Re: virus: Rationality

Tony Hindle (t.hindle@joney.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 26 Feb 1997 23:28:05 +0000

Dave Pape wrote
>> Woo. Especially the difference between the meme "this is a thing called
>> rationality" and the PROCESS of rationality. I'm trying to argue that the
>> process of rationality is carried out by a non-rational computing device,
>> whose outputs are selected by evolutionary pressures, or the pressures of
>> reward and punishment, so that they APPEAR rational.
To which Drakir replied
>Actually, I like that. I'm begining to think, already, that rationality is
>a meme-complex of astronomical proportions. /But/ can I ask: Does ones
>rationality change, depending on which memes you have recently been
>infected with, of is rationality permanent once formed?

I reckon thinking about this question helps clarify this;
Were the ancient scientists rational?.

Tony Hindle.