When people act as if you're an idiot for believing in a god/goddess/Flying Spaghetti Monster

Octo

...I guess I shouldn't be surrpised that you treat rationality as another dogma, i.e. with fixed answers and everything. I guess I really shouldn't.

And Alex, what I said is that everything must hold to the same standards - both religion and rationality. Both must constantly scrutinized and open to criticism. My entire point is there should be no protective privileges creating a double standard. What's good for the goose must be good for the gander, i.e. religion should not have special rights or special considerations in society.

vandro

Game Theory 101: rationality is nothing but rational self-interest, it is above all, the pursuit of the most efficient result for the person, not the whole. And under the assumption of perfect rationality from every person ever, tragedy of the commons is the only possible result.

Now, super-rationality is the pursuit of the most efficient result for the whole.

Octo

So, now you're trying to justify your position with semantics? And as you've said - game theory. That's one narrow field out of many of one scientific field (mathematics) out of many. Not exactly the best source for a general terminology.

ClockworkUniverse

^^I have to question whoever came up with a definition through which rational behavior leads to the worst outcome.

vandro

It is semantics, as Octo said, INUH, rational behavior does not lead to the worst outcome, perfect rationality does, you are mistaking one for the other. Both super-rationality and rationality are rational behaviors, the difference is what does one seek: the best for oneself or the best for the group.

I am not justifying my position, octo, I am just saying you are using the word rationality without understanding what it really means when applied to problem solving. Because, newsflash: Everything is math.

Wicked223

all rationality really is is the application of reason and logic to philosophical and everyday matters. Game-theoretic rationality is something a good deal more specialized.

vandro

Philosophical matters? Sure, Everyday matters are full of problem solving, which on itself falls into game theory.

Octo

I am not justifying my position, octo, I am just saying you are using
the word rationality without understanding what it really means when
applied to problem solving.

Because I did not answer a question in the way game theory says is ideal when two strangers (!) play the game? Yeah, right...

vandro

Not quite, I am saying so because after I said perfect rationality leads to the tragedy of the commons (I have to explain here: it is not the fault of the players[people in general], but of the game[life on earth], because resources are not infinite) you said I considered it dogmatic, meaning you understood nothing of what a rational choice even is.

glennmagusharvey

However - again, none of this actually matters. Whether religion is
moral is not the question. What religion is rightly ridiculed for is
holding to certain dogmatic points (that is after all what "belief" is
about) that would never get half the respect they don't deserve if they
were not in fact religious in nature.

Some people want to believe this sort of stuff.  Humans are not entirely rational creatures, y'know.  Some people want to know what things are like after they die, or stuff like that.

There's a reason these beliefs were created and perpetuated in the first place.  Before they became dogma that people would (figuratively) write on swords and swing around, there had to be something that people liked about it.  For some people, it's the peace of mind of a belief system that informs them of the natural order of their world.

Paganism and Shinto believe there are spirits everywhere. Without that,
it wouldn't be those religions. That's a dogma. And if it had not that
religious context it would be a claim fairly open to ridicule - "there's
something in that stone watching me!"

But there are also different degrees of ridiculousness by which the "dogma" in question is expressed.  For example, someone could be a paranoid idiot and say "there's something in that stone watching me", or someone could just believe there are spirits everywhere and manifest that belief as a general respect for not breaking or messing up things.  How about that?

Octo

And a rational choice is indeed not simply blindly following what game theory tells us about ideal outcomes of strangers involved in such scenarios! That's ludicrous! Think so is indeed treating rationality (or, rather, game theory) as just another dogma.

/E: Well, people are free to believe what they want, of course. I really wouldn't want to take that away from them, either. All I'm saying is that there should not be special rights and special social considerations for religions, that their views (to which the religious people are of course perfectly entitled) need to stand under the same sort of scrutiny as all other views and opinions.

vandro

A rational choice is based on whatever information you have at your disposal, whether is it complete or incomplete. It's main defining characteristic is that it is meant to be optimal. I asked for an ideal answer and got a subjective non-answer. I never requested a practical answer either. It is not dogma, I made a simple question and got a wrong answer from someone who allegedly follows rational choice making.

Octo

A rational choice is based on whatever information you have at your disposal, whether is it complete or incomplete.

I asked for an ideal answer

...you really don't see the contradiction?

Besides, stop it with the terminology hijack. Rationality is simply the method to observe events and processes and draw logical conclusions from them. Rationality in the sense of game theory is a special case, anyway.

On a different note, did you change your avatar to be opposite of mine? "Knight of Honor", just the opposite to a knight wielding a poisoned spear, heh.

vandro

"What is your ideal solution to the prisionner's dilemma?" This is my question, it specifies a request for an ideal solution.

To draw logical conclusions you need a framework which at some point will be made up with axioms, which can't always be proved.

Knight of Honor is the name of the ability of the character, which means that a knight never dies empty-handed. So he is as pragmatic as he can to survive. Grabbing anything around him as a weapon.

Icalasari

I somewhat see where Octo is coming from. Just as how science is not free from scrutiny, why should religion be just because it has the title of religion? (and in fact I agree with this. The problem I have has already been mentioned IE When somebody assumes that a person is stupid and impossible to debate with just because they are religious)