Re: virus: Rationality

Dave Pape (davepape@dial.pipex.com)
Wed, 26 Feb 1997 23:16:54 GMT


At 18:20 25/02/97 CT, Corey wrote:
>Alex wrote:
>>I believe I disagree that behaviour has to arise from a logical,
>>rational process for it to be `rational behaviour.' As long as it
>>conforms to the /observers'/ pre-generated expectation tolerance
>>within certain parameters, it can quite easily /be/ rational.
>
>I didn't ask about rational or irrational *behaviors*. I asked about
>rational/irrational *thinking*.

RIGHT! I think the best you ever get is "apparently rational" thinking,
because brains aren't wired up to do rational/logical thinking, and have to
learn to fake it, just like they learn to fake being able to do
ballistic-physics equations when we learn to catch things.

I reckon rational thinking is memetic in that people teach you, verbally,
rules (of thumb) for rational thinking (ie, thinking that produces
behaviours that they think are rational.

Dave Pape
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