People are rational | Page 2 | INFJ Forum

People are rational

From my perspective, most people at the very least TRY to be rational. The only times when people tend to shirk that is when they become very narrow minded on specefic things or have some kind of adjenda. I am more inclined to think that people are rational then irrational. In particuar in the long term sense. I have a hard time seeing how someone would not want to be rational.

I think the biggest question and disparity here is what individuals feels is rational. Just because you think you are rational, does not mean that you are. Luckily, hindsight is 20/20 and most people can see how rational/irrational they were afterthefact.
 
I think that people are internally consistent, it's figuring out why they do what they do that is the question for both that person and observers.
At one point, I convinced myself that by thinking certain things, I would drive myself literally insane.
Have you ever tried to not think about something? It's the hardest thing in the world.
I thought that I could CHANGE my subconscious to believe nonsense.. I thought that I could change the thing that drives me and influences my descisions, even against my conscious will.

That was a scary time. I got all into surrealist art and may have even accidentally hypnotized myself a few times.
But that's a tangent, I suppose. :p
 
Let's be careful here not to descend into pure rhetoric. It is not selfish to be an advocate for yourself. Seeing that none of us can totally eliminate out emotions, how can we claim to be totally rational? Good, bad, or indifferent, emotions are part of all our lives. Even Dr. Spock was influenced by his emotions. It is not a bad thing. I want a proper balance in my life between logic and emotions. Face it, there are things that can't be understood by logic or rational thinking alone.
 
This thread bears resemblance to the "Insanity" one you started that's also floating around here somewhere.

Something troubling you?
 
This thread bears resemblance to the "Insanity" one you started that's also floating around here somewhere.

Something troubling you?

i'm fine, these threads were started a while ago~ thanks for your concern though :)
 
mkay, cool.

In that case: no... I don't actually think people are rational all the time. At least, not if you're defining rationality to be weighing pros and cons for yourself and acting in accordance with them.

About choosing to be crazy... I think there's a difference between someone saying "I'm going to do something that doesn't have the best pro/con ratio" and saying "I give up/don't care about the pro/con ratio anymore." In the case of bad depression, for instance, I would bet someone would not-care about the pros/cons to such an extent that their choices are indistinguishable from craziness.
 
HAHAHA it depends on your reference point for rational. Depends how ya define it. You can set it up so that everyone's rational sure....... they do their best for themselves based on what they are aware of at that time. Emotionality fits into that framework.