The question I want to contend with is that of human rationality. First, we have the define our terminology. What do we mean by rationality? I lack the knowledge of the philosophical perspective of rationality so I need to catch up on that in the future, but let us define rationality in terms in game theory. There are several axioms in game theory, but as a summary; if I get to choose between $1 and $2, I should pick $2 … obviously. The same logic should be applied to other scenarios or object with our initial logic. There might be a few problems here. Is this the same as Aristotelian’s logic? And what is the evolution of logic theory? Does the example suffice?
We can define rationally from another perspective. As conscience being, we are in control of our behaviour. There’s some problem with the definition here. We can say that there is a pre-define morality in every one of us that may be relative/absolute (We are not here to discuss this) or to put it in Kantian terms, a priori morality. Another view would be the existentialist view where it rejects the Kantian theory and expresses itself as existence before essence, men define men itself. We are responsible for our creation even though our environment, and psychological factor affects our behaviour, we choose our action and how we went to define ourselves. (Jean-Paul Sartre) Let’s say that our definition can compress all this view.
But we know for sure that sometimes our emotions can overcome our rationality. It may be the case where I’m angry and choose to have a lose-lose situation, but what I’m a referencing to is beyond that. Sometimes, we act against our will or something we act without thinking of the consequences. From the psychoanalysis (Freudian?)/Nietzschean view, we have to contend with our desires. It runs deep into our soul and springs out whenever it gets suppressed to a certain extent. Not only are we rational, but we are also irrational. We have contend to with Dionysus.
Here’s is where I turn to a more pragmatic view. We can build AI (artificial intelligence) in two different ways; the rule-based (ontological) or the pattern-based way (epistemology). We can look at the history of AI; the rule-based approach is unable to comprehend overly complicated problem because there are too many factors to consider (NP-Problem) and there are other subtle factors that are we’re not aware. We have resorted to the machine learning pattern-based approach. The problem lies on how to counter the inevitability of irrationally. How do we guide the machine to refute the probability of irrationally when we don’t understand consciousness ourselves? We can scale the problem down as a probability model on human behaviour, but our behaviour is a subset of our consciousness, we still need to tackle this problem, although it might not be a serious one now, it will be when we expect AI machine to run the world in the future.
Further Research/Reading
- Aristotle’s Logic
- Post-Aristotle Classical Rationalism
- Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy - the dichotomy of Apollonian and Dionysian
- Psychology of human behavior?
- Psychology of irrationality?
- Irrationality in game theory
