Rationalism thread

>>8434118
You sound like a New Atheist. Can you even define reason?

>>8434127
>You sound like a new atheist

I've actually have been an atheist, I just want to clarify my stuff.

>>8434138
So can you tell me what reason is?

>>8434149
Just a way to make a conclusion, belief, or opinion based on logic and sound judgement

Reason is a tool, a method. We should be using reason to fulfil our passions. We shouldn't replace passion with reason.

>>8434118
>It's basically promoting reason over experience to have beliefs or opinions.
I'm an egoist and thus hate this kind of rationalism in others.

It would not be rational for me to like other people being rational; I am not very good at anything, I'm ugly and poor and have a history of various problems. For me to do well in the world, other people need to be irrational whenever they like me or trust me or anything of the like. A rational woman will not share her life with me, a rational boss won't hire me, a rational friend, even, might avoid me. They need to trust their feelings over their reason when it comes to me and my wellbeing.

>>8434118
You should check-out Descartes and Spinoza.

>>8434118
Unspooked rationalism (as in applying scientific method to various problems) bases itself on experience above everything else. "Reason" is just a tool to arrange experiences in a way that allows to utilise them. Similarly, unspooked rationalism doesn't speak about ends at all, it only speaks about means. It is purely utilitarian. Read Yudkovsky, his autism might interest you.

why would anyone want to be rational?

>It's basically promoting reason over experience to have beliefs or opinions
For -what- reason? What field? Which beliefs and opinions?

I wouldn't be in favor of abortion if I didn't pity the kid who would be raised by a mother who never wanted them. While my assumption that this kid will grow up to feel worthless and will have one or another mental illness is not far-fetched and this can be said to be rational thought. reason doesn't allow for pity as an argument to say these reasons are good enough plus I have ignored many other "facts" because I happen to pity kids before the mother.

But the question is if emotions aren't good enough who decides what is good enough of an argument here? Can this decision even be rational? Is one or the other ethical paradigm inevitable? Is utilitarianism rational? If so then I want nothing to do with rationalism because no, I don't think killing 500 individuals is "worse" than killing 50 and therefore we should kill the 50. Get the fuck away from me you psycho.

But pity is not fundamentally irrational either. You can make rational arguments from pity when it's tied to rational statements, for example you could say that not acting on pity is itself bad for a variety of observable reasons

>>8434118
Of course rationalization allows humans to advance technologically, but especially with things you can't really test (i.e. humanities) you have to acknowledge that the monkey part of the human brain will occasionally wield reason like a stick to reach some irrational end.

This is the problem with atheism in the politically active class; the devotion to something inappropriate for satisfying the inner animal will necessarily lead to disaster, just like it did in the 19th and 20th centuries.