Pursuing praxis

A follow-up to a previous post on the apparent biological basis of logicality. Specifically, I said:

> As in, whatever the contents of your mind, your feelings and actions
> flow logically and consistently from them.

Let me clarify a little:

It’s all in how you look at the word logical, and contrast it with the word rational. See, all the irrational actions of people the world over are highly logical:

1) It’s exceedingly hard to do things contrary to one’s most deeply held principles (feelings get in the way; feelings are kind of a speedy comparison of a situation to one’s principles; the rough description: good feelings = go, bad feelings = don’t go), and it’s really really easy to do things that are in alignment with one’s most deeply held principles.

2) Many people have never stopped to ask what their most deeply held principles are, although they have absorbed them (whatever mongrel principles they may be) over the course of their life, from all the ready sources: family, friends, culture, media, etc etc.

3) Becase we can, with work, identify our base principles, and because people have the power to change many aspects of themselves, it follows that with (considerable) work, people can identify and change their base principles. A change in principle thus results in a change in feelings regarding a given situation, and a change of easiest-behavior.

Now, it is true that people can do things that are hard, and exercise their "will" in apparent contrast to their apparent values, i.e. people don’t always take the easiest route. (Here I would actually argue that this is far rarer than it would seem; you’re usually swapping values, so that your new action is contrary to an old value, but consistent with a new value; I’m not even sure if complete arbitrariness is even possible, but that’s another discussion). But you’ll never convince me that the millions and billions of people doing stupid, irrational, hostile, violent things with considerable moral, emotional, and physical consequences are ALL working AGAINST deep principles that are diametrically opposed to those stupid actions. I would actually argue that most people act consistently with their values, such as they are (and the are usually not good - they are often contradictory and prevent having a healthy, active mind). In this consistency, people can be said to be behaving logically, i.e. given a set of principles, what actions flow logically from them? Answer: the muck that you typically see from people. People, by and large, behave logically.

But that doesn’t make them rational. I think rational is a broader term with higher standards. Logic is just a computer - you get out what you put into it. Many people are irrational because the starting points of their logical actions (i.e. their principles) are flawed, contradictory, and inconsistent. If you start with principles that are incompatible with happiness, you can never be fully happy, although you may achieve a modicum of happiness cobbled together from unrelated consequences. If you start with principles that are not logically compatible with each other (i.e. are contradictory with one another, partially or completely, on one or more levels) you will never be able to lead a fully rational, integrated life; some aspects of your life will always clash.

Hence the widespread compartmentalization of people’s minds. Rather than address the root issue, it’s often easier to just try to prevent communication between different parts of your life, thereby reducing the frequency of shitty conflicts, conundrums, and dilemmas you experience (religion and science as separate epistemological compartments are exceedingly common, including for many professors, like my advisor).

But it does nothing to address the root problem, and if the shit hits the fan, you have no recourse to action except to complain that life is full of shitty conflicts, that life isn’t fair, that people aren’t meant to be happy, that death and taxes are the only sure thing, that life isn’t logical, and that rationality is overrated at best, false at worst. Of course, life is logical, it’s just that what we give it is crap to start with, oftentimes.

The alternative is, of course, to explicitly identify and evaluate your most basic values and principles - the axioms of your life, the things you won’t (can’t) ever betray or refute or contradict or hide from. This is really hard, but for motivated long-term thinkers, the payoff is so obvious and so extraordinary that the initial energy expenditure is dwarfed by comparison. Hence the on-going revision of my life. The revision pays dividends en route, of course, which makes things easier, and I expect it to be, more or less, a life-long journey for me. Even if someone told me I’d never achieve complete consistency at the end of my very long life, I’d still say it was worth it. Seeing how emotionally tortured, twisted, and mangled many people are - and they only barely realize it, and yet it governs their life like the most totalitarian of dictators - makes the decision virtually automatic for me. The alternative is so awful, that NOT climbing Mt. Everest is simply not an option.

Is the logicality of the human mind more obvious, now? The mind being a suped-up computer, of sorts, I think it makes sense. GIGO - garbage in, garbage out; or, gold in, gold out. Rationality is not assured, even in logically-operating minds - it must be chosen, and it is (logically) the option with the highest rewards. And it is the best way to operate, on all levels, given a certain set of goals that I think most people would consider desireable (happiness, health, security, success, achievement, preparedness, etc.)