What drives one to be irrational?

[Ananke]

Per the thread question, "What drives one to be irrational?"

 

When the influence of the reptilian brain within us overcomes the negating influence of the prefrontal cortex... i.e. - Emotion

 

QFT.

[HydrogenBond]

Irrational behavior comes from aspects of the brain higher than the repilian brain and is connected to the emotional progression associated with warm blooded animals. The reptile doesn't think but reacts causually to sensory input. The warm blooded animal is more adaptable because it can fine tune reflex assessments with emotional valence.

 

As I was discussing previously, the gods of mythology helped to personlify the various types of organized irrationalites. This was a two sided coin. For example, if someone felt strong feelings of love, they would project this as the goddess Venus casting a spell. This allowed the ego to be more objective to the irrational induction. On the other side of the coin, if soldiers were about to go to war and felt scared, they would pray to Mars and use Mars rituals to seek the favor of Mars. In other words, they would psyche themselves up by the rituals to induce adreniline to flow and anger and courage to surge, thereby making them ready for battle. The females might pray to Venus for fertiliity. If the ritual worked they would gain enhanced sensuality to help attract a suitable mate.

[Kriminal99]

Well that sounds to me something like Law and Chaos.

 

So then are they being chaoticly ordered?

 

As for Charlie's comment, I would specify the question down to why is it that an individual chooses chaos, over order? On a whole. Why choose not to know why it is that you reason something the way you do? Why not understand what it is that you do and say?

 

Illogical people let the subconsious do the work

 

I think people are driven by the reasoning of their subconsious, which is a in some ways better and some ways worse then consious reasoning but definitely different. One who relies mostly on instinct (which is what I think is the result of subconsious reasoning being communicated to us) is going to see the behavior of one who relies mostly on logic as irrational and vice versa. Except that irrational is a term usually associated with logic so the instinct followers might not call it that.

 

But they will say things like "theres something wrong with that kid" about the logic user that questions the teachers arguments in class and gets a bad grade from the insecure and immature professor.

 

How does knowing why you do what you do make you happy?

 

Why would someone not want to know why they act the way they do? The issue is the purpose of life. An instinct follower might reason that the purpose of life is life itself, and then just follow their instincts to the most amount of enjoyment and the least suffering. They suck up to the teacher so the teacher is nice back to them and don't question so the teacher isn't insulted and hurts them somehow... even if the teacher is wrong. They don't see the danger of agreeing with the teacher without questioning it, nor do they see any immediate benefits of questioning the teacher.

 

Logic users believe instinct won't save you

 

I believe most logic users are the ones who have been subjected to the most amount of random punishment. They use logic to avert potential future problems that instinct is not adept at identifying and dealing with. They know they might suffer for questioning the teacher, but they fear worse future problems not understanding the subject could cause. Like failing a future class or not being able to solve some problem due to poor understanding. Many times have they sat there thinking everything was ok and just doing whatever would make them happy and some horrible punishment was inflicted on them out of the blue that they did not expect. They learn to expect it.

[IDMclean]

Which is more adaptive? The rational or irrational paradigm? What is the leading paradigm today and what is likely to be the leading paradigm tomorrow, and why?

[Kriminal99]

Which is more adaptive? The rational or irrational paradigm? What is the leading paradigm today and what is likely to be the leading paradigm tomorrow, and why?

 

The rational paradigm is obviously the more adpative across major differences, and hopefully it will lead in the future. But there are some potential counterarguments that I could imagine being used (although by who I don't know as it might be too boring for an "irrational person)

 

The goal is to get people to learn to be rational without them having to have suffered large amounts of random punishment. Alot of rationals around now are paranoid and analyze things to avoid problems as well as find the best way to do things. It makes it hard to enjoy life when you see potential problems everywhere you see and have to analyze things to understand and avoid problems with them, but it's better than dying of a heart attack like the randomly shocked rat in that experiment.

 

I think people with normal upbringing can understand and appreciate the need for rational thought if they are taught it under social pressure in an enviornment like school. Maybe they will then be capable of reason to a similar degree without as much stress. Or maybe they will never see the need.

 

I suppose an irrational person could think of a rational as less adaptive when looking at a situation such as the teacher in the class room. The irrational people just follow their instincts in a lot of situations and it gets them farther than the rationals often get who do things like argue with authority figures citing reason and talk about people's behavior in social situations rather than just do whatever makes them look the best. But then when entering a new enviornment or dealing with any situation involving real life problems that are not subject to the whims of your peers, you are better off being rational.

[Shoushou]

Saying whether someone is rational or not is not absolute..because-as many have pointed out before-all of us have a rational & irrational sides..each side appears in its approperiate situation...so it's hard to say whether or not someone is rational..irrationality is a part of our inbred..

 

Rather, we can say someone is more rational than irrational,, & some is more irrational than rational...this depends on many factors I guess..

Most of all is the way this person has been brought up,, also the way he used to think about different things & the way he analyzes different situations...

 

we can consider some one as rational when he thinks logically of life-situations, or deal calmly with them...another important point in a rational person is that he may deal with a specific situation in a wrong way, but when he reviews his action, he finds that if this happens again he will behave differently...this is a positive rational person...

 

Anyway I think rationality is something we can obtain by training,,maybe sometimes by stress (being forced to act rationally)..

 

Hope all of us will be more rational than irrational :cup: