Rationality: It doens't come with education
The pursuit of rationality, while challenging, is crucial for a balanced understanding of the world. Rational thinking is not always desirable in every situation, but its importance cannot be understated. In many discussions, particularly those involving personal flaws, rationality often gets sidelined in favor of emotional responses. Contrary to expectations, even a good education does not necessarily cultivate rational thinking, especially in today's digital age. The proliferation of echo chambers online has led to a growing tendency to view the world through an emotional lens. This emotional approach, while valuable in certain aspects of life like appreciating music or expressing love, can be limiting in our perception and understanding of reality.
Rationality seeks truth and reality, free from the distortions of emotions. When analyzing critical situations, such as geopolitical conflicts, approaching rationality rather than emotion is more likely to lead to accurate conclusions. Of course, this doesn't guarantee correctness, but it offers a better chance of reaching sound judgments. Emotions, undoubtedly, are essential and beneficial in many aspects of life. However, they have their time and place. Just as we wouldn't use a sword to cut an apple, even though it's possible, similarly, emotional and rational approaches should be applied appropriately to different situations.
Rational thinking is not just about understanding the world; it's also about coping with life's challenges. Without the ability to separate logic from emotion, adversities can feel overwhelmingly burdensome. Rationality guides us closer to truth and helps us accept and make peace with the realities of life. This is evident in situations like post-breakup scenarios, where emotional turmoil often persists until rational introspection and realization occur. Rationality, thus, serves as a tool to navigate through life's miseries and pains, offering clarity and peace amidst emotional chaos.
But here lies seemingly the biggest problem with rationality, people thinking that they are already rational because they are educated. Let me say this in the humblest way possible, most are not, they are not even close to being rational. If anyone assumes that they are rational because they are educated, that is the biggest misconception a person can have.
Let me make my case as to why people think they are rational but they really are not. And then later on explain, how to go on about building rationality, and what the process looks like. Now I understand that some of us might not like what I say and I might have reached the wrong conclusion myself. That doesn't mean we can't take an honest approach and try to go on an intellectual journey together, wandering through the depths of our minds.
The biological aspect
If any of you have read about evolution or thought about it, ask yourself what is the primary goal of evolution? Is it to show us the truth or protect our body and spend as little energy as possible in doing so. Evolution doesn't bother with truth or perception of truth, it only bothers with things that help us to survive in bad situations. So if we think that humans have evolved to see truth and rationality, that's definitely not the case. Now to my second point, how many times have we struggled to wake up early in the morning, study for an upcoming exam, or let go of things we desire, isn't it because our mind finds it really hard to do these. The natural operation state of mind is to save as much energy as possible, It always shies away from changing and breaking the old neuronal connections and forms new ones. Why? you may ask, because this process uses a lot of energy and our brain wants to preserve as much energy as possible. The only way our brain will think otherwise is if somehow we can find a good reason why our brain should spend that extra energy to create new neural pathways. In short, the brain thinks in a way that is comfortable and that's usually our year-old habits, which are by no means rational. Rationality is not a habit, but it is a process that needs engagement every time we come across new information.
A few more things, it is important to know that we need all these pathways and our year-old habits, otherwise, our mind will go crazy, if it has to think about everything from scratch. You want to see this in action, how easy is it to brush our teeth every day, but not study, that's what we call limbic friction, our body doesn't feel lethargic when doing things that are in our daily routine. So, anyone who believes that they don't judge people, that's impossible for your brain to do so. This is your brain trying to convince you of this fallacy so it can save its energy. Quoting one of my friends, "The problem is not in judging people or situations, but it is in reaching the wrong conclusions". Judgment is the natural mode of our brains. We are constantly judging, from right to wrong, dangerous to safe, and most importantly people. Every single day and every damn moment. Judging people is so common that we don't even know what it actually feels like not judging and perceiving others as just being. As far as I know, only in deep meditative states, people can reach states where they lose the concept of judgment, for them everything appears as a non-dual reality. In every other state, our mind is constantly judging, but the difference lies in the conclusions reached, which depend upon how well-read someone is and what their critical thinking quotient looks like.
So to summarize our points. rationality is unnatural, our brain wants to fall back to year-old habits because it wants to save energy (evolutionary principle). Forming new neural pathways is painful and consumes a lot of energy. Lastly, everyone is judging all the time, the difference lies in the conclusions reached.
Understanding the game of Hypotheses
Now that the biological part of rationality is over, let's shift our focus and try to analyze the situations where we are more irrational than we ought to believe. Think about this for a moment, have you ever said something along the lines of that we shouldn't judge people because everyone is different. Think deeply about why you think that and what it even means. All of us are humans, so we must share some common operating points, and we must be diverging from a baseline. When people are unable to think of these baselines, and can't find generalized patterns, they'll make such comments. Being able to see the average line of that pattern is important because then only we know what an outlier looks like. Look at the image below, yes every point is different, yet we can model all those with some curve (not linear though), and that's the point I'm making people deviate from some baseline (green one in the below graph). If someone is unable to see these baselines in a social situation, it means their mind has yet to grasp the distribution of that social situation or ideas. We are very likely to be quite irrational if we make such statements that everyone is different, we shouldn't judge them. Do you? please be honest with yourself at least.
The next common thing that can be observed quite often is how to make sense of data in general, not being able to make a correct hypothesis is one of the key reasons why people don't reach correct conclusions. Let me ask you, do you hold viewpoints that are contrary to the accepted norms? I'm positive that you do. So, have you ever asked people to prove you wrong? And if you did, sorry to say that you have fallen trap to hypothesis testing and formulation.
Technical definition: In hypothesis testing, the null hypothesis (H0) represents a default position that there is no effect or no significant difference. The alternate hypothesis (H1) challenges this position, suggesting a new effect or difference. It is the responsibility of the person proposing H1 to provide evidence against H0. Without this evidence, H0 stands.
Imagine a social situation where a person claims that a specific dietary supplement dramatically improves cognitive function (their H1). Instead of presenting scientific evidence or studies to support their claim, they challenge others to prove them wrong. This approach is flawed because it assumes the supplement's efficacy without providing proof and unfairly demands others to disprove a claim that hasn't been substantiated in the first place. In a rational setting, the person should first present evidence supporting the supplement's efficacy. If they cannot, the default position (akin to H0, which would be the stance that the supplement does not have the claimed effect) remains the rational stance to hold until proven otherwise.
This flaw is common in many debates and discussions, especially on controversial topics, where claims are often made without adequate evidence, and others are asked to disprove these claims. It reflects a misunderstanding of the fundamental principle of burden of proof in both scientific and rational discourse.
I'm once again reiterating that people are really bad at interpreting data and making good hypotheses, Let me prove this with another example.
Lack of data Interpretation skills
Is it sufficient to say that a higher IQ leads to better performance in chess, considering only those who play chess? Granted, not everyone with a high IQ plays chess, but it seems all grandmasters have a very high IQ. Let's examine a graph on Men vs. Women's IQ. Before instinctively rejecting this, let's patiently ask ourselves how to read this graph and draw conclusions. If you're unsure how to interpret this, it might indicate a gap in your data interpretation skills.
These two normal distributions have an average at 100, indicating that both men and women share the same average IQ. This suggests that an average male and female possess similar levels of cognitive ability. However, this doesn't mean that all individuals are the same; the average is consistent, but the distribution varies.
The two distributions differ in the thickness of their tails, indicating variations in deviation; one extends more extremely, and the other less so (standard deviation).
Let me make my points now:
1. The range of men's IQ is broader (greater standard deviation), meaning more men are at both extremes.
2. In a sample of people with lower IQs, a majority are likely to be men. This might be an easier concept to accept, considering the stereotype of men being less intelligent than women.
3. Conversely, in a group with very high IQs, like chess players, men are likely to dominate for the same reason that there are more men with lower IQs.
You might attribute this to social conditioning, arguing that women haven't had equal opportunities in chess, among other explanations. However, the disparity in chess participation isn't necessarily related to IQ. These tests aren't chess-specific, and in modern Western societies, women have had access to education, often more so than men. Despite the increased presence of women in universities, the pattern still holds.
Notice your reaction to my second point – it was readily accepted. But questioning a belief you hold dear triggers an instantaneously defensive response, illustrating confirmation bias. It's a matter of probability; there might be exceptional female chess players who can outperform men, but statistically, their likelihood is lower. It's similar to winning a lottery: possible, but not highly probable.
If you disagree, I encourage mathematical rebuttal, not wishful thinking. By the time we reach an IQ of 150, the male-to-female ratio becomes 9:1.
Here's another conclusion: Society appears patriarchally toxic to a few individuals, but in reality, its standards have been set by violence or by highly intelligent individuals, who are predominantly men, not necessarily toxic. At the higher end of the IQ spectrum, the ratio of men to women is 9 to 1, and so for the lower end of violence and IQ. Basically, it's not toxic or anything, that was the only way it could have evolved, with really intelligent or violent people making decisions. I can make many more arguments on why society evolved the way it did, and it had nothing to do with toxicity, but with the survival of the fittest, now some might call that toxicity, that's their choice. Without the survival of the fittest approach, humanity would have perished long back. All the great ideas are a result of survival of the fittest, be it the idea of democracy or something else.
The counter-arguments
Now let me anticipate the counterarguments your mind has already come up with: You might say IQ isn't the sole measure of intelligence, there are different types of intelligence. However, this stance reflects a failure to properly test a hypothesis. If you believe the contrary, prove it with data. Blaming societal structures without considering underlying data is another rational flaw – your mind might resist information that challenges your worldview. You don't want to accept this conclusion because it makes a hole in your worldview. So, when people are unable to digest hard truths, they often say things like -this doesn't paint the whole picture. Agreed but that doesn't mean it is wrong, either accept what has been presented or provide a clearer and better picture, rather than leaving it in a state of confusion. That's pure intellectual dishonesty, this is what people do- let's leave them confused and reach no conclusion so that I can hold onto my beliefs that I'm in no position to justify. That's bad debating one-o-one, I have seen and read about it multiple times. This is such a common trope used by people who can't seem to identify the baselines, this can't be concluded, this conclusion is incomplete, I don't agree with your position, your data is biased, I don't have my fact or data to prove, but with certainty, I know that you are wrong. All of these arguments point toward an irrational mind.
Another likely counter is that science and scientists have biases. While this is true, it doesn't invalidate the data. Your mind might prefer not to draw conclusions or might default to blaming societal structures rather than analyzing the baseline data. Let me ask you this, why is there less resistance to accepting that more men have lower IQs? Because it aligns more comfortably with societal narratives. But not when I challenge your viewpoint.
Rationality involves accepting both positive and negative aspects, based on logic and data, setting aside emotions. It's about interpreting data and arguments objectively, regardless of personal preferences. Rationality is not a blame game, it happened because of this and that, it's about making sense of what is the current situation and how we ended up there. Saying that it happened just because some people are bad or toxic, is such a bad argument. It shows a complete lack of the ability to walk the diverse distribution of thoughts and want to just hold onto your beliefs as if they are eternal truths.
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