The Rationality of Irrationality

When we say something has an evolutionary advantage it's important to ask what benefits from that advantage. I finally read the Selfish Gene where Dawkins introduces the idea of memes several decades before that meant a cat with a funny expression.

He demonstrates how an idea exists to perpetuate itself and if it can do that while killing the host it will. To paraphrase one of his examples celibacy spreads not because it helps humans evolve but because it leaves the believer with lots of time to teach it to others.

While some parasites can be useful, for that reason I wouldn't say that irrational ideas as a whole are in any way desirable. Sometimes we thrive despite evolution and not because of it.

We have relatively good tools to control bacteria and viruses now but we are still very much exposed to ideas.

Sadly, look at polls at the percentage of US who don't believe in evolution. Or the big bang. Every country/culture in the world still has their own god. Superstition will be with us for a long time.

This may be just as ignorant though. What tiny % of the population can even understand the math behind the Big Bang, or far simpler math, to dispute it even if they wanted to? People who shout "Big Bang!" are 99.9% adhering to faith as much as someone who believed the universe was created 6,000 years ago.

You don't need to verify the evidence youself, you just need to verify the method.

I remember reading an article how an academic released something like 200 peer reviewed journals (so they were reviewed) that were all entirely made up, not even real experiments haha.

Also reminds me of all of those wacky scientific theories that were believed as truth in the past but today have obviously been proven wrong. Frontal lobotomies come to mind.

There is still weight behind what John said, you can review the study / experiment, you can read the journals, you can apply your layman scientific understandings to it, but it doesn't mean you can really validate anything especially when top scientists around the world are still debating on the issue.

I guess people have two choices, scientific consensus or not.

So let's look at that method. A red shift is observed. They cannot come up with any explanation for the red shift except the Doppler Effect. There is no evidence that the Doppler Effect is the cause of the red shift -- they just take that on faith.

Well, then, if the Doppler Effect is the cause, then the universe must be expanding, and therefore had to be at a single point some time in the past.

Then they take more observations, and those observations do not fit the original theory. So they tweak the theory. They have tweaked the theory to the point that the observations require a short period at the beginning of the universe that the expansion magically jumped to faster than the speed of light, and then just as magically stopped expanding. They speak of "background radiation" from the Big Bang, but that would have passed us by the instant the universe became transparent.

Now they have more observations saying the expansion is ACCELERATING -- so they invent "dark energy", which supposedly is STRONGER the further away two objects are, unlike any other force in the universe.

And BTW, their assumptions for "dark matter" are made from observations of Doppler line broadening without compensating for the broadening caused by tightly-bound binary stars, because they have no way of determining the binary population ratio in elliptical galaxies.

Just like your example of the lower rates of violence, I think we can probably see the same thing in our modern world in relation to rationality. This trend has probably been going since the Dark Ages, but I think with the advent of the internet, we can now find information at our fingertips like never before. I think the internet is a game changer for the exchange of information and transparency in our world.

So although violent crime is going down according to the graph, I don't believe you're right saying that "they are far less common than they have been in generations." The peak may have been in 92 or 93... however, we're back to the level in the 70's... That is only one generation ago... I'm the same age as you, 31, so I would say that is only 1 generation ago. Not only that, what is interesting to me is that robbery is down, but Aggravated assault is at the same level as the late 80s... that is actual violence... Robberies are down, but that is not violence... more disturbingly it looks like rape is more common.

I like to think that I am being rational looking at the graph... please let me know how you are reading this differently.

Thanks,
Graham

I'm the same age as you, 31, so I would say that is only 1 generation ago

The scale on the Pew Graphic is somewhat deceptive because it combines multiple crimes into a single chart. Here is the murder rate per 100,000 inhabits in isolation from 1900-present, which gives a much clearer picture. Intentional homicide is back to roughly the levels of 1960~ish.

That means the last time the homicide rate was this low:

1.) My mother wasn't born, yet.
2.) I wasn't born, yet.
3.) Her grandchildren weren't born, yet.

From the perspective of the youngest members of Kennons currently in the school system, the last person to see the homicide rate this low was great-grandma as none of the rest of us had taken our first breath. I think that qualifies as "generations", plural, but that's just my personal opinion.

As for the rape statistic, I've looked at it several times over the past few years and have come to three conclusions. Rape isn't actually higher, but instead is being better reported because:

1. The penal code in the United States at the time limited rape significantly. For example, a husband was incapable of raping a woman to whom he was married as it was considered his right as part of the marriage contract to have carnal relations. Marital rape was not a crime in all 50 states until 1993. Therefore, "rape", by definition, was lower, even if it wasn't.

