“unreasonable but rational”
Hang on, here, folks. Did they mean, perhaps, “reasonable but their premises really suck” “Rational” has to do with the relation between premises and conclusions. Paranoids are sometimes entirely rational but they are operating on really weird premises. There are two kinds of premises, factual and … er … the other kind. “If Barack Obama was born in Kenya, he shouldn’t be president; Barack Obama was born in Kenya; Barack Obama shouldn’t be President.” Is a rational argument. Here the fault is with the factual premise. “A black man should not be president; Barack Obama is black; Barack Obama shouldn’t be President.” Here the problem is with the … um … other kind of premise. Which kinds of errors are we “elites” accused of when we say, “Trump shouldn’t be President.” Which kinds of errors are we elites accusing the Trumpers of when we they say he should. Are they irrational? Are they using the wrong factual premises? Or are they using wrong premises of the other kind? N N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz Sent: Monday, November 07, 2016 3:47 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump Is Just A Normal Polling Error Behind Clinton | FiveThirtyEight "I have the same existential reaction to robots brewing coffee as I do Trump being elected. It's not dread, at all. It's exciting." I guess I have less tolerance for excitement than you have. But then, living at a distance (Ecuador) from the fracus, I am somewhat insulated from the immediate effects of the election. Still, the bulk of my nest egg is in the USA, so I don't want to see the whole thing fall apart. On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 5:36 PM, glen ☣ <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: On 11/07/2016 12:59 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/on-election-eve-a-brexistential-dread.html I like this quote better: "The point is not to despair, for that is exactly the reaction that people like Trump want to induce in those who oppose him. The point is to push." During an argument (with liberals, but over beer, so it was OK) Friday night, I was describing how robots could do lots of things we simply won't do (like read and criticize journal articles to help mitigate things like this: http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/9/160384 -- or perhaps analyze 650k emails looking for classified info). I lamented the loss of menial tasks to the robots ... like grinding and brewing coffee... which is a more pleasant experience than drinking it. My liberal friends trotted out the idea that there is no rational argument for voting for Trump, to which I applied the molotov coctail argument. They both accepted that it was rational, but unreasonable. I have the same existential reaction to robots brewing coffee as I do Trump being elected. It's not dread, at all. It's exciting. I can't empathize with Trump voters any more than I can empathize with vandals, MMA fighters, or the drug addicts I sporadically bump into on city streets. But I do get excited... danger is good ... and not roller coaster "danger"... _real_ danger. It's good for the soul to find yourself in a dangerous situation and search for ways out of it. It's fun when you're forced to code switch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching) ... which I expect I'll be doing if Trump is elected. 8^) -- ☣ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
