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Rational thinking?

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Fnord
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23 Apr 2013, 10:40 pm

marshall wrote:
Fnord wrote:
marshall wrote:
I've also wondered if people who are paranoid or experiencing delusions are really irrational. I don't see how they could be irrational if the source of their behavior isn't an error in their mental reasoning but an error in that what they are subjectively experiencing doesn't correspond with the reality the rest of us live in. If you truly experience hallucinations or delusions then reacting to those perceptions as if they were real seems perfectly rational to me. Seems like another case of people labeling something they don't understand as "irrational".

It is the falseness of what they perceive coupled with their erroneous interpretation of those perceptions that leads to behavior that is inconsistent and inappropriate to objective reality.

False Perceptions + Subjective Interpretations + Inappropriate Actions --> Irrationality.

You're not following my point. What appears as an erroneous to us given our information may not be erroneous to them...

I'm following very well - I just don't accept it. Here is what I think: What appears as erroneous to us given our information may not SEEM TO be erroneous to them.

For instance, if a pizza delivery truck passes your house four times in ten minutes, is the driver more likely to be (a) lost or (b) a government agent trying to track you down by the coded theta waves emanating from the alien implant in your brain?

A rational person might answer with: "The driver is lost"

An irrational person might answer with, "Purple Twinkies barking like transistors at Korean pumpkin fur".



marshall
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23 Apr 2013, 10:59 pm

seaturtleisland wrote:
marshall wrote:
I've also wondered if people who are paranoid or experiencing delusions are really irrational. I don't see how they could be irrational if the source of their behavior isn't an error in their mental reasoning but an error in that what they are subjectively experiencing doesn't correspond with the reality the rest of us live in. If you truly experience hallucinations or delusions then reacting to those perceptions as if they were real seems perfectly rational to me. Seems like another case of people labeling something they don't understand as "irrational".

I've also had the experience before where if I try to remember a dream I just had upon waking I realize how irrational it is in hindsight, yet somehow it managed to make perfect sense to me just moments before while I was dreaming. Really makes me wonder.


The difference is that these hallucinations are happening in a state of mind that is not rational. It's the same with you're dream. If you were in that dream you wouldn't look at a cow flying through the air and say "that's not real".

The issue is my dreams come with their own "back knowledge", a sort of memory state that makes a dream seem to take place over a much longer time period than the time as measured by physical brainwave pattern corresponding to being in a dream state. Part of that "back knowledge" could be that cows fly through the air all the time. As long as the physics of my dream world is internally consistent how can you expect me to scientifically and logically determine that what I'm experiencing isn't real?

Quote:
Many people have regular hallucinations in a clear state of mind. The majority of people experience them at least once in a lifetime briefly.

It is irrational to assume that something you see is real if it can't possibly be real. I saw an ant the size of a racoon once but I didn't think that was real since it was impossible. Ants don't get that big.

I have experienced them before, real enough to be intensely frightening in the moment. Afterwards I could piece together that what I experienced was a hallucination, but that's only because it lasted only a brief time. If it had kept happening over and over indefinitely I would start to not know what to believe and what not to believe. Also for me it wasn't something as unbelievable as an ant the size of a racoon. It was that there was an intruder in the house that I could both hear (footsteps, banging noises, etc... ) and strangely "feel" the presence of. I can't even describe how frightening it was. I am a deeply skeptical person as well.



kabouter
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24 Apr 2013, 5:35 am

Fnord wrote:
For instance, if a pizza delivery truck passes your house four times in ten minutes, is the driver more likely to be (a) lost or (b) a government agent trying to track you down by the coded theta waves emanating from the alien implant in your brain?

A rational person might answer with: "The driver is lost"

An irrational person might answer with, "Purple Twinkies barking like transistors at Korean pumpkin fur".


That is a crap example :D

A person who thinks along the lines of (b), could rationally think that the alien's theta wave detector is not working correctly, as they should have found you the first time around.

The problem is that if your premise/assumptions are incorrect you can logically conclude anything. :roll:

To reach correct conclusions, you must have correct (and possible unprovable assumptions) and rational deduction/reasoning.

In the absolute sense not as easy as it sounds