Friday, July 19, 2013

Rationality Rations Ratios Rationally



               Rationality = Ratios, Relays, Relatives .

Detroit went into bankruptcy, said the man on the car radio this
morning, because the people responsible for managing the city
over the years preferred pleasure to pain. I myself prefer pleasure
to pain and wouldn't manage a city well. Control to out-of-control,
predictability to indeterminacy, clarity to confusion, rationality to
irrationality, sweet to sour: I lack preferential balance & city
management is clearly beyond my skill set & bias.

I irrationally assume that Rationality Rules, persuades, convinces,
can change a mind set, convince a crowd with facts, stats, & data
will make the world a better place and please my wife. Rationality
Uber Alles no doubt. And logic too.



3 comments:

  1. What's the alternative to rationality?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Irrationality. Of course you have to scrub off the negative popular and cultural connotation before this notion can be appreciated for it's descriptive value. Same with illogical (analogical). But I know you object to fooling with the common and conventional sense of words. You aren't alone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Irrational

    “Imagine the surprise among the early Greek mathematicians
    who discovered that there are simple things that occupy
    physical space that are not measurable.” [In other words: irrational - no ratios to be made]

    What can science do if the simple diagonal of a square [say]
    is not measurable? Doesn’t size correspond to number?

    Perhaps it doesn’t exist. but denying the existence of something
    only makes talking about it meaningless. Hence, denying
    its existence is also meaningless. And, therefore, it exists.

    Incommensurable, yes? Which is to say irrational,
    not to be rationed—no ratios there by golly: no
    relays to be made. Well, I’m going to
    measure it anyway.

    ReplyDelete