Inherent irrationality

[dream_weaver]

@dream,

 

I can see we are pretty much talking right past each, but I'll give it one more shot.  If something comes of it, fine. If not, well, the Seattle Mariners are set to start soon...

 

FL Wright said of Louis Sullivan something along the line that "Sullivan always searched for the rules of Nature, while I (Wright) searched for the exceptions".

 

My use of the Man-from-Mars was meant to say that if someone were to look at all the living animals on this planet with a fresh set of eyes, what would be immediately apparent is that the most intelligent and complex animal is also the one that repeatedly behaves in appallingly irrational ways.

 

To me this "exception" catches my attention, and it is a worth while endeavor to try and understand how this came to be.  I find speculation on it to be intellectually stimulating.  If you don't well, we can both stop the back and forth.

Edited to put in bold the main point addressed.

 

I posted a link earlier this evening to a study investigating the link between life's origins and deep sea vents. Speculation does serve its purpose. To be fruitful, it needs to disregard things that are outside the scope of what is considered within the bounds of reason. In the link provided, prior to establishing a criteria that could be evaluated objectively, these scientists moved forward on a speculation. They identified what, if their speculation were true, conditions might need to be satisfied. Data was collected to evaluate. While the data undermined the original thesis, it still provided an unexpected insight to further work with.

Edited April 10, 2014 by dream_weaver

[Eiuol]

 

My question - and it is to hopefully spark some insightful responses and not just cliché answers - is what make irrationality possible in the first place?  What neurological component allows humans to be uniquely irrational?  Why did it develop?  Evolution does NOT weed it out, since we all inherit the capacity to be irrational.  And why do we not consider the behavior of other animals as irrational?  Is irrationality a necessary offshoot of volition?  Is volition only made possible BY the capacity to be irrational?

All creatures follow some method of survival, that's what it means to be alive. Mental representation probably rose from perception, in the sense it is a more complex and often a richer way to see the world in terms of information available. And of course, it's pretty easy to note that richer information gives survival advantage for food searching and navigation, not even a physical survival advantage from predators. A lot of study has been done on animal cognition, which easily demonstrates how mental calculations serve a significant survival value. At the same time, there's isn't a lot of methods they are able to use due to the limits of neurology and what their brain is able to calculate. Such limitations are how their methods of thought were discovered - it's easy enough to see them make certain errors all the time, so you create those scenarios to manipulate errors. One good book on this is Organization of Learning.

Human thinking ability is a further development of all that development, I'd argue it is an evolution of cognitive ability. I actually wouldn't say animals are irrational, just a-rational. Rational in my mind refers to the degree that humans have greater cognitive power, computational power, and a conceptual system of thought. But with greater computational power comes more ways to make an error. Furthermore, a conceptual system seems to depend on an active volitional process that is deliberative. That is, many ways of thinking in people requires concepts, so they have to create those concepts. Even people who argue for innate concepts wouldn't say calculus is an innate concept. Of course, as you well know, concepts may be made in such a way that they help nothing at all. Why though wouldn't these worse ways of thinking lead people to die off through evolution?

I suspect that rationality or cognitive ability is less related to reproduction as cognitive ability grows. Being able to do calculus or geometry may help with understanding the world, but not so much with having offspring. In a sense, you can get so complex that being rational or not is neglible to species survival. Then again, extreme irrationality leads to an "extinction" and mass death. See suicide cults as a good example. But irrationality to the degree of say, second-handedness, I'd say would barely affect human reproduction. Bad thinking would not help survival, but good thinking must be taught, and accordingly, bad thinking can be taught at any point in history.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Eiuol

[Harrison Danneskjold]

And why do we not consider the behavior of other animals as irrational?

Because they cannot control their own cognitive processes (as far as can presently be surmised).

  

Is volition only made possible BY the capacity to be irrational?

Yes.  And while natural selection does not 'weed out' volition, it does select against irrationality, as such.

 

While the discussion is an interesting topic, why questions imply intent, yes? "Why did evolution.." And similar phrases muddy the waters , at least for me it becomes like an ear worm that must be silenced or forgotten before I can even get to the rest of an idea.

"Teleonomy" would be a much more precise concept for evolutionary purposes.

Whereas "teleology" refers to purposeful and conceptual action, "teleonomy" is the technical word for the self-initiated and self-sustained action which characterizes every biological entity.

 

Computers serve a teleological "purpose"; eyes serve a teleonomical "purpose" in their effects on survival and reproduction.

 

Irrationality is not inevitable, but the rational are mostly peaceful. The irrational can only maintain themselves through force. Force can make an evolutionary advantage, reaping the surplus capacity of the rational and productive.

War; what is it good for?

 

To the extent that violence can allow the irrational to perpetuate themselves by the labor of the rational, wouldn't it amount to parasitism?

 

And in that vein of thought, just as a variety of biological parasites have evolved anesthetic or paralytic agents in order to exploit their hosts, I think the sanction of the victim would play a crucial role in such a relationship.  Admittedly, the vast majority of rational populations historically have sanctioned their own parasites, but those which did not (the American Revolution comes to mind) seemed to give their oppressors much more trouble than numbers or weaponry could ever account for.

