On 11/13/2013 09:05 AM, Steve Smith wrote: > The part I was trying to call/out or distinguish between my (intuitive) > use of rational and your defined (as to ?rationate? or measure > alternatives in ratio) is that in my mind, I am working with an evolving > field of possibilities, effectively continuous, rather than discrete. > That is not to say that discrete decisions don't get made along the way > (around/over/on) but that the bulk of the "rational" thought is based in > a perceptual field rather than as an N-ary fault tree.
I'd like to pursue this a bit, if the list will tolerate it. Between then and now, I came across the term "predatory economic rationalism": "The people who challenged my atheism most were drug addicts and prostitutes" http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/24/atheism-richard-dawkins-challenge-beliefs-homeless Although both Steve's concept of a continuous field versus my concept of discrete cut points don't conflict on the same basic point, a difference does fold in. Either way of looking at it avoids the overreach typically implied by the word "rational". For example, when someone responds to something with "That sounds rational", they usually mean the _result_, not the person/process who came to the result, as in the assumption that the "rational economic agent" only takes the conclusion(s) that benefit(s) themselves. To describe such a conclusion as rational is an abuse of the term. Rather, it's the process by which the conclusion was inferred that is (or is not) rational. Beyond identifying that abuse, though, the very core of the concept of "continuous" implies some sort of navigability ... you should be able to "get there from here". Of course, it's easy to add constraints or texture to the field to partition into reachable and unreachable regions, I claim the continuous field concept implies more "reachability" than the discrete graph walk. The discrete case doesn't preclude the existence of an equivalent number of states to that in the continuous case, only a different topology, with more chances for blocking paths from one state to another. I.e. it's a difference in topology, not space. Perhaps it relates to the categorization of people into those who sense lost opportunity acutely versus those who tend to think their options are more open? Or, perhaps it has something to do with whether one believes in free will? ... or perhaps the extent of the freedom in free will? -- ⇒⇐ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