2. More men are raped in the United State each year than women but up until recently, rape only included forcible insertion of a male penis into a female vagina. Therefore men who were held down and sodomized by their attackers were not considered raped as it was a technical impossibility, as stupid as that sounds. As hard as it is to fathom, on a national level, men weren't included in the definition of rape until 2012 when the Obama administration revised the definition after meeting with advocates of male abuse survivors. That change hasn't even shown up in the data, yet, which will make the figures look even worse in the future even though nothing has changed; it's simply a more accurate calculation by common sense definitions.

3. There was much less likelihood of reporting rape in the past given that 1.) there was an enormous stigma against pre-marital sex, even non-consensual, and 2.) DNA collection and evidence had not yet been put to work by police so it was usually a your-word-against-mine situation where, unless there was corroborating evidence, it was hopeless. Why ruin your reputation and suffer humiliation is there was almost no chance your attacker would go to jail?

So although violent crime is going down according to the graph. ... [snip] I don't believe you're right saying that "they are far less common than they have been in generations."I'm the same age as you, 31, so I would say that is only 1 generation ago

The scale on the Pew Graphic is somewhat deceptive because it combines multiple crimes into a single chart. Here is the murder rate per 100,000 inhabits in isolation from 1900-present, which gives a much clearer picture. Intentional homicide is back to roughly the levels of 1960~ish.

That means the last time the homicide rate was this low:

1.) My mother wasn't born, yet.
2.) I wasn't born, yet.
3.) Her grandchildren weren't born, yet.

From the perspective of the youngest members of Kennons currently in the school system, the last person to see the homicide rate this low was great-grandma as none of the rest of us had taken our first breath. I think that qualifies as "generations", plural, but that's just my personal opinion.

As for the rape statistic, I've looked at it several times over the past few years and have come to three conclusions. Rape isn't actually higher, but instead is being better reported because:

1. The penal code in the United States at the time limited rape significantly. For example, a husband was incapable of raping a woman to whom he was married as it was considered his right as part of the marriage contract to have carnal relations. Marital rape was not a crime in all 50 states until 1993. Therefore, "rape", by definition, was lower, even if it wasn't.

2. More men are raped in the United State each year than women but up until recently, rape only included forcible insertion of a male penis into a female vagina. Therefore men who were held down and sodomized by their attackers were not considered raped as it was a technical impossibility, as stupid as that sounds. As hard as it is to fathom, on a national level, men weren't included in the definition of rape until 2012 when the Obama administration revised the definition after meeting with advocates of male abuse survivors. That change hasn't even shown up in the data, yet, which will make the figures look even worse in the future even though nothing has changed; it's simply a more accurate calculation by common sense definitions.

3. There was much less likelihood of reporting rape in the past given that 1.) there was an enormous stigma against pre-marital sex, even non-consensual, and 2.) DNA collection and evidence had not yet been put to work by police so it was usually a your-word-against-mine situation where, unless there was corroborating evidence, it was hopeless. Why ruin your reputation and suffer humiliation is there was almost no chance your attacker would go to jail?

your first sentence in this article, was absolutely fantastic! for me it completely
sums up rational thinking, which is the best and most healthiest way to go through life. I rewrote your words in one of my note books and
headlined it with " god gave us a brain to think with..use it!" ******
your statement is so important, that my young grandsons
need to hear it , and hear it often. thank you.

Thanks for breaking out the murder graph, the line on there is so slim you couldn't tell how it varied, as the largest change was aggravated assault as you pointed out.
It's semantics, but the "generations" definition is probably mostly due to age of having children... In 1960 my parents were 12-22 depending on the year in the decade... their grandchildren were born this year. It is nice to see the reasoning for your post though as when I read the post about being rational I was thinking you weren't being rational about it 😉 But as usual, their is reason behind your words.
Thanks!
Graham

I agree that irrational behaviors can often be more effective (I would not say rational) than rational thinking.

Our logical (conscious) thinking is only a very small part of what goes on in our brains so we are all pretty much irrational (as per the traditional definition of rationality). I do try to think logically most of the time but I'm sure I don't do a good job because I only control a small part of my cognitive processes. I guess that applies to everyone. Otherwise, how could you explain the fact that there are top scientists who believe in God.

Dawkins explains that phenomenon due to fear indoctrination at a young age which can't be unlearned.

"Some people are simply evil, and they choose evil."

That statement is not rational as it assumes we possess some supernatural agent which can override our genes and conditioning. That may indeed be true, however, it's not a testable theory.

No, because people the statement doesn't require the existence of a supernatural component. People in those categories fall into one of two camps.

1. A person could be significantly more predisposed to evil as a result of neurology (their brain is wired in a way that has murderous rages, they fantasize about killing), yet still possess the capacity for choice. It may be a much harder temptation given their particular situation but a person who has the capacity to choose, even if that choice is more difficult than his or her fellow citizens, has culpability for the consequence of his choices.

