Arguing that theism isn't necessarily irrational - Part 5: Reason is All Well and Good, but Dude... There's a Time and Place!!

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Arguing that theism isn't necessarily irrational - Part 5: Reason is All Well and Good, but Dude... There's a Time and Place!!

Welcome to essay number 5.
The introduction to the fourth essay summarises what has come so far.
The essays have focused on the conditions for reason, so also its limits and where it is applicable to our problems of everyday life. This one attacks a certain attitude to reason that many people hold, and I try to show that it is based on assumed premises of practical reason that are unjustified.

Special Note for Hamby
This topic will not really effect our debate.
These essays were written to address a wide range of concerns, and the debate between me and you on whether theism can be 'rational' (that is, using the definition of 'rational' that you use) won't really be touched on in this essay.
Our debate seems to mainly be in two issues:
A disputes over the grounds of reason and logic and dispute over what religion and faith actually is.
The former we have been debating elsewhere and the latter will be brought to issue in the next essay. In the meantime, I hope you'll find this essay interesting as it is. Smiling

Reason is All Very Well and Good, but Dude... There's a Time and Place!!
In the previous essay I pointed out that there were various forms of reasoning which wasn't always suited to being scientific. The looser, more metaphorical reasoning, that we see in theology also has its place. Now I'm going to go a step further and claim that reason in general isn't always appropiate. As I pointed out in Reason for Reason, we reason for a reason, and for some situations reasoning just isn't appropiate. Sometimes it's a matter of practicality, that reason can find an answer but the moment demands a different approach. In some cases reason will only confuse things, and in those situations we have to step back, stop trying to consciously think and let our brain work its magic in producing what we call insight and intuition.
This essay is anything but anti-reason, it will be making full use of reason.
It's just that when we've had some successes with reason, we might make the leap to thinking that we should always use reason, which is ironic as I've yet to see such a leap be rationally justified!

But isn't putting aside reason irrational by definition?
Not really. We wouldn't call someone irrational for telling a joke or for relying on their instincts to dodge a ball rather than mathematically work out the trajectory of the ball. We only call someone irrational if they're trying to do something that ought to be using reason.
At the end of the day it's a question of practicality - is reason the right tool for the job at hand?
So far this has been fairly uncontroversial - we obviously don't use reason for jokes or in the heat of a sports game. My controversial claim is that reason isn't always the best path to truth. I don't merely mean situations where you don't have time to think things through rationally so you're forced to make your best guess, I'm saying that some questions are better answered without reason altogether. Reason, as a tool, just isn't cut out to face certain problems.

Reason requires its foundations to be in place.
It works with a conceptualisation that we already have.
This means that if we are approching a new subject where we haven't fully grasped the concepts, reason cannot even get off the ground. Attempts to reason will force us to make interpretations of the new concepts, based on our other concepts, rather than allowing us to grasp them naturally as they really are. Trying to reason too soon, before we've properly grasped the concepts involved, it forces us to invent makeshift concepts to stand in.
Rationalists have a history of over-simplifying concepts, trying to package them into tighter definitions which make them nicer for the philosopher to deal with, but also disconnects the concept from its true nature, and that means that any answers we get will also be similarly disconnected.

New ideas need time to grow and mature before we can put them through the process of reason. Trying to apply reason too early on can only kill the creative process.
Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying that we shouldn't attempt to reason out new ideas, after all, attempting to reason can be a good way of getting to know the subject at hand and this will improve the understanding. What we must avoid is making expectations or demands on a subject that it must be ammenable to reason. To do so is to make the assumption that everything knowing is within our conscious grasp. Should we really limit ourselves to just our conscious thought?

The role of intuition
Reason is linguistic thinking where we consciously work through problems with an inner dialogue.
Intuition is what we call knowledge when we don't consciously know where it came from.
One example is our wits, our instant reactions to a situation.
Dodging a ball, giving a snappy reply to an unexpected question, these are examples of having a quick wit. They are short snappy answers, that aren't as carefully thoughts through as reasoned thoughts, but are there for 'blink and you miss it' situations where a reasoned answer would just be too slow.
Another example is insight.
This is much slower than reason, and much, much slower than wit.
Wit sacrificed care and accuracy for speed. What advantage does wisdom have? Wisdom is one of the slower functions of the mind. It analyses all the empirical data we receive, a bulk too large for our conscious reasoning to manage, and with innumerous calculations it picks up on patterns too subtle for our conscious reasoning to pick up. It gives us an insight that would just wouldn't be able to obtain with conscious reasoning.
Not to mention that it is free from the weaknesses of reason pointed out in the previous paragraph.

