Author Topic: Do Rational People Exist?  (Read 1984 times)

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Offline Xant

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Meaning lies as much
in the mind of the reader
as in the Haiku.

Offline Kafein

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2014, 08:12:40 pm »
-1
The idea of rationality is absurd anyway. We are very advanced machines, nothing more.

Offline Xant

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2014, 08:16:11 pm »
+1
The idea of rationality is absurd anyway. We are very advanced machines, nothing more.
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Meaning lies as much
in the mind of the reader
as in the Haiku.

Offline Kafein

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2014, 08:22:17 pm »
0
Would you say that a machine sometimes makes irrational decisions and sometimes makes rational decisions ?

Offline Tomas_Miles_again

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2014, 08:25:18 pm »
+1
The idea of rationality is absurd anyway. We are very advanced machines, nothing more.

I agree with your second statement (minus "nothing more"), but the first one is probably overlooking something key to working out how these machines work.

Offline Xant

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2014, 08:51:33 pm »
+1
Would you say that a machine sometimes makes irrational decisions and sometimes makes rational decisions ?
No.
Meaning lies as much
in the mind of the reader
as in the Haiku.

Offline Christo

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2014, 09:03:25 pm »
+1
Would you say that a machine sometimes makes irrational decisions and sometimes makes rational decisions ?

Kafien pls
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Offline Kafein

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2014, 09:07:21 pm »
+1
No.

So, how can humans do that ?

Offline Tomas_Miles_again

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2014, 09:10:18 pm »
+4
OH SHIT HARD DETERMINISM
HAPPY FEET
WOMBO COMBO
WHERE YOU AT?!?!

Offline Kafein

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #9 on: June 11, 2014, 09:30:03 pm »
0
OH SHIT HARD DETERMINISM
HAPPY FEET
WOMBO COMBO
WHERE YOU AT?!?!

I plus because no idea what this is

Offline Xant

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #10 on: June 11, 2014, 09:34:31 pm »
0
So, how can humans do that ?
Drugs are dangerous, Kafein.
Meaning lies as much
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Offline Christo

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2014, 09:46:59 pm »
0
Drugs are dangerous, Kafein.

Drugs are dangerous. Kafein.
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Offline Teeth

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #12 on: June 11, 2014, 09:47:20 pm »
0
Is this surprising?

Offline Tomas_Miles_again

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #13 on: June 11, 2014, 09:47:58 pm »
+1
What a fucking loaded question anyway. Rational and exist in the same sentence. Piss off to an academic forum with your academic questions Xant!

Offline Kafein

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Re: Do Rational People Exist?
« Reply #14 on: June 11, 2014, 09:51:28 pm »
0
I'm ok with rational biases, being aware and resistant to them etc.

However, at a more basic level, you can't call things rational if they don't have an actual objective to maximize. Machines and humans alike are pure processes. If we consider a function that takes the state of a human as argument then we can unequivocally determine what will that human do. We don't need to assign to that human a goal to describe his actions. That is true regardless of whether the actions taken are called "rational" or not by an observer.