Humans are irrational. Discuss.
When I said this in my last post I was not implying that I was rational and the rest of the world was not. That would be a very arrogant statement, and it would need a healthy chunk of ideology, the very thing the post was pointing too as the main destructive culprit in the Israeli/Arab dispute itself and our perceptions of it.
Of course I am irrational. The starting point for all our beliefs is not logical reason, we are not computers, we are brilliant but flawed creatures floating aboard a rock in eternity. Our starting point is our feelings and culture that we are born in. Its very hard for any of us whatever our cognitive skills or otherwise to open those beliefs up to scrutiny and let facts, logic and trial and error shape our world view. People are often personally offended when they are confronted with such evidence to contradict those views deeply and personally held.
My irrationality is legendary. I support a perpetual under achieving football club, most people do. I love sport, nothing much rational about sport is there? I believe in God, not the bloke with the beard sitting the afterlife, but a God of the rules. All I can point to in this belief is a logical statement by one of the greatest Mathematicians of all time *Kurt Godel, even his statement goes beyond what I can think could be *God.
I think what we have to do is try to divide stuff that is important, such as Poverty, Security ect, Against stuff that is not important, like the love of average football clubs. the former its important to try to aim for Objective Truth, the later you can take a chance with.
So what Is this thing called "truth"?. If seems our Universities have given up on it and are teaching the next generation that truth is just a matter of perspective, this is called "Post Modernism" I think this is one of the most destructive ideas in our culture, I will go further its Poison.
Our Society runs pretty much on a trial and error basis, our success and the Wests has been built on being able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and if not embrace change, to be able to ride its wave without falling off. We have been teaching whole generations since the Sixties in humanities and now creeping into the Hard Sciences that we can ignore our failings, they don't matter, what matters is how we feel about it, how we perceive it. Thus we get worked up about things like relative poverty and being poorer than Richard Branson, more so than family breakdowns, changes in family dynamics and issues such as mental illness that are real features of Poverty. Progress demands we identify and correct error.
The truth is hard, it takes time. Its a bit like trying to take a photo of the inside of a Train carriage as it fly's past you at 150 miles an hour at a level crossing. Its possible, but the results are often a disappointing. It takes a lot of technical skill and bags of time consuming deduction to work out what was happening in the carriage as it went by. This for all our sakes cannot be undertaken without Reason and Logic, the very thing that comes second on our tools of thinking list.
"Truth is" whatever is the case. Switch off the emotion when its important please.
*More on Godel here
*An Absolutely brilliant Documentary on Mathematics and God.
