Learning many true facts that are not Fun and are morally irrelevant (e.g. learning as many digits of pi as you can by spending your whole life on the activity), because this way you can avoid thinking about facts that are much less certain, shouldn’t be considered rational. Rationality intrinsically needs to serve a purpose, the necessity for this is implicit even in apparently goal-neutral definitions like the one Robin gave in the post.
Another problem, of course, is that you don’t know the cost of irrationality if you are irrational.
I don’t see how “seeking truth” is “goal-neutral”. It is a goal much like any other.
The main thing I feel the urge to say about “seeking truth” is that it usually isn’t nature’s goal. Nature normally cares about other things a lot more than the truth.
Perhaps I was too brief. Organisms are goal oriented—or at least they look as though they are. Teleonomy, rather than teleology, technicallly, of course.
Organisms act as though their primary goal is to have grandchildren. Seeking the truth is a proximate goal—and not an especially high-priority one.
Prioritising seeking the truth more highly than having babies would be a bizarre and unnatural thing for any living organism to do. I have no idea why anyone would advocate it—except, perhaps as part of some truth-worshiping religion.
Learning many true facts that are not Fun and are morally irrelevant (e.g. learning as many digits of pi as you can by spending your whole life on the activity), because this way you can avoid thinking about facts that are much less certain, shouldn’t be considered rational. Rationality intrinsically needs to serve a purpose, the necessity for this is implicit even in apparently goal-neutral definitions like the one Robin gave in the post.
Another problem, of course, is that you don’t know the cost of irrationality if you are irrational.
I don’t see how “seeking truth” is “goal-neutral”. It is a goal much like any other.
The main thing I feel the urge to say about “seeking truth” is that it usually isn’t nature’s goal. Nature normally cares about other things a lot more than the truth.
If nature can be said to have goals, it has “seeking truth” in so far that any thing, including ourselves, does.
Perhaps I was too brief. Organisms are goal oriented—or at least they look as though they are. Teleonomy, rather than teleology, technicallly, of course.
Organisms act as though their primary goal is to have grandchildren. Seeking the truth is a proximate goal—and not an especially high-priority one.
Prioritising seeking the truth more highly than having babies would be a bizarre and unnatural thing for any living organism to do. I have no idea why anyone would advocate it—except, perhaps as part of some truth-worshiping religion.