Yes, it does. but sometimes the balance of probability in your favor is high enough to act on.
<><I don't know. That's what testing is for. To see what seems to be the most probable. Testing has its limits though and is subject to bias though. Then we have the issue of subjectivity and my belief that we cannot ever truly know the truth of such things. So in the end I can't know.
edited 25th May '11 2:43:06 PM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahYou should probably just take a course in epistemology somewhere.
[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.I should just because the name sounds cool!
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahWhy will a rock drop if we let it fall? Because of gravity, and it has happened every time before that.
Why does a man not touch a hot iron kettle? Because he burnt his hand at something hot as a kid, and hence got it properly into his brain.
What does a sociologist think? He thinks of what is likely.
edited 25th May '11 3:06:54 PM by del_diablo
A guy called dvorak is tired. Tired of humanity not wanting to change to improve itself. Quite the sad tale.What's that rationalist saying? what do you know and how do you know it? I know that isn't right >_<
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?This is why I argue for free speech, even for people whose beliefs I consider ridiculous. I'm waiting for them to find an argument that makes sense to me.
That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something AwfulWhat do we know, what do we suspect, what can we prove?
"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.Nothing, lots of stuff, the things that no one is arguing about to begin with.
I think my argument in the OP disregards that there are degrees of certainty that a person can have in beliefs. Perhaps we believe things on two levels: there are the fundamentals of logic and morality, which are both innate, and then there are the beliefs we've formed in life after that, which are less deeply rooted in our psyches. Just a theory.
"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.I don't believe there's a difference. There are beliefs that are held more strongly than others, but they can still change under certain circumstances, and they can still be false.
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The StaffWelcome to the Postmodern era. Or as the author of "Master and Emissary" wrote, the beginning of a right-brained dominated era.
There is a point where taking things too far inside the box of rationality becomes detrimental to living. Lingering on such a feedback loop has destroyed people. Such rumination has epistemological significance, but that also means it's one of those things which does not have a rational, definite reason or answer.
Wow, this place has changed. A whole page on rationality and not one link to LessWrong
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."Oh man, we were doing so well.
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The StaffI've read this post 5 times and I can't glean a single useful point from it...
You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!@Leigh: for starters, interesting question. I like it.
I disagree with your conclusion. One can hold a belief, acknowledge it to be irrational yet continue to think it has meaning anyway * .
That said, I'll give you that on a practical level, you're largely correct; people assume their own beliefs are self evident. Which is why there's so much conflict in the world.
Answers: You can't, You shouldn't and no.
Explanation: Knowledge is not static. It's a constantly changing force, and our belief system should reflect that. There's a sociological theory called "Cognitive Dissonance" which is basically a fancy term for that queasy feeling you get when one belief runs into a cold hard fact which renders it irrelevant. People are prone to ignoring such data * or rationalizing it away.
IMO, rationality is overrated. Self-awareness is far more important.
edited 25th May '11 6:11:53 PM by drunkscriblerian
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~No, cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by holding mutually contradictory beliefs.
[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.@ Wicked: What do you mean by "useful"? It seems like a good point to me.
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text-Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The Staff@Tze: the term applies to either, but you're more correct than I am.
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~Rationality is not really a property of beliefs: rather, it is a property of the way in which you update your beliefs. You can be rational and wrong, or irrational and right.
Dumb example: I am afraid that I will get hit by a car today, because my horoscope said so. Then I walk through the street, and get hit by a random car. My belief ended up being right, but most people would agree that it was still quite irrational.
As to precisely which methods of knowledge updating count as rational... well, there are plenty of possibilities here.
Personally, I think that an eclectic approach should be favored. There are no "laws" of rationality, there is a bag of useful tricks which sort of kinda work when applied to certain specific situations, at least most of the time.
One should feel free to mix and match as needed, and to try new ideas if they look like they might lead somewhere interesting. Whatever works, works — no matter how you want to define it, "rationality" is a tool, not a slave owner.
edited 25th May '11 10:19:49 PM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Amen to that. My life would be a lot happy if I was capable of Cognitive Dissonance No matter how hard I squint I can't see grey when things are black and white.
hashtagsarestupidThere is a point where taking things too far inside the box of rationality becomes detrimental to living. Lingering on such a feedback loop has destroyed people. Such rumination has epistemological significance, but that also means it's one of those things which does not have a rational, definite reason or answer.
I think you're moving too fast through this line of argumentation. Holding only beliefs that are believed to be true is one of the requirements of being rational, but it's not the only condition. Now, people may have varying different ideas of what the other conditions are (for both knowledge and rationality, they seem a bit mixed together in my reading of your OP,) but it will in general be a justification (or a counterfactual or two that track whether the belief is based in reality.) This leads us to the question as to what third condition for knowledge
edited 26th May '11 5:53:37 PM by Alexander_UE
Profile | Talk to Me | Note: Check your irony detector before replying.
Inherent in the fact that we hold a belief is the fact that we think the belief is true. Of course, if a belief is true, then holding it is rational. The conclusion of all this is that everyone thinks that every belief they hold is rational, no matter how ludicrous the belief is, and sees themself as rational, because, after all, they hold only rational (in their view) beliefs.
But not all beliefs are true, and not all people are rational. So some people are irrational, hold irrational beliefs and don't know it. The thing is, they see themselves as being as rational as you see yourself as being. So how do you know you aren't one of them?
My basic question is how can a person know if their reason is deceived at any given time? How can a person, for that matter, know if any belief they hold is rational or is ridiculous. And if they can't, does that mean that knowledge is impossible?
"All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice." — Joseph De Maistre.