2. If someone is inherently evil and lacks the capacity for choice, we call them insane. Given they cannot meet the test, "actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea", they cannot be held accountable, but rather must be neutralized in some capacity by civilization for the safety of others.

Some are evil yet choose good. Some are evil and choose evil. Some are evil and have no choice at all. The brain, like any other internal organ, can be flawed or broken.

Yes, but the difference between all your cases is all subjective (except for extreme cases), and denies the existence of the law of cause and effect that governs everything.

If we're talking about the philosophical school of thought known as determinism as it pertains to human behavior, it sounds as if I am a believer in casual determinism and go no further, whereas you appear to be giving credence, at least implicitly, to the more constricting form known as pre-determinism.

Is that a fair assessment?

If so, reconciliation of the two viewpoints would be impossible because I think the latter requires a leap of faith in that it is based upon the inherent presumption that the entire universe is ordered, without exception, by cause-and-effect from Newtonian science. This was all the rage up until the late 19th century, with some going so far as to say a supercomputer with enough processing power could theoretically be capable of knowing all things and transcending to God itself by calculating the action and reaction of every atom, destroying the illusion of free will. However, the discoveries for what appear to be certain randomness in the universe from quantum mechanics, or whether the universe itself is a closed system or part of a larger multiverse, at least introduces a question as to whether or not all things can be the result of cause and effect; whether true randomness exists, which might have implications for free will. Some thinkers, philosophers, and scientists still maintain that these phenomena are not, in fact, random, but that we lack the sophistication or capability of determining their causal inputs given our current technological limitations. They could be right. That remain a hypothesis that has yet to be proven. Until then, I can't find it in me to be convinced that humans are merely reactionary collections of atoms playing out scripts based on what came before and the conditions to which they are subjected as a result of past events. I can't make that leap. I understand why others do but I think it's still based on faith not evidence.

No is the answer to your first question, randomness could be part of the equation.

But Quantum indeterminism implies that choices have a dash of randomness mixed in with determinism, which doesn't help the free will position, in my opinion. Choices now become a probabilistic equation (i.e., a robot with a throw of dice mixed in to create the final choice.) Does culpability change? No.

The problem with free will is it isn't even defineable (as far as I can tell) let alone testable, so it should be rejected.

Hence my term "supernatural agent" which implies something else may be going on which we don't understand.

I am a occam's razor kind of guy, there is no reason to suggest anything else is going on, so rationally I can't accept some unknown agent acting in concert with known laws.

The problem with free will is it isn't even defineable (as far as I can tell) let alone testable, so it should be rejected.

and

rationally I can't accept some unknown agent acting in concert with known laws

Isn't that simply a form of the greedy reductionist fallacy? There are plenty of abstract phenomena that fall into that category that require recognized leaps in the absence of conclusive evidence and where, refusing to believe in them, is just as irrational.

As for not being able to accept it, sure you can. You do it every day. You're doing it right now. Take, for example, consciousness itself.

1. We can't precisely define it nor is it testable.
2. We can't prove it exists for anyone other than ourselves (as Descartes so eloquently put it, "I think therefore I am"). Even if we tried by creating machines with artificial intelligence, we can't know if it truly exists or if the machine is somehow responding so naturally that it appears to have consciousness and believes itself to be conscious.
3. We can take a brain, put it under a microscope and see it.
4. We can't weigh it.
5. We can't measure it by infrared, heat, ultraviolet, or any other known mechanism.
6. We can't create relative metrics by which to compare it.

Yet, the entire idea of consciousness itself is the underpinning of civilization, including the notion of fundamental human rights. Without consciousness, which we have to take on faith that it exists and exists in others, the mere idea of war crimes or rape or any other evil simply cannot exist. Would it really matter if you caused pain if there was no one "there" feeling it? Nobody feels bad about smashing a remote controlled car, why would a human body or a puppy be different unless we understood there was something beyond the mere combination of atoms?

Given that we cannot accurately predict human outcomes or choices at presents, it takes just as much a leap of faith to say that human actions are entirely the result of causality as it does to say that there isn't an unknown agent int he form of a complex interaction of neurons that allows for truly independent choices given a particular set of variables in the same way consciousness arises. Neither have the weight of evidence on their side, which is why the still exist in the domain of philosophy rather than science. You can assert causality, but it's just as irrational, if irrational is being defined as lacking conclusive evidence. I can't, actually, dissuade you otherwise since, again, there is no evidence either way. The scientific process is about making the best educated guesses you can in light of evidence. I think the evidence indicates, like consciousness, the interaction of certain variables is leading to a sort of super-effect that we short-hand as free will; that gives the agent, in this case the brain, the ability to do more than just respond to stimuli.

I understand how society uses free will as a coping mechanism to assuage the guilt of punishing people though.

