It could be rational to hold an irrational belief if you are aware of your irrational belief and choose to hold it because it is grafted to components of your personality/ psyche that are valuable to you. For example, you may find that
eschewing your religious beliefs makes you feel depressed and you are unable to work productively
And reasons such as this are why so many people believe in God. Are they acting rationally in doing so, though? Or are they merely using a heuristic that works well a lot of the time?
When I am alive after the singularity, thanks to paying for cryonics, and literally billions of religious people are rotting in the ground because of their false beliefs, perhaps it will be clearer that their heuristic (“it is cost-free to be metaphysically deceived”) won’t look so sound.
As time goes on, the heuristic will break more and more. Already hundreds of millions are dying of AIDS in africa because they deluded themselves into being Catholics. Yes, I’m sure life in Africa is so harsh that it really helps you to be deluded… until you contract AIDS because the pope told you to not to use condoms.
The problem with irrational delusion, as I see it, is not really the cost to the individual (which is still pretty small) but the costs to society. I think that this deserves a top level post. Expect one.
And reasons such as this are why so many people believe in God. Are they acting rationally in doing so, though? Or are they merely using a heuristic that works well a lot of the time?
When I am alive after the singularity, thanks to paying for cryonics, and literally billions of religious people are rotting in the ground because of their false beliefs, perhaps it will be clearer that their heuristic (“it is cost-free to be metaphysically deceived”) won’t look so sound.
As time goes on, the heuristic will break more and more. Already hundreds of millions are dying of AIDS in africa because they deluded themselves into being Catholics. Yes, I’m sure life in Africa is so harsh that it really helps you to be deluded… until you contract AIDS because the pope told you to not to use condoms.
The problem with irrational delusion, as I see it, is not really the cost to the individual (which is still pretty small) but the costs to society. I think that this deserves a top level post. Expect one.