[haliax]

I've been watching this comment thread unfold with a mixture of frustration (it's verging on flamewar) and curiosity.

As someone who is fairly steeped in the rationality-loving tradition and those ways of making sense of the world that are common in tech, I'd ask the following:

Can you or someone else on this thread point to a gentle introduction to the types of thought besides rationality that you're thinking of and how they're grounded? Is it possible for someone who accepts rationality to follow and credit these arguments without having to take any new beliefs as axiomatic?

Put another way, can rationality guide me at least part way to some of these other things?

[friendlybus]

>Can you or someone else on this thread point to a gentle introduction to the types of thought besides rationality that you're thinking of and how they're grounded? Is it possible for someone who accepts rationality to follow and credit these arguments without having to take any new beliefs as axiomatic?

This is the substance of Sam Harris's career and his debates with Peterson. It's a fundamental unknown if you can base metaphorical conversations in rationality.

Peterson will make biological/scientific arguments for religious metaphorical stories and Sam will reduce everything back to what is only groundable. Sam will then go on to argue we should only agree on the metaphors or qualia that are undeniable, burning fingers on hot stoves as a guaranteed shared experience and metaphor. If you can bridge the gap between rationality and metaphor you have found meaning (according to Peterson) or a million billion dollars if you have some business skills and world peace.

EDIT: Sorry, this was probably more fundamental than gentle..

There is a logic to metaphor. If you believe that touching the stove with your finger will give you a burning sensation and you believe that others experience roughly the same as you, you can build the metaphor that others consciously experience pain. It's not based on the objective scientific understanding of the pain chemicals in someone's consciousness, but you reasoned up from your own experience into someone else's.

The question is best answered by exploring where you perceive the edge of metaphor vs rationality to be.

[buchhalter37]

As chobeat kindly pointed out, nobody is criticizing rationality or reason here. It’s the worship of rationality that I think is deeply problematic.

Examples? Economic models of society. Lesswrong.com. Joscha Bach’s talk.

Rationality is not the answer to life, the universe and everything. (It’s 42.)

[haliax]

I understand that no one is criticizing reason, I just wanted to understand what alternatives were being proposed.