[PH01]

> In fact, I look at the "post-truth" label as just another non-rational attack against the other side.

This is an odd perspective to see on ycombinator. The negation of knowledge as a fundamental concept is nihilism. I find it very hard to accept that "alternative facts" are true. A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false.

If you work in technology do you believe in booleans or do you think they are also open to individual interpretation?

[eindiran]

I don't understand how you took the idea that OP doesn't believe in truth from their post. Their point was that the "post-truth" framing implies that there was some golden age of rationality where we cared about truth and now we don't; but humans aren't exactly rational on their best days, so in some sense we've always been "post-truth".

No one is asking that you think that "alternative facts" are true; OP is just saying that there wasn't significantly more truth in the media/discussions in the commons 30 years ago (or whenever the fabled golden age of truth was supposed to have occurred).

[PH01]

> Their point was that the "post-truth" framing implies that there was some golden age of rationality where we cared about truth and now we don't; but humans aren't exactly rational on their best days, so in some sense we've always been "post-truth".

Did you read the article?

> Here, “post” is meant to indicate not so much the idea that we are “past” truth in a temporal sense (as in “postwar”) but in the sense that truth has been eclipsed by less important matters like ideology

It does not imply a golden age of rationality at all.

[ilaksh]

Real-world issues are not boolean variables.

[brokenkebab]

This commentary is interesting in that it's absolutely correct, but adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.

[BitwiseFool]

I do work in technology and I'm not trying to be nihilistic or Socratic (in the sense that nothing is knowable). As for your boolean example I don't deny that you can prove things using formal logic. But I do believe those formal proofs are only really applicable to the mathematical and the abstract. Subjects where human emotion and human perception don't come into play.

In societal subjects the same facts can be used to justify different conclusions. As an example, look at all the wildly different economic policies that are recommended by different economists who are all looking at the same data published by The Fed.

I know that "Alternative Facts" has a lot of vernacular baggage around it due to the crowd size fiasco with Donald Trump's inauguration. Putting that aside, an alternative fact can really just be a datapoint from a different perspective. And that's often how I see every argument. I don't use "Alternative Facts" as a synonym for lying.

[PH01]

You claim:

> Human beings didn't evolve to be rational creatures - we're not Vulcans. We're born with good-enough rules for making sense of the environment around us and maintaining harmony with the people around us. It's a mistake to believe otherwise.

You also state:

> But I do believe those formal proofs are only really applicable to the mathematical and the abstract.

Do you not see the contradiction in these two terms? The creation of formal proofs implies rationality. The comprehension of formal proofs implies rationality. If people are only born with good-enough rules for making sense of the environment and keeping harmony who wrote the formal proofs?

[brokenkebab]

What if humans rationality circuits are always subordinated to group/mating/whatever circuits? Then it's possible to be rational in math, and irrational in most other issues.

[PH01]

Are we working on the same definition of rational? I am using what I consider to be the standard definition which would pop up from a google search:

"based on or in accordance with reason or logic" / "able to think sensibly or logically" / "endowed with the capacity to reason".

You made the claim that you do not believe people are rational. Following from this you would also have to believe that individual's actions are without reason. Consequently, any perceived reason or logic, either by the actor or an observer, would actually be a post-hoc explanation for action. From a behavioural persective cause and effect would no longer exist, nothing could be predicted and nothing could be planned.

This is entirely at odds with what we know about post-truth. Individual behaviour can be modelled and population behaviour can be predicted to a degree.

Irrational actions do not imply irrationality. An irrational action is usually a consequence of rational thinking based on incorrect information.

[brokenkebab]

Apparently you confused me with another commenter.

I don't think humans are irrational, and wholeheartedly agree that we are able to think logically. However, skipping all the stuff which wasn't intended for me I'd like to jump to the last sentence of your commentary to note that it hangs on a hypothesis that our actions are result of just thought processes completely detached from say metabolism, and pre-programmed reactions. I don't think its true. There's a lot of empirical evidence to claim that various things like sleep deprivation, peer pressure, level of glucose, hormons, age do affect human decision-making even if thought-information[1] remains the same. Humans btw show great ability to re-rationalize made decisions afterwards, essentially fooling themselves to believe they came to them purely by thinking.

Math is unlikely to be affected by this, but politics, relationships, and a lot of other decisions - easy.

[1] Technically, hormons, and instincts are information inputs as well, but they are usually processed outside of concious thinking.

EDIT: added the last para.