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.



Raise your hand if you thought I should check if I'm writing a blog post every week. That way, I'd know if I was thinking rationally or not.

I know that was the answer I intuitively came up with.

But, that is NOT necessarily correct.

I was just fishing about for a topic for a quick post now and I remembered myself thinking during the last week about conditional statements and the trouble people have dealing with contrapositives. I then thought that I should come up with a good example of how I usually mess up with contrapositives.

I couldn't come up with a good example on the spot, though. So, I continued writing and paused to think when I wrote "How would I know if I've been thinking rationally in life?".

I then said to myself, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, "Check if you're writing blog posts regularly". Obviously, I was a bit annoyed with myself for not blogging consistently. I was about to write that down when it struck me.

BAZINGA! I'd fallen for yet another one of Logic's practical jokes. Seeing if I'm writing blog posts every week is NOT necessarily a test for whether I'm being rational. This is true despite the statement I'd given at the beginning. Shows you how careful you need to be when dealing even with one of the most basic, yet admittedly tricky, concepts in logical thinking.

Huh, what?

Welcome to the world of contrapositives.


Why was it that a check for weekly blog posts was not alone a good test for me thinking rationally?


Especially when it is given that not writing weekly blog posts is (in my book) a sure sign for poor and irrational thinking.

The short answer is this - there could be other factors leading to me writing blog posts.

Say I'm in a very bad mood one day because I spent the entire day watching a cricket match where India gets thrashed badly by Australia in the end. Refusing to take it "sportively" and just move on and do something fun, I brood about it and sit down and compose a post lashing out at Dhoni and co, and at every idiot out there who wasted an entire day sitting and watching these nincompoops play. At the end of it, I'd have written a blog post, but I'd be pretty far from thinking rationally.

So, agreed - the latter half of the statement (weekly post-writing) is not a sufficient test for the former half (thinking rationally).


Sufficient conditions and Necessary conditions


Necessary condition - A condition that must be satisfied for a statement to be true.
Sufficient condition - A condition which, if satisfied, assure's the statement's truth.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/necessary+condition

So, in our example, the necessary condition for "thinking rationally" was "writing weekly posts". Which means that I must be writing weekly posts if I am to be thinking rationally.

The sufficient condition for "writing weekly posts" was that I should be "thinking rationally". Which means that if I think rationally, I'd naturally write weekly posts.


Contrapositive statements


Statement (S): If A, then B
Contrapositive of the above: If not B, then not A

In other words, if the necessary condition for a statement isn't met, then the statement is false.

However, if the sufficient condition for a statement is false, it doesn't mean the statement is false. That was the mistake I'd made. I'd confused necessary condition with sufficient condition.

The contrapositive is equivalent to the original statement. If the original statement is true, the contrapositive will be true as well. So, when somebody tells you that

• If you are vaccinated then you will surely be safe from typhoid
• Suresh has typhoid (ie. he was not safe from typhoid)

you can conclude that Suresh did not get vaccinated, without even knowing anything else.


Getting it in your head, not just theoretically

All that is fine. It is all so obvious and straightforward. How could anyone mess anything so simple?

Well, it does become a bit tougher when the statement is presented in circumstances where you're not dissecting it into necessary condition, sufficient conditions, and whatnot.

• Cases where the sufficient condition is not met
  
  Friend 1: I have an exam next week. So I need to study.
  Friend 2: Machan, that exam got postponed to next week. So no need to study. Let's go to some movies.
  Friend 1: Oh, yeah! I'll just go get my wallet.
  
  Wait a minute!
  
  Or:
  
  Dejected Dude: If I could get good grades this semester, I would be able to enjoy my summer vacations in peace.
  Suicide-Case Friend: Dude, you've already bottomed the mid-semester exams. You're not going to get good grades. So forget about enjoying the summer peacefully. Life sucks. *stares at wall in deep despair*
  
  Needless to say, both the conclusions drawn are wrong. Why?
  
