Conditions for a Rational Life

It's been a long time since my last post [7 Jan 2012].


From my first post -

I'll consider this experiment [blogging] a success if I can publish a (meaningful and significant) blog post every week. That way, I'll be forced to regularly pull out various pertinent issues in my life and try to explain what is really worthwhile and important about them and, most importantly, how others can benefit from them.

Testing for irrational thinking

• Statement - If I am thinking and behaving rationally in life, then I will publish at least one blog post every week.
• Contrapositive - If I don't publish a blog post every week, then I am NOT thinking and behaving rationally in life.
• A statement and its contrapositive are equivalent.

Conclusion - I haven't thunk rationally for the last two months. In fact, I pretty much haven't thunk at all.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
- George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)

Yeah.

 


Anyway, to take a lesson from my last post, I will consider my lacklustre mental performance over the past two months as a sunk cost and look for ways to live a better life hereupon.

Moving on...


Logic Test [5 points] - How would I know if I've been thinking rationally in life?


[Warning: Trick question (sort of)]

Think about it for a moment or so.

Try to come up with some quick check I can do to see if I've been thinking rationally.

The Economics of Spilt Milk

Movie Tickets, Career choices, and Sunk Costs.

There is no use crying over spilt milk


It's one of the most obvious things in the world (is it?). There is no point crying over spilt milk. It's spilt. Nothing you can do about it. It's a very graphic example. It hits you especially hard when you actually do spill something (or break something) and just stare mournfully at it.

It's all very well to say that about spilt milk but is there some deeper principle at work here that can apply to other (more important) aspects of life?


Let's go to the movies


To me, the underlying principle is best explained using a classic example.

Thought Experiment:

Assume you want to go to a movie (X). You pay Rs 120 to buy a ticket and start to get inside the movie hall.

However, when you reach the hall, you discover that you've lost the ticket.

What will you now do?

• Will you go back home and do something else?
• Or, will you pay another Rs 120 and go for the movie?
  You know that the movie isn't worth Rs 240. Will you still go?