on postrationalism...

the value, and limits, of trying to be less wrong

most people get into disagreements online because they want to "win" an argument. fewer people get into disagreements online because they are seeking truth.

one online community that is overrepresented by the later is the rationalist community. these are people who try their best to stick to facts, eschew tribalism, try to overcome their own biases, and pursue truth by what can be provably verified.

i've followed this community for years because most of them are genuinely interested in truth. i follow them even though their ranks are filled with atheists and i’m a believer. it's not surprising that people who are focused mostly on what can be proven would reject the very idea of faith.

faith is not provable in the same way that a law of physics is.

i'm not drawn to discussion with average atheists because many of them are in the "trying to win an argument" camp rather than the "trying to discover truth" camp. discussion with them can be tedious and unfruitful. to be clear, this isn’t unique to the atheist community as i’ve already said that most communities are populated by people who are trying to win an argument rather than discover truth.

but the atheists in the rationalist community are often different. because they focus on discovering truth as opposed to winning an argument, they often have atheistic insights that are useful to me, as a believer who is also trying to discover truth.

so i've followed the rationalist community for decades (even before there was a world wide web) and i've largely been enriched by the association.

there is an interesting offshoot (dare i use the word schism?) from the rationalist community that is non-authoritatively termed “post-rationalist” or “postrat.”

that postrat in the previous paragraph is linked to the knowyourmeme page for it, but know that the information on that page could change at any time and in any direction.

so allow me to define postrat as i see it.

my definition of postrat is that these are people who have recognized the value of rationalism for finding truth but have reached the conclusion that rationalism cannot be the means of discovering all truth. these people are open to a broader epistemology which includes methods other that rationality for discovering truth.

by that definition, i do loosely identify as postrat.