  In the first case, having an exam next week is a sufficient condition for studying. But that doesn't mean there aren't other reasons to study once the exam gets postponed. The exam could be a really tough one and require tons of preparation, for example.
  
  In the second case, again, getting good grades this is a semester is a sufficient condition for enjoying the summer vacations in peace (Says who? :) ). Not getting good grades is NO reason to stop enjoying the vacations (though people will do their best to rub it in and try to spoil it for you).
  
  These were both examples where the sufficient condition was misunderstood to be a necessary condition.
  
• Necessary condition confused with a Sufficient condition
  
  (Medieval witch burning scenario)
  Head witch hunter (to a crowd of people waiting to burn witches):
  We've rounded up a bunch of suspects. Remember, if they are witches, their ring finger will be the same length as their middle finger. Bring forward the first suspect.
  
  Alleged Witch 1 comes forward. Gives him the finger. And then the ring finger. They are equal in length. The crowd gasps.
  
  Head witch hunter:
  You saw that? There is no doubt about it. She is a witch.
  
  Crowd roars with delight.
  
  Alleged Witch 1:
  I'm not a witch!
  
  Head witch hunter:
  *laughs knowingly* (to the crowd) See? Every witch says that. She's definitely a witch. Tie her to the stake.
  
  Alleged Witch 1 is burnt at the stake.
  
  "Wise" old man:
  Head witch hunter, I think you may have made a mistake.
  
  Head witch hunter:
  How? Explain yourself.
  
  "Wise" old man:
  *stares him down the way a Wise man does* If a woman is not a witch, she will attend church every Sunday and give birth to at least two boys and one girl.
  
  Head witch hunter:
  And?
  
  "Wise" old man:
  *pauses for dramatic effect* The woman you just burnt attended church every single Sunday of her life. (Crowd holds its breath) And she was the mother of three boys and four girls.
  
  Head witch hunter hangs his head in shame. The crowd jeers at him.
  
  "Wise" old man:
  *raises his arms in the air to quieten the crowd* Silence, my friends. If he truly is a brave men, he will admit his mistake and apologize for his screw-up.
  
  Head witch hunter:
  *looks as though he can't believe his ears* I screwed up. I'm sorry.
  
  It is a poignant moment for the crowd. They start cheering their hero again.
  
  "Wise" old man:
  He truly is a brave-hearted man. Long live the Head witch hunter!
  
  Could you spot all the logical fallacies in the above scene? (Four of them, when I last counted.)
  
  These were examples where a necessary condition was confused with a sufficient condition. eg. you need to have the appropriate fingers equal in length to be a witch, but having them equal in length doesn't make you a witch.
  

The dangers of illogical thinking

Ok, so what? I didn't get a few trick questions... Big deal. Anyway, it's not like if you don't catch the errors, you aren't logical. You can be logical without all that. I am.

Actually, you can't be logical without all that. :)

If you are logical, you will catch the logical errors.
So, the contrapositive is that if you don't catch the errors (especially in real life situations), you are NOT logical.

Seriously though, why does any of this matter?

I think that a good command of the basic relationships between statements are the bedrock of solid critical thinking in any domain and when dealing with any problem. Logical relationships like contrapositives, inverse, converse, negatives, etc. are the building-blocks with which our decision-making structures are built.

blah blah blah blah... That's what my teacher said too... Boring.

Fair enough. You could question how important a good grasp of logic is. The problem is that because most of us function pretty well in life we never really question the quality of our thinking. We earn enough to sustain ourselves and more, we enjoy ourselves once in a while, and are generally accorded a decent amount of respect in society. Pretty much everybody we know is the same way.

So, why the @#$% should we change? Changing requires a lot of uncomfortable thinking about the problems we have and the solutions for them. And, like Henry Ford pointed out, thinking is the hardest work there is.

