#reasonandrationality — Public Fediverse posts

Passions

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

~ Cicero

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Malice

Insolence is not logic; Epithets are the arguments of malice.

~ R.G. Ingerson

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The inability to think logically is a form of bondage. The refusal to think logically is proof of already being bound.

~ Kareem Abdul-Jabar

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https://constantine.name/2023/10/11/bondage/

#Quotes #Society #ReasonAndRationality #KareemAbdulJabar

Our world is an ecosystem in which our only real chance at survival as a species is cooperation, community, and care, but it’s being led by people who believe in an ego system, run on competition, power, and self-interest.

~ Austin Kleon

#quotes #society #reason-and-rationality #austin-kleon #7-for-sunday

https://constantine.name/2023/09/05/cooperation/

Disconnected facts

Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the web: They might as well not exist.

~ Steven Pinker

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Go forward

I’m not trying to sound like Mr. Smiley Positive Guy. That guy ignores the hard truth. That guy thinks a positive attitude will solve problems. It won’t. But neither will dwelling on the problem. No. Accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem, and turn it into something good. Go forward. And, if you’re part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout.

~ Jocko Willink

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Reason

You can’t reason someone out of something they didn’t reason themselves into.

~ Tim Ferriss

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Criticism

Ours is the age of criticism. Religion and law try to escape from criticism, religion by saying that it is divine and law by showing that it is powerful. But some suspicions arise from this escape, because we can respect only those things which stand up in free and public trial.

~ Immanuel Kant

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Quite nice

[T]oday, let’s seek to be better than the things that disappoint or hurt us. Let’s try to be the example we’d like others to follow. It’s awful to be a cheat, to be selfish, to feel the need to inflict pain on our fellow human beings. Meanwhile, living morally and well is quite nice.

~ Ryan Holiday

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Bravery

You should be brave enough to use your own intellect, in life and in your education.

~ Immanuel Kant

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Endless anxieties

When circumstances scare us, our imagination tends to take over, filling our minds with endless anxieties. You need to gain control of your imagination. A Focused mind has no room for anxiety or for the effects of an overactive imagination.

~ Robert Greene

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Truth

Many statements which are accepted as truth because they have been passed down to us by tradition look like truth only because we have never tested them, never thought about them in a more precise way.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Whose thoughts

Some people live and act according to their own thoughts, and some according to the thoughts of others; this is a crucial distinction between people.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Two guides

Two ways exist to guide human activity. One is to force a person to act against his wishes; The other is to guide a person’s wishes, to persuade him with reasoning. One is the way of violence: It is used by ignorant people, and it leads to complete disappointment. The other is supported by experience, and is always successful.

~ Abraham Comb

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Other people’s thoughts

For the most part, false and harmful opinions are distributed and supported by influence. We are too likely to accept the views and thoughts of other people without trying to investigate them deeper and further ourselves. Unimportant people are those who accept other people’s thoughts without developing them themselves.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Wise consumption

Wise consumption is much more complicated than wise production. What five people will produce, one person can very easily consume, and the question for each individual and for every nation is not how are we to produce, but how our products are to be consumed.

~ John Ruskin

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Everything has two handles

Everything has two handles, by one of which it may be carried, and by the other not. If your brother wrongs you, do not take it by this handle, that he is wronging you (for this is the handle that it cannot be carried by), but by the other, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you, and then you will be taking it by the handle by which it ought to be carried.

~ Epictetus

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Discourse

You don’t know if your idea is any good the moment it’s created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There’s a reason why feelings scare us—because what they tell us and what the rest of the world tells us are often two different things.

~ Hugh MacLeod

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This quote, I think, also alludes to the problem of people “not getting” new ideas. It turns out that the same problem exists for old ideas to which people have grown unaccoustomed through lack of use.

Online discussion in forums is not a new idea. It’s a time-tested idea; They can be a space to focus interaction. There are ground rules. There’s a border defining what’s inside and what’s outside. Those inside have skin in the game. There is accountability.

The challenge is for each of us to resume engaging in reasoned discourse with others. That can be done in many places, not just in online forums. But in general, we’ve lost it in, (something like,) the last ten years when the current incarnation of the social networks rose and ate our attention.

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Discussion

He that is not open to conviction is not qualified for discussion.

~ Richard Whately

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Weakness

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

~ Victor Hugo

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Thinking through

Ignore advice to simply follow your intuition or gut without thinking through whether the course is likely to be fruitful and rewarding.

~ Steven Pinker

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Successful

If you want to be successful in business, (in life, actually,) you have to create more than you consume. Your goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with. Any business that doesn’t create value for those it touches, even if it appears successful on the surface, isn’t long for this world. It’s on the way out.

~ Jeff Bezos

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What did he trust in?

When Odysseus was shipwrecked and cast ashore … what did he trust in? Not in reputation, or riches, or office, but in his own strength, that is to say, in his judgements about what things are in our power and what are not. For these judgements alone are what make us free, make us immune from hinderance, raise the head of the humiliated, and make them look into the faces of the rich with unaverted eyes, and into the faces of tyrants.

~ Epictetus

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Unjustified terror

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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Your faculty of reason

You are a human being; that is, a mortal animal capable of making a rational use of impressions. And what does it mean to use them rationally? In accordance with nature and perfectly. What is exceptional in you? Is it the animal part? No. The mortal? No. That which enables you to deal with impressions? No. What is exceptional in you is your faculty of reason.

~ Epictetus

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Blame yourself

Socrates knew how a rational soul is moved; that it is like a balance, and if a weight is thrown in the scale, it will incline whether you wish it or not. Show the rational governing faculty a contradiction, and it will renounce it; but if you fail to do so, blame yourself rather than the person whom you are unable to convince.

~ Epictetus

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Convince me

When one of the company said to him, “convince me that logic is useful,” he said, … Would you like me to demonstrate it to you? Then I must make use of a demonstrative argument? And how will you know, then, whether I am deceiving you with a sophism? And when the man remained silent, he said, … You see how you yourself admit that logic is necessary, since without it you cannot even determine whether it is necessary or not.

~ Epictetus

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Destruction

When vision fails,
Direction is lost.

When direction is lost,
Purpose may be forgotten.

When purpose is forgotten,
Emotion rules alone.

When emotion rules alone,
Destruction… destruction.

~ Octavia Butler

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The faculty of choice

What else does the eye do, when it is opened, than see? But whether we ought to look upon somebody’s wife, and in what manner, what tells us that? The faculty of choice. Whether we ought to believe, or to disbelieve, what is said; or whether, if we do believe, we ought to be moved by it or not; what tells us that? Is it not the faculty of choice?

~ Epictetus

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Remain upbeat

A wise man hopes things will change, but remains upbeat when things do not.

~ unknown

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