrong).

The problem isn't based on rational or irrational. The problem, I'm quite sure, is alienation. And people should be prepared, because I don't think the level of alienation pushed by capitalism has reached its height yet.

Something along the same lines as this topic is Godel's proof that mathematics--and therefore logic--is baseless, and actually doesn't make sense when applied to itself (you can't prove the merit of rationality through rational dissection of logic). I've not read a lot of Godel's works, only bits and pieces, but from what I understand hisd proof is sound--anyone know any more about this?

[redstar2000]

Something along the same lines as this topic is Godel's proof that mathematics--and therefore logic--is baseless, and actually doesn't make sense when applied to itself (you can't prove the merit of rationality through rational dissection of logic). I've not read a lot of Godel's works, only bits and pieces, but from what I understand his proof is sound--anyone know any more about this?

Well, I think I do. :P

What Godel actually proved (and is accepted) is that in any complex mathematical system, there will be a large (infinite?) number of true statements that nevertheless cannot be proven by using the axioms of that system itself.

What we can do (often? always?) is prove statements to be false in terms of those axioms.

One can also (partially) solve this dilemma by appealing to the axioms of a "higher" (more complex) mathematical system...but that system will also contain true statements that nevertheless cannot be proven, etc., etc.

In practical terms, it usually works out that we can prove or disprove whatever we think is necessary...with a small degree of residual uncertainty.

That's why testing our propositions against objective reality is so crucial...it eliminates a high percentage of crap regardless of its "logical credentials".

Hope that makes sense. :)

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

i.e. Logical certainty may not be posible, but some degree of objective, empirical, "probably" is posible?

[encephalon]

Hope that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense :) Though, from what I read (not just godel, but a collection of articles), one of the theses was that you cannot prove the actual validity of logic with logic, and thus theory, to an extent, that hasn't been (or cannot be) verified directly within a real-world context cannot be taken any more seriously than religious belief, though I disagree. I think that take disregards the connection between logic as a system and the real-world results.. if logic consistently does get real-world verification, then it seems to me that logic is generally sound even if it produces something that can't be directly tested in a physical sense.

[(R)evolution of the mind]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2005, 07:50 AM
Though, from what I read (not just godel, but a collection of articles), one of the theses was that you cannot prove the actual validity of logic with logic,
What Gödel actually proved in his two famous incompleteness theorems only relate to the logical theory of "Peano arithmetic" (PA), although these results have been extended to some other theories.

The first incompleteness theorem states that from the axioms of a theory that includes PA you can't prove all statements that are true in the theory.

If you could, the theory could not be sound, i.e. you could prove statements that are not true. But PA is sound.

The second incompleteness theorem states that you can't prove the consistency (i.e. being non-contradictory) of the axioms of PA from these axioms.

You can, however, prove the consistency of PA with the help of a more powerful theory such as Zermelo-Fränkel set theory with axiom of choice (ZFC). However, ZFC can't prove its own consistency, and so on.

[CommieBastard]

Happiness is used as a catch-all phrase, when in reality it refers to the satisfaction of a whole plethora of desires, and the avoidance of a whole bunch of undesirable states.
There are the basic desires, e.g. sex and food
Then there are the more complex desires, e.g. knowledge and creativity.

Essentially we can achieve these things through two means.
The first is to do as you said, accept that we are incapable of determining the best states for ourselves, and allow others to tell us what to do.
You may as well make yourself a literal slave to someone else if you are selecting this option. You will be better provided for, given more certainty and there may even be safeguards (as some societies have had) for your welfare.

The alternative is to keep on thinking, using your knowledge and your rational abilities to find out the best and most efficient ways for satisfying the desires you have, and avoiding the undesirable states.

The first step would seemingly be to identify what you desire and what you find undesirable.
If one of the undesirables is 'rationality' or knowledge, then i would say it is best not to wipe it from your mind. It is more likely that simply your rationality is being used, so-far, in a way that isn't directed at fulfilling your desires.

You may have been attempting to use it to get answers, but you have failed. For the sake of your happiness you could conclude that you should not bother any longer and disengage your mind. I would suggest as alternatives that you could accept that there simply arent answers of the type you are looking for, and use your rationality for other ends. Or you could assume simply that you have been going about the search for answers in the wrong way.

Maybe to some questions, like 'what is the meaning of life?' or 'is there a god?', the actual answer is simply 'I don't know'. If you are asking questions where the answer is 'I don't know' then i think you should be looking for answers to different questions.