Rationality is the Ultimate Enslaver Part 1

Rationality is the Ultimate Enslaver

Or rather convincing yourself that you are rational is. (Part 1) 

What is rational behaviour? Acting in the best possible manner to optimise for some objective, I suppose that's a good way to define it.

An old thought

But is rational behaviour even possible? Not in humans, not right now atleast, simply because we are not aware of own 'wills'. How do we become aware of our own wills? Assuming 'wills' exist (whatever they mean). One becomes aware of their own wills often by language, by giving words to feelings, or to be more specific, giving words to a set of feelings experienced over time. Here already, the raw phenomena, the raw 'feeling' is already coloured by a ton of inherited assumptions via language. Language, although powerful, is often heavily burdened by many ideas assumed by society. Things like, 'I am a good person', 'All humans want love', 'thinking that way is nonsense/not helpful', 'this feeling must be love/hunger/ambition/etc.' guides thinking in small but infinitely many ways, and thus the words one gives to feeling are, at best, a transformed reflection of the actual phenomena. But even if one, somehow, outmanoeuvres the inherited baggage of language, human memory and attention are severely limited. One can not properly recall phenomena, or even hold in their heads for long enough. Even if they can do both, analysing what you want is a tough task. People have incomplete knowledge, and life does not wait for answers. Decisions must be made even if we don't have any answers, so people have to make decisions based on incomplete information. Which is very dangerous as often we extrapolate over this incomplete information, forming potentially false models of the world in our heads. A gambler might believe 'money comes only to the lucky and daring people, I've got to take risks', another might believe 'money comes via patient and safe investing, being rash only leads to destruction'. One might say 'love should form naturally, chasing it leads to false and dysfunctional relationships', another might say 'how will I find love without making effort? People don't find me attractive, I must get them to like me'. Notice that it's hard to criticise any of these people properly, because we ourselves are also operating on incomplete information, not just about immediate events, but about live and the world itself.

And even if we were aware of our own wills, they'd likely not be specific wants, but rather general desires/instincts that we want to satisfy. It's likely, that attaching wills to specific outcomes is misleading. And specificity is not just 'I want to eat burgers'. Even things like 'I don't want to be hungry', 'I just want to be happy', 'nobody likes pain' are too specific, because they are leaded with a lot of assumptions, and even without assumptions are firstly misleading and secondly limit thinking.

So, knowing ones own wills is a seemingly impossible task.
And, knowing the best way to act for them, is also a seemingly impossible task. (Assuming one should even act for them, which is questionable....)
Then, are we really even rational? or is it a pathetic attempt at covering up our incompetence.

A new thought

Spoilers for shadow slave, uptil chapter 155 

In shadow slave, Sunny and his companions are transported to a grotesque world, where murderous creatures with mysterious and dangerous powers exist. Barely escaping the grip of death, they escape the onslaught of these creatures multiple times and eventually reach a giant tree. This tree sustains them and keeps them safe, for no other creature dares to approach it, but eventually it muddles their thinking. The roots of this tree extend for miles, absorbing all resources and nutrition from the surrounding area. Then it creates nutritious fruit that increases the magical abilities of Sunny and his companions, but at the same time It slowly but surely converts the creatures, including Sunny and his companions, that stay near it into its own puppets, into its own organs of sorts. These creatures have their memory, both long term and short term, significantly reduced. And they have their attention and focus also significantly reduced. Any thought that goes against propagating, protecting and/or staying near the tree is very hard to hold in their heads. Furthermore, these thoughts start to appear insignificant. And even if one has doubts about the kind of life they are living, those doubts seem insignificant and are dismissed without even giving a second thought. This is done by the manipulation of the tree, here a careful and cynical person a person, who's been able to survive constant danger precisely because of their careful and meticulous nature becomes thoughtless and short-sighted relying upon the tree and worshipping it. For some time, he and his companions believe staying near the tree is the rational thing to do, and perhaps a case for the same can be made, even with a clear mind.

Eventually, by a stroke of luck and some planning, Sunny and his companions realise that this tree is turning them into brainless minions. And so they escape it by undertaking a lot of danger. Eventually reaching a city a city made by people who have escaped from similar circumstances, who have no hope of returning back to human civilisation. It's almost as if they're stuck on a massive island with no possible way of reaching back home. And this island is filled with tons and tons of nightmarish magical creatures that are out to kill them. In essence, there exists no law and order on this island.

Rather, on this island exists a tyrant called Gunlaug, and he has created a clever social structure, a structure that keeps every person in check. He acts as almost a necessary evil on this island. For more context this large island has on its centre a huge castle that's almost like a fortress and protects its inhabitants from the nightmarish creatures that linger outside. And outside there do exist some settlements or a better word would be slums, wherein people live in bad conditions, constantly terrorised by the danger of some nightmarish creatures discovering their settlements and killing them. This man uses these geographical circumstances to create a structure wherein people who live in the castle have to give him a tribute, a tribute that increases his magical powers and in return of that tribute they get to live in the castle for a week. Within the castle his order is absolute, if anyone goes against him he simply kills them. Within the castle you can either be his minion, a tenant, a slave or exiled/dead. This brutal structure creates a sort of social order wherein people inside the castle exploit each other constantly. The exploiters do not go too far in fear of the ruler and the exploitee have hope of climbing social ranks and becoming an exploiter themselves. People outside of the castle who've been exiled have hope that they'll one day be able to enter the castle by collecting enough of these tributes and people inside of the castle are scared that if they do not work then they'll be exiled and be in constant mortal danger. These people, who within this grotesque world escaped constant danger and earlier yearned to go back home, have now forgotten their desire to go home and instead, are now stuck in this man's artificial social order. However, at the same time if not for his social order these people would be engaging in a lot more carnage, killing each other for resources or dying to creatures outside of the island in an attempt to go home.

If not for this man's social order, people would either become hopeless, realizing that there's no way back home. Or people would be mad making crazy attempts to once again fight these nightmarish creatures. What Gunlaug does is create an artificial hope, an artificial cycle of hope and despair. And like a snake biting its tail, these people live within these cycles, not realizing/ignoring that they're living artificial made up lives. And even if they do realise, should they oppose Gunlaug? Should they join him? Should the replace him? Should they escape the island?

Are these people not rational?
If language restricts thoughts/description of phenomena by giving it form, if it enslaves our thinking to use it for better outcomes. If social structures restrict behaviours by giving objectives, by structurally enslaving emotions. Then whats more pathetic than a slave who begins to trust his owner.

What should we do about it?
I dont know.

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this:)