That's not that intuition is without its flaws.
As we don't know the steps involved in its method, it is therefore open to making fallacies, taking correlations to mean more than they do. Reason has famously corrected many errors that we intuitively make. Take an example:
Imagine that a length of rope was tied around the Earth, just enough to give a tight fit around its diameter. Now imagine 2 metres was added to the rope, making the fit that little bit looser. How large would the gap be under the rope? Barely any? Enough to slide a coin under? Enough to crawl under?
What does your intuition tell you?

Highlight the text to see the answer:
Mathematically, the circumference of a circle/sphere is 2 x Pi x r.
So C + 2m = 2 x Pi x (r + gap)
So the gap = (C + 2m)/(2 x Pi) - r
= ((2 x Pi)(r)+2m)/(2 x Pi) - r
= r + 1m/Pi - r
= 1/Pi m
Which is roughly 33cm - easily enough to crawl under!

Did your intuition guess correctly? Mine certainly didn't!

Both reason and intuition have their strengths and weaknesses.
Sometimes our intuition will mislead us and it will take a rational analysis to clear things up.
Other times our reason will be based on misconceptions, will lead to stale conclusions, and we need to await new insight from our intuition in order to get a fresh look and re-evaluate our initial assumptions.
There's no fixed method on which one to choose.
A good rule of thumb is to roll with one until it experiences problems.
We tend to know when our intuition needs looking at when it bring us two contradictory beliefs, a dilemna that we must solve through reason. Reason, while we should expect some results to be counter intuitive, can come to conclusions so far removed from our experience of the world that it suggests something has gone wrong.
The best bet is to be open to solutions from both ends - after all, if we try the best of all worlds then surely we'll get the best results!

The psychological effect of too much reason
They say that you can have too much of a good thing.
Whatever you do, if you focus too much on it then there will be a lot you miss out on. Reason is no exception. When we put ourselves in the mindset of being rational we are putting on a certain kind of thought process. Obviously, different thought processes give different results, but there's more to it than that. There's also a psychological effect that can affect our very approach to situations and even our outlook to life.
Our modern emphasis on conscious thought has made us lose confidence in our unconscious abilities. Back when we were kids were able to just 'do' things. Now, unless we have a linguistic monologue thinking things through, we tend to consider ourselves out of control and would account any good we do to pure luck. This leads many of us to discard important information that our intuition gives us.

This isn't just a case of mishandling information. Our linguistic modes of thought tend to be associated with certain attitude. It's an attitude that doesn't like uncertainty and is impatient to get answers, an attitude that narrowly focuses on getting the answer rather than pondering the bigger picture behind it, an attitude that demands hard work and effort rather than letting the mind drift playfully. It's encourages to disconnect from our feelings rather than to flow with them. There's nothing wrong with this - it's what makes it good at being what it is, but we can already see how it's a state of mind that we can want to leave behind for certain issues. We certainly don't want to get into the mental habit of depending on it for everything we do.

This is why many people out there feel reason to be something to break free from. Not that reason is a problem - using reason to dismantle a false belief or solve a dilemna is quite a liberating experience. It's just when people make demands that we should be thinking things through rationally, it's just adding another 'should' to the tyrrany. We start to lose confidence in our non-linguistic thought and find it harder to just 'do' or just 'be', without having to have a rational explanation why.
Clearly there are things in life where such 'shoulds' are necessary.
When important consequences depend on our accuracy, this state of mind is the best to ensure that minimal mistakes are made. Is our personal worldview such a subject?
When someone wants freedom from reason, it's not reason they want freeing from so much as the demands that are made on them to use it, even when it doesn't feel right. Such demands might be so off-putting that they might come to undervalue reason altogether, even when it is appropiate...

To conclude:
Reason is the way to settle a dispute or dilemna in our search for truth.
So if someone wishes to debate with us then it's clear that they should use reason. However, some people go further and demand justification of beliefs from people who weren't looking for debate. Can this demand be justified?
You are demanding that they work with a conceptualisation that they probably haven't fully develloped, and even if they have, if it's not a conceptualisation that you're familiar with then you're probably demanding that they explain it in terms of one you are familiar with. It's like a blind man demanding that you justify your statement that the duck is yellow!

You're demanding that they put ideas that haven't fully flowered to a strict test that it just isn't ready for yet, and may never be. What's more, you're demanding that they use a state of mind that is completely unsuitable for how they are trying to live. Not to mention the fact you're ignoring that our intuition is generally very reliable, even if it does mislead us from time to time.
Reason, when used appropiately, is a therapeutic tool that can liberate us from confusions.
Reason, when demanded, is a 'should' which is as tyranical as the rest of them. Which image of reason would you rather promote?


