Rationality and Compartmentalization

[malorum]

Having followed the posts in this topic for some time now I note the following:

There seems to be an ongoing battle of rational vs. irrational in many of the topics.

I generaly can't fault Davids rationality, (although I did think he was losing it when he started talking about the Golden Rule).

Many things hinge on our emotional Operating System. Even if you are a Hard determinist from a logical POV ( As most good rationalists/sceintists should be), you are unlikely to oppose a legal framework for crime and punishement.
Of course this is illogical. Personal accountability is in some sense voided if free will exists only at the level of experience.

The point I am trying to make is that nearly everyone works with an integrated Operating system (i.e they avoid psychological dissonance.)Most people try to convince themselves that their actions are at some level rational.

Let me give another example of why this is wrong:

If we kick/berate ourselves for making mistakes this is irrational since free will is just an illusion (if you believe the logic/science).

And yet we all do it.

My gripe is:

Why can't people just accept the dissonance.

I do. I'm a fundamentalist Christian, despite all my logic and science training screaming at me that I'm wrong.

It's kinda cool. But life is like that.

[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Jazza]

i sort of agree, putting your free will comments aside

i think people a lot of the times come to a conclusion illogically because emotion is involved, and then use their minds to make their conlusion seem as logical as possible

so sometimes the smart person only appears to have a more logically thought out argument, just like a good lawyer cannont change the chance that his client is innocent, but can make it appear his client is

this of course is an opinion, but keep it in mind the next time you see a smart person try to answer a complex issue involving his emotions (ex. politics, religion) which he's never thought of before, and then answers your question in less than a second. be suspicious.

[BZ_Zorro]

[ QUOTE ]
Why can't people just accept the dissonance.

[/ QUOTE ]
Because dissonance is your mind's way of telling you that something is wrong.

Example: If Einstein had accepted the Michelson-Morley experiment as 'just dissonance', he would never have found special relativity. If people had accepted the fossil record and all the other evidence as 'just dissonance', we'd still be fundamentalist christians.

Solving and overcoming dissonance leads us to higher truth. Some people choose not to, and they stay forever where they are.