 

So if irrational people survive parasitically then irrational philosophies would be their conceptual paralytic, which deadens the hosts' sense of justice.  If so then Immanuel Kant would signify the mutation of a newer and more virulent strain of irrationality.

But at that point I'm verging on memetics.

 

Has myth-making had an evolutionary advantage?

This is a particularly fascinating question.

I have never considered it before but what role do you suppose art has played in the development of the human species?

 

The Law of Surplus Capacity (that creatures must be capable of producing more than they need for survival) enters this topic in that it makes irrationality possible. People (and all animals) may be very destructive as long as they produce as much as they need. If a group of people are productive, then someone may design to take that surplus. Is it rational to design to take the surplus of others? You may treat others as productive cattle as long as you do not kill the herd. However rational, this is evil.

Well, if so, then the logical action for the hosts to take is to produce as close to the bare minimum as they absolutely can, so that the irrational will starve and cease to be an impediment.

 

To. . .  Stop the motor of the world? 

 

So if there is another rebirth of reason within my lifetime (I'm optimistic) it will doubtlessly be driven, to a large extent, by people who were inspired by Atlas Shrugged.

People who were vaccinated by Ayn Rand, against unearned guilt, through the intellectual transfusions of her artwork.

 

And now we're back to the evolutionary role of art!

Edited April 11, 2014 by Harrison Danneskjold

[muhuk]

Yes.  And while natural selection does not 'weed out' volition, it does select against irrationality, as such.

 

This random chart I pulled out of the intertubes makes it very hard for me take this claim seriously. If natural selection prefers rationality, how come we end up with ~90% of the population being religious?

 

(Original link: http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/regional-geography-of-the-world-globalization-people-and-places/s04-03-population-and-culture.html)

[dream_weaver]

Most people recognize that they must eat to continue to live . (Those that do not demonstrate what happens to them for those of us that do.) Most people recognize that stepping off the of the edge of the grand canyon is not a good idea. (Again, those that do not demonstrate what happens to them for those of us that do.) This is the rational element within them that prevents them from being weeded out of the gene pool on notice of a moment or so.  

 

Religion's irrationality is not as fast acting as the act of abstaining from eating or by stepping off the edge of a precipice.

 

While Miss Rand points out that faith is a short-circuit that destroys the mind, the time frame over which this occurs is not specified.

 

Natural selection only allows those that are still within the gene-pool to propagate to do so.

[muhuk]

Natural selection better hurry up. They're multiplying fast.

 

 

(Source: http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2010/02/how-come-intelligence-religion-and.html)

Edited April 11, 2014 by muhuk

[dream_weaver]

Try to separate the man-made from the metaphysical in that. After all, natural selection is always on schedule.

[Eiuol]

Natural selection better hurry up. They're multiplying fast.

I don't know what point you're trying to make. My post tries to explain why natural selection doesn't really involve intelligence, at least for animals complex as humans.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

This random chart I pulled out of the intertubes makes it very hard for me take this claim seriously. If natural selection prefers rationality, how come we end up with ~90% of the population being religious?

Because you're only looking at the circumstances of this moment.  "Natural selection" refers to a causal relation and causality logically depends on the passage of time.  You are dropping that context.

 

If I picked up a rock and took a picture of it, at the very instant I released it, I could show you that image and ask you what happened to the law of gravity.  Shouldn't rocks fall when you drop them?

The underlying error would be identical to the one in your statement.

. . . . .

 

Wasn't Socrates executed for openly advocating atheism, once?

See if you can find some estimates of the percentage of atheists, throughout the course of history; I think they'll support my assertions.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Natural selection better hurry up. They're multiplying fast.

There are several errors in the article you linked to, of which I will indicate only one.

It is true that societies whose dominant philosophy is irrational (particularly deontological) have significantly higher birth rates than those which are comparatively rational.  And this makes perfect sense; every philosophy I am aware of, which revolves around various "duties" and "commandments" (which includes every major religion), in some way includes a "duty" to procreate.

So the correlation between religious fanaticism and fertility most certainly exists.  But that correlation does not contradict the evolutionary advantage of reason, for two reasons.

1. Irrational parents do not necessarily create irrational children, and almost everyone on this forum is living proof of that.
2. Birth rates are meaningless without infant mortality rates.  I suspect that the correlation between religious fanaticism and fertility will also correlate rather perfectly with infant mortality.

So what you have implied, while based on sound evidence, draws a false conclusion from it (again, through context-dropping).

. . . . .

 

The world today is painfully far from perfect, and at times may seem irredeemable, but always remember that mankind is still in its infancy.  On an evolutionary scale, we are still essentially newborns.

And if one considers the full context involved (the sum of recorded history, here) it indicates a clear pattern.

No; we are nowhere even remotely near truly living as human beings. . .  But we are moving in that direction.

 

Reason will prevail.  The dead ideas of dead men can only hold so many children hostage.

Edited April 12, 2014 by Harrison Danneskjold

[New Buddha]

lol

"Irrational parents do not necessarily create irrational children, and almost everyone on this forum is living proof of that."

 

+1