Why would there be any guilt? That assumes people believe the world is absolutely fair to everyone, all the time, and I don't think that is the case. I'd argue most people don't feel bad about executing a crazy person who they explicitly recognize has no capacity to choose. We don't do it because of our constitutional system in the United States but you'll find that only a small minority of the population has any issue with it.

For example, even if it was caused by a neurological condition that completely removed the ability to choose, a very large segment of society would have no trouble going out back and publicly killing, execution style, a repeat child rapist. Is it fair to the person they were born with that precondition, even if we could see on brain scans they had no impulse control? No. Does it matter in how society handles it? Not really. If anything, it would be an evolutionary advantage as it would lower the probability of that person reproducing and passing on that genetic condition to others.

We don't understand the details of consciouness, but we know how to measure consciousness (measuring neural activity via EEG in awake/sleep/under anesthesia conditions).

We know how to modify consciousness (via simple drugs which changes/stops/enhances the neural activity).

We know how consciousness is constructed (via executing DNA instructions using simple chemistry) there is no "quantum mechanics" steps in its construction, no multiverse universe communications, nothing happens more elaborate in its construction as compared to making muscle tissue.

It is not greedy reductionism to conclude nothing exotic is going on, there is nothing that even suggests it, it's a rational logical conclusion.

Free will is a different beast, it's existence is not definable or measurable. There is no free will test. It can't be measured (since you can't even define it).

Your last comments are disturbing on many levels, I hope that is not true, to me it's like killing a toddler.

Your last comments are disturbing on many levels, I hope that is not true! To me it's like killing a toddler who threw a rock at grandma and killed her.

Too bad we don't live in the same city. I'm having a hard time focusing at the moment due to having just finished a bunch of mentally intensive work (might play Civilization for a bit). I'd have us grab a cup of coffee, go out to the Country Club Plaza, and canvas people out of sheer curiosity. I'd bet $100 there is an 8-2 or greater ratio in favor of swift, bullet-to-the-head execution in the event of a heinous crime where guilt was beyond question, even if the person had no free will and it wasn't part of a temporary psychotic break (e.g., the person was permanently like that rather than being in a state of confusion due to a mixture of pharmaceutical drugs a doctor prescribed). And that's giving you an advantage due to the neighborhood demographics, which are less likely to support the death penalty at all.

While it might seem upsetting, this tendency to cull-the-herd when a cure is impossible seems to be part of humanity's makeup as it is highly advantageous from an evolutionary perspective. Incarcerating someone takes a huge expenditure of resources in terms of time and energy, while killing them makes it less likely they'll pass along the heritable trait that led to them being "broken" in the first place and impossible for them to ever escape and harm anyone, again, even if they can't help it.

You see this cost-benefit analysis manifest in other areas, too.

Example 1: People are willing to terminate life for all sorts of innocent reasons that are beyond the control of the person in question. Folks behave this way toward their own future children for heaven's sake. Look at what happened once the medical field began to offer in-womb testing for conditions such as down's syndrome. The child is completely innocent and can't do anything about the fact that he or she has a slightly different chromosome count. Most could live fairly normal lives; experience love; heartbreak; be a contributing member of society. Despite this, roughly 92 out of every 100 women who got a potentially positive diagnosis, which itself isn't even a sure thing, opt for termination, eschewing adoption as being too big a burden. Even those who are pro-life and would publicly decry someone who engaged in this sort of genetic selection decides, in private, the resource investment in time, emotion, money, and social connections is too great relative to the benefits of allowing the life to exist. The situation is only going to get messier, and potentially politically charged, when there are tests for things like autism.

Example 2: In what presents a very big challenge to the mental health profession, family and friends of people who are diagnosed with things like borderline personality disorder become less, not more, supportive, often giving up entirely on the person for something that is not their fault because the resource investment is too large relative to the potential benefits. Is it fair to the person who suffers the disorder to have their life destroyed? No. Are the people around them acting irrationally? Not at all.

People are constantly making trade-off decisions based on outlays versus benefits. Rational and moral are not always synonymous. In some cases, they are diametrically opposed.

Hi Joshua. As always, an interesting read -- thank you, I very much enjoy your writing. In this particular post, however, I was a little taken aback by what seemed to me to be an inconsistency in the very first sentence -- the juxtaposition of "when I adopted rationality" and the biblical reference to Saul/Acts (as well as other religious references found later in the article). I personally find religion, in general, to be a fundamentally irrational belief system. From reading other articles on the site, my understanding is that your religious beliefs are an important aspect of your life. I'm wondering if you've written anywhere (I looked, briefly, but did not find anything on the site) about how you personally reconcile your religious beliefs with what otherwise appears to be an 'evidence-based' (my preferred term for how I try to live my) life? Apologies in advance if that is too charged or personal a question for a blog discussion.

Just based off observation, I think Joshua believes more in the PRINCIPLE of his religion, rather than the literal details of the religion.

Joshua is a principle hunter. (Well, my observation)