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I actually... agree with

edit: decided not to say anything.

 

Edited again: I just said that I pretty much agreed with everything, and then provided a pretty lame example to support my opinion.   I decided that it was better for your essay to stand on its own rather than having people respond to my rather weak support.  I had a few good metaphores (IMO) in a different thread, but I will reserve those until someone decides to respond to this thread.


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Meh! Even if it had been a

Meh! Even if it had been a criticism then I'd've been glad to have heard it! Smiling


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Strafio this is not what I

Strafio this is not what I anticipated as your conclusion, I'm surprised in two way's, the conclusion itself, and how weak it is after such a strong start, if one bypasses organized theism which you have, and then take an homeopathic approach to all knowledge, then you don't only water down reason enough to justify theism generally, one also water's down everything else to a virtual nonexistence to make this justification fit, it's an approach most people would reject as nonsensical


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Rev_Devilin wrote: Strafio

Rev_Devilin wrote:
Strafio this is not what I anticipated as your conclusion,

um... dude.  This isn't his conclusion.  There is one more essay, and it is already posted.

Quote:
I'm surprised in two way's, the conclusion itself, and how weak it is after such a strong start, if one bypasses organized theism which you have, and then take an homeopathic approach to all knowledge, then you don't only water down reason enough to justify theism generally,

There is no watering down that I can see.  Reason has to be, by definition, some kind of process of thought (otherwise there really isn't any reason to call it Reason!).  Are you saying that sometimes it is not beneficial to do things without thinking about them?  Strafio provided several instances where it is benefial not to "think" or not to "reason" or not to "use logic" to try and analyze something.  For instance, instinct is used when speed is more impotant than exactness. 

If you could point out at what point he watered down the definition of "reason" then you would actually have an argument here.  Until you point that out, I don't even see how anyone can argue with you.  You are just saying "He watered it down!" without giving any examples.  Please provide examples so that when Strafio sees this, he can provide a response. 

 

Quote:
one also water's down everything else to a virtual nonexistence to make this justification fit, it's an approach most people would reject as nonsensical

This is not a worthy response.  You should clarify your thoughts, provide some examples to counter Strafio's definition of reason.  Not provide some ridiculous reducto ad absurdium argument: "if you say it is rational to sometimes not use reason, then you would have to never think again!!!!"  This argument is clearly not what Strafio was talking about, so you should clarify what you are talking about.


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RationalDeist

RationalDeist wrote:

 

um... dude. This isn't his conclusion. There is one more essay, and it is already posted.

Hi RationalDeist To conclude: is written near the bottom of the essay, it's highlighted you read all the word's at the top make your way downwards slowly reading carefully, then just before the end Strafio concludes this essay with a conclusion, thus To conclude, ? would you like me to clarify this for you further

RationalDeist wrote:

There is no watering down that I can see. Reason has to be, by definition, some kind of process of thought (otherwise there really isn't any reason to call it Reason!). Are you saying that sometimes it is not beneficial to do things without thinking about them? Strafio provided several instances where it is benefial not to "think" or not to "reason" or not to "use logic" to try and analyze something. For instance, instinct is used when speed is more impotant than exactness.

Instinct, I live in England, there are no indigenous dangerous snakes or spiders, lots of people have an irrational fear of these creatures, sometimes this irrational fear becomes debilitating and this debilitating behavior needs to be treated to allow an individual to live a normal life, although Instinct or evolved behavior can be useful in avoiding dangerous creatures jumping out of the way of elephants an so on, if one lives in the country were such creatures can kill you, but it can also be debilitating depending upon one's circumstances or geographical location, but I believe Strafio was leaning more towards intuition in this essay, although one could argue theism is an involved behavior I don't think Strafio has taken this line in this essay

RationalDeist wrote:

If you could point out at what point he watered down the definition of "reason" then you would actually have an argument here. Until you point that out, I don't even see how anyone can argue with you. You are just saying "He watered it down!" without giving any examples. Please provide examples so that when Strafio sees this, he can provide a response.


This is not a worthy response. You should clarify your thoughts, provide some examples to counter Strafio's definition of reason. Not provide some ridiculous reducto ad absurdium argument: "if you say it is rational to sometimes not use reason, then you would have to never think again!!!!" This argument is clearly not what Strafio was talking about, so you should clarify what you are talking about.

Strafio's essay focuses on the intuitive nature of thinking in an individual, and how reason can be tyranical, but as I said " if one bypasses organized theism which you have" then one ends up looking at a individual rather than a society, we are social creatures are we not separating an individual from a society is quite implausible ideas especially intuitive ideas spread like viruses, in Africa there is an intuitive idea that sex with a Virgin will cure aids, ? can you see where I'm going with this


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That 'to conclude' bit at

That 'to conclude' bit at the end was perhaps a bit misleading.
Rational Deist was right that it was to conclude this particular essay rather than the entire series. And you're right, this doesn't so much defend theism so much as a person's right to trust their judgement, even if they haven't worked out a comprehensive rational argument to back it.

