Don't be too rational
I don't know when it happened. Perhaps it started with the enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century – "the age of reason". A revolution against the religious and autocratic establishments. In either case, reason prevailed, rightfully so. And not just in the West, but globally.
Today, problems should be solved by powerful intellects, sometimes assisted by computer algorithms. We should all mimic the scientific method, by theorizing, measuring and fitting data points to a mathematical function. Where we're going, we have little use for childish emotions, intuition and imagination. "We're a data driven company", the new-age corporate thought-leaders declare.
Even doing good can be optimized with a formula. I've heard that more malaria nets is the most effective way to save lives. Endorphins, release yourselves! I've increased the utility in the world. Time to switch careers to evidence-based screenwriting. Plot: a young college graduate gets into effective altruism, works a desk job for 10 years, then donates money to the most cost-effective charity.
But despite the achievements in this age of reason, the historical artifacts of our mind acrobatics don't always paint a pretty picture. Didn't our smartest businessmen create the financial instruments behind the 2008 financial crash? And racial biology was an academic endeavor, no? What about the grand narratives of communism and central planning?
To some extent, these historical blunders are stories about manipulation, corruption and nefarious ulterior motives. But they are also disasters of the mind, where good intentions went horribly wrong. "We learned from our mistakes, that won't happen again." I'm not convinced. As a new flavor of rationalism emerges, based on data and artificial intelligence, what makes us immune to the kind of catastrophic thought failures of our recent past?
Intellectual brute force
For a long time, I couldn't put my finger on it at all. Something just felt off, among people who quite explicitly and proudly declare themselves as rationalists. But what does rationality mean, exactly? Well, unlike reason alone, rationality is active. Essentially, when you're using reason to make decisions, you're acting rationally. The more you're relying on reason, the more rational your are. A "rational extremist" would use reason exclusively, and disregard all other "inputs", like emotion and intuition. A true "ism" indeed! But what's wrong with relying on reason? Sounds like a reasonable thing to do.
First, it's not obvious what kind of reason to use. For instance, predicting when an earthquake will occur is next to impossible, despite incredibly sophisticated models and simulations. "There might be a big one in roughly in this area within the next ten years". For now, we're better off preparing, rather than predicting. There are a lot of clever solutions that can reduce the danger of earthquakes, such as early warning systems and improved construction. Our world is full of complex and chaotic systems where even our best models fall short. Of course, the scientists are deeply aware of this. It's the rest of us that have unreasonable expectations. In either case, navigating the space of knowledge can be more important than "raw intellectual strength", so to say.
Secondly, rationality is insufficient without a purpose. How do we choose what's worthwhile, so we can decide where to apply our mental effort? Reason alone has no opinions about what's good, healthy, fun, or meaningful. Without listening to our intuition, emotions, passions, or beliefs, we're likely to walk someone else's path, or a path defined by our younger selves that we never bothered to revisit. For instance, a goal like "acquire more money and things for myself" can be a perfectly reasonable intermediate step to improve our lives, but it can also turn into a social posturing sport fueled by peer pressure, or a compulsive hoarding behavior driven by anxiety. Rationality is a powerful tool, but a tool doesn't wield itself.
Lastly, we have other tools at our disposal. Emotions, intuition and imagination can improve our rational efforts. A confident and a well rested mind, for instance, produces better thoughts. Other endeavors, like riding a bike, bonding with our family, or listening to music, are not centered around reason at all. Blindly applying reason in those cases is like using a screwdriver to collect water. If you catch a dogmatic rationalist outside of their comfort zone, such as dealing with relationships, you can often observe them craft a contrived web of rationality in order to make sense of the unfamiliar terrain. Ironically, I relate to this a lot myself.
Rationalism is a poor defense against dogma
Above all, the biggest danger of any dogma is the lack of exit criteria. Instead of learning from our mistakes, we refuse to acknowledge them. When our grand designs don't play out the way we hoped, it's because we didn't follow the plan closely enough, or some other circumstantial excuse. The conviction persists independent of the outcome, sometimes to the point of absurdity. To me, the poster-child of dogma is embodied by "The War on Drugs". Despite the endless resources spent preventing drugs from poisoning our society, we suffer from more drug-related harm than ever before. "Let's try it again, but harder".
Sometimes we want something for emotional reasons, and use reason afterwards to patch up a plausible narrative. For instance, maybe we just wanted to keep undesirable junkies away from our neighborhoods. But in order to justify this rather selfish point of view, we invented an exaggerated story about how illicit drugs would grow out of control unless we hunt drug users like prey. Such "post-rationalism" adds a layer of obscurity between the problem and the solution, especially if we start believing our own myths. Later, when hard drugs – thanks to the opioid epidemic – are increasingly affecting regular, hard-working citizens of "our own" families and communities, it's quite difficult to change course. Even if we suddenly have a change of heart, the false narratives are deeply cemented into our institutions, our laws, our minds.
Today, elaborate narratives are increasingly supported by AI models and opaque algorithms powered by large amounts of data. We are going through a critical moment in time, where we've found something that is clearly very powerful, but we don't yet understand how it works. These are the perfect conditions for shaping the false narratives of tomorrow. We're in a sense vulnerable to getting tricked again, if we're not paying attention.
Open your mind before you sharpen it
What if our minds are more like our bodies, with multiple facets? Strength, power, endurance, reflexes, flexibility, coordination are all useful for different purposes. Olympic weightlifting and long-distance running rely on completely different skills and training. Yet, when it comes to the mind, we tend to assume a more narrow space, even a single axis. Perhaps it's genuinely difficult to categorize and label the different aspects of our minds. Or maybe dogma nudges us back towards the familiar gold-standard of IQ and analytical thinking. In either case, there's clearly more to our minds beyond analytical machinery.
In my view, the antidote to bone-headed rationalism is a sort of common sense, or a "well-rounded" mind, where we apply the different aspects of our minds intelligently based on what we're doing. It also implies some amount of self-criticism, of our own ideas, models, and narratives – a sort of critical thinking that transcends mechanical "fact-checking" and trusting the experts. Common sense is also quite widely attainable and applicable – you don't need a PhD in sociology to sense that something "doesn't add up" with the war on drugs, for instance. I'd like to think that "wisdom" is no more than an exceptionally well tuned common sense, where all aspects of our minds are sharp in their own right, but also work together in a sort of effortless harmony.
Thanks to Lien Tran for reviewing drafts of this essay.