But, if you admit that there are areas in life where you could be doing much better, if you admit that you are being held back from the kind of success you want in life, then you must accept that you need to come up with better strategies for those areas, which implies thinking better.

In other words, if we accept that the quality of our life is determined (to a large extent) by the quality of our thinking, then to be happier and free of unnecessary worries, it is imperative that we learn to think better.

If we have problems identifying and dealing with our problems in a logical manner, we are guaranteed to have wide, gaping holes in our thinking. And that's where a lot of the irrational stuff can enter your mind and play havoc with the decisions you make. Most of the anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, hatred, and other impulsive emotions we experience are engendered by irrational thinking. Misunderstanding what others say or making hasty decisions without ample knowledge of their consequences lead to pretty much all of the bullshit in life.

You're either with us or against us. - (1)

ie. If you are not with us then you are against us.

Heard those words before? That was the false dichotomy used by Bush to brand non-complying states as enemies when the US declared its War On Terror [Link to his Speech]. Not being with somebody doesn't have to mean you are against them.

Shows you how wide-reaching the consequences of illogical thinking can be. It is simple proof that if you don't think logically, you will end up with bad results for a lot of people. - (2)


Breakthroughs

Er... actually, what we saw - statement (1) - is NOT a proof of statement (2) :). BAZINGA again.

You can think badly and still end up with a result that isn't bad for a lot of people, because of circumstances (aka "luck"), etc.

It shows just how easily one can be misled into believing that statements are valid.

I suspect that at least half of all the stuff I write down has glaring logical errors in it and almost everything I do informally has logical flaws in it (like the times when I talk to others or think in my own head without making things explicit).

Writing this post has made me realize just how deep this rabbit-hole goes. This shit is really - REALLY - important.

And, guess what, this stuff is HARD. HARD with all caps, as in, really, really hard to get right. The rules of logical thinking are so deceptively simple that we feel like chumps when we mess up. After all, any child could get this stuff right.

NO!!

It's NOT easy. That's the biggest mistake I've made so far. Underestimating the problem is one of the best ways to ensure that your climb to the solution is unnaturally long and arduous. To be aware of all the necessary conditions and sufficient conditions and checking for them in real time when somebody is speaking or when you are reading something is hard. It takes a lot of energy to be so alert. We don't often take our thinking apart and analyze each of the parts with a critical eye.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.
- Henry Ford

And because logical thinking is so hard, Mathematics is such an important and great subject. It formalizes a lot of stuff and makes it easy for you to thinking logically. It is when we are dealing with "normal" stuff that we are least alert and most liable to overlook mistakes. Putting some argument in terms of formal mathematics/logic forces you to make your thinking explicit. All your assumptions will be out there on paper and any error will likely become so obvious that you will catch them immediately.


The Road to Recovery

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.
- Professor Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

So, once we understand and accept that

• illogical thinking is nearly all-pervasive
• illogical thinking can cause a lot of problems
• thinking logically is very important
• thinking logically is hard

we can start recovering effectively.

And, it all begins with the basic building blocks - the conditional statements.

Action points:

• The best resource I've discovered for Critical Thinking is the eponymous website - http://www.criticalthinking.org/. Check it out if you're interested in making your thinking do more. You won't be disappointed.
• http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/ seems like a good resource if you want to refresh your understanding of Logic. The puzzles there look interesting.
• For me, a major action is greater scrutiny of the output I produce - whether it be my writing, or my speech, or my thinking.

What tools and strategies do you use in your life to sharpen your thinking and make logical decisions?

If you are even reasonably successful in any field in life that requires intellectual output - whether it be doing well in college, performing well in your workplace, or just improving the quality of your life - you probably have the ability to think logically at will.  It's very hard to become highly-skilled in a field and achieve your goals without thinking rationally, at least in that area. In fact, isn't that the definition of being rational?

Rational people - People who systematically and purposefully do the best they can to achieve their objectives

So, do share in the comments below any tips and tricks you use to think rationally.