If you're interested in my defense of religion in general, see Essay 6. I think that one has the topic that you were looking for.
It doesn't put the entire defense together but it takes a new look at religion which would show how it could be rational in it's own right.


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Rev_Devilin

Rev_Devilin wrote:
Strafio's essay focuses on the intuitive nature of thinking in an individual, and how reason can be tyranical,

you have been consistently wrong as to what Strafio's essays are going to focus on.  First you thought that he was going to use Godel's to make some kind of out there logical deduction, now you think he is using intuition?  Intuition played no further role in this essay or this argument except to point out something else (along with a whole number of things) which are sometimes more useful than reason in certain situation or at certain times.  His argument is not going to focus on the "use of intuition."

 

Quote:
but as I said " if one bypasses organized theism which you have" then one ends up looking at a individual rather than a society, we are social creatures are we not separating an individual from a society is quite implausible ideas especially intuitive ideas spread like viruses, in Africa there is an intuitive idea that sex with a Virgin will cure aids, ? can you see where I'm going with this

I don't see how this applies at all with anything that Strafio said.  All he said is that there are times where reason is not enough to find the answer we need.  Sometimes we require wisdom, instinct, intuition, or reason.  Sometimes we require a combination of these things.  I think is both our opnion (contradict me if I am wrong Strafio) that it is a very good idea to attempt to subject our instint and intuition to reason upon reaching any conclusions--but this does not negate their usefullness, or the fact that we simply do not have the processing power (in our brains) to think about everything that these processes fulfill in our lives. 


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Strafio, I had read the

Strafio, I had read the concluding essay no 6, you kinder lost me at the read these book's bit, the rest seemed like, well it's a nice comfort blanket for the poor thing's, but it's so long it kind-of saps your will-to live by the time you've reached the end, if you manage to cut the entire thing down to one small essay all 6 into 1, I'm sure you could provoke some more interest, slowly trolling through 6 essays containing approximately 2000 word's each, well the very idea of commenting or pointing out the controversial parts in such a massive work might put most people off,


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Rational Deist, take it easy

Rational Deist, take it easy man.
The guy's not out to get me or anything! Eye-wink

Rev, if I could cut the essentials down into one essay then that would be ideal. Not sure if I can reduce it all to that though, atleast not yet anyway.
The books I recommend aren't essential, they're just an example of Christian theology that stays true to the Bible without having to take it all literally.

Anyway, the point of the 6th essay was to show what I thought religion really was. It was kind of controversial in a way but I think that my 'picture' of religion matched the behaviour of religious folk much better than the picture than the religious folk themselves give.
I thought that it was more than a mere comfort blanket. I thought it showed genuine insight to religiousness, vindicating it somewhat.

Anyway, it's cool that you read through all of them.
I don't think that even Hamby lasted this long! Laughing out loud
There was a 7th planned, one that summarises and concludes the series. I might go on with that or not.
At the end of the day, I didn't expect anyone to be instant converts to my way of thinking. The kind of ideas that I'm putting forward aren't ones that you instantly 'get' so much as they gradually dawn on you over time. I like to think that I've sown the idea in certain minds, and that as they gradually mull it over (possibly subconsciously!!!) it will gradually make sense to them until they find that they naturally agree...

Or maybe not, lol! Laughing out loud


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Rev_Devilin wrote: Strafio,

Rev_Devilin wrote:
Strafio, I had read the concluding essay no 6, you kinder lost me at the read these book's bit, the rest seemed like, well it's a nice comfort blanket for the poor thing's, but it's so long it kind-of saps your will-to live by the time you've reached the end, if you manage to cut the entire thing down to one small essay all 6 into 1, I'm sure you could provoke some more interest, slowly trolling through 6 essays containing approximately 2000 word's each, well the very idea of commenting or pointing out the controversial parts in such a massive work might put most people off,

I tried doing that.  It was the thread titled "Rational belief in God," and all everyone could argue about was the definition of reason, and how I was stretching it too much, and how I didn't know anything about logic, and how I was just deluding myself unreasonably, etc.

I think it was necessary, in this environment, for Strafio to really establish his (or her?  I am confused) credibility with the terms and ideas we are discussing.  To get everyone up to speed, so to speak, with exactly what we are talking about.  I think s/he did an excellent job of this by splitting it into six (or seven) relatively short essays.