(no subject)

[novapsyche]

[Poll #314352]

Comments

[kali-ma.livejournal.com]

Our society is heavily biased in favor of rational thought and heavily biased against irrational thought. Most people, in fact, use the terms in arguments as synonomous with good and bad, such as when people accuse the one the are angry with of being "irrational" - they really mean, "You are wrong/mean/bad."
But human beings are not solely rational creatures. We have emotions - emotions aren't rational. People try to talk others out of bad emotions through rational means, despite seeing over and over how it doesn't work. Many people even openly state that emotions are bad things. I can see saying that about depression or rage, but happiness? Love? Affectionate feelings? None of these are rational.
As far as "known facts go"... it used to be a "known fact" that the sun revolved around the earth, that bananas and tomatoes were poisonous, and that women who floated when you threw them in water were witches. So I am suspicious of "known facts".

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's a toughie. After thinking about it, I had to go with the idea that both rational and irrational modes of thinking can be helpful; it does depend very much on the specific circumstance nad the actual conclusons reached via thinking, rather than necessarily the mode of thinking itself. If you were to ask which would be more likely to produce long-term benefits, I would say rational thinking, but there are those times when irational thinking brings you to a helpful conclusion or course of action that you might never have reached rationally. (I am assuming, amongst other things, that intuition falls into the 'irrational' category.)

The next two are fairly easy, but the last one is a doozie. There's a certain amount of difficulty inherent to all of these questions based on definitions of terms- one man's rationality is another man's madness- the quest for absolute rationality that some people follow after is doomed from the atart, because it is based on an irrational (emotional) impulse- an argument can be eminently logical and entirely wrong. As I say at the beginning of a philosophical book or something that I am working on, "If the premise of an argument is false, then the conclusion of that argument must also be considered false, regardless of the factuality of any of the evidence given in support of the argument between the premise and the conclusion." I don't care how good the argument is, if the givens are false, then the conclusion is false. So I had to say disagree, though I was mightily tempted otherwise.

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

"The next two are fairly easy..."

...as per rationality, not necessarily as per actual truth, as lady_babalon points out...

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

The reason (heh) I posted these is because these were listed on a handout in my cognitive behavioral therapy session. All of these assertions were given as fact, with no room to disagree.

I had a problem with the first two assumptions/assertions, because a delusional thought might help you in the long run, but would still be delusional. Also, a pessimistic person might have a more accurate assessment of their traits; this assessment might be a hindrance, but that doesn't make it irrational.

So, yeah, I just wanted feedback on these, make sure I wasn't the only one who begged to differ.

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

How is rationality defined? What is rational to one person may not be so to the next - often genius- and especially creative genius- is mistaken as irrationality because MOST people can't follow the chain of thought. Too much of what passes as "rational" is really mediocre thinking.