TL;DR: I wish to posit a tweak to rationalism that respects the importance of reason while relieving some of the massive individual burden of information processing and probabilistic risk management. This tweak is "rationality permeated with a feeling for rightness" (this "feeling for rightness" will be explained). The feeling for rightness is an aesthetic intuition that adds a new dimension to each thought, so thinking then happens in two dimensions: "is this thought rational in the current context" and "how does this thought feel". The feeling for rightness can serve as a pruning function for the billions of valid thoughts one can produce in an argument or decision making process (the billions of possible paths that can often lead the sincere and thorough rationalist who wants to make the right decision into a vortex of insanity).

Art, rationality, and the "feeling" for truth

Within all of us seems to be a sense for "rightness", that is closely related to art, order, and harmony. The feeling of rightness is felt when your furniture feels a little off so you make an adjustment and everything “feels right”. The feeling of rightness is when you’re drawing a circle and it looks a little oblong, then you draw another and it feels right. The feeling of rightness is felt when an instrument is perfectly tuned. It is related to harmony, order, and patterning, but goes beyond both.

It seems quite difficult to live life as a sincere rationalist. There is an endless amount of information with which to update one's priors, and the truth value of most information, especially online, is unknown.

There is also a more fundamental problem. Rationality cannot prove values. When we are reasoning probabilistically, what are we hoping to maximize? As you probably already know, one can make an argument for all kinds of answers.

And so I wish to propose a method that respects the primacy of reason while relieving the massive mental burden of information processing and probabilistic risk management, and solves the value problem.

It involves the feeling for rightness.

What is the feeling for rightness? The feeling for rightness is an inner sense for order and harmony. It is related to aesthetic intuition. The feeling of rightness is felt when your furniture feels a little off so you make adjustments until it “feels right”. The feeling of rightness is felt when an instrum...

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments

Posts

Wikitag Contributions

Comments