[extropy-chat] Rational thinking was Movie review- (2)

[Keith Henson]

At 08:44 PM 11/28/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>Mike Dougherty wrote:
> > On 11/28/06, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
> >> At 05:46 AM 11/28/2006 -0500, Robert wrote:
> >> Heh.  What would the rational thought that explained irrational
>thinking be
> >> worth?
> >
> > hmm... Extropian Koan...
>
>Well, as currently stated it's mundane because we often provide rational
>explanations of irrational thinking.

I claim that humans have mental mechanisms *for* irrational 
thinking.  These get turned on when the "interest" of the person and his 
genes diverge (or he has been convinced they do).

Or do you have a better explanation for suicide bombers?

>But if we're talking about rational thought *justifying the use of*
>"irrational" thinking, then we quickly encounter the powerful concept of
>rationality fundamentally bounded by limited knowledge and computational
>capacity.

This was not what I had in mind.