A Rational Ode to Irrationality

It is very interesting to consider the utility of irrationality. Rarely is it the case that rationality is effectively implemented as a catalyst for social cohesion (emotion is a better influencer than logic); in that respect, religion manifests as powerful and has aspects that we should incorporate to live stable, meaningful lives.

If the previous paragraph turns you off, it may be a sign that you see rationality as God – a growing position in the modern world. If my usage of the term “God” turns you off, know that I understand your skepticism and I can justify my statements rationally, but be forewarned – it’s not a trivial thought experiment.

Here’s my premise:
Human experience resides within a reference frame that is unique to its context; our consciousness is brought forth from the real world, but within our respective subjective worlds the real world loses its relevance. An analogy to this concept would be how mathematics relates to physics – 1+2 does not exist in the real world; it is a conceptual expression. Arguably mathematics is not even physically representable at the core, microscopic level. However, it is unarguable that it exists in our frame of reference; 1+2 does equal 3 after all. The point being, it is possible for certain elements to exist within a certain context yet break down at lower-level points of analysis.

My contention is that meaning and the soul are elements among the many in human experience that exist in this manner. Note how mathematics hypothetically could exist independently of an objective reality, or in a parallel one; I argue that human subjective experience follows the same pattern.

In some senses it’s akin to viewing the world as a computer program; the internals of the program are ones and zeroes, yet we display meaning on our computer screens. The implementation involves ones and zeroes, but this doesn’t impact the reality that there is significance to the contents of the screen.

Disregarding meaning because of its irrationality or religion because of its superstition is like disregarding your operating system because each application is not a physical window, or each button is not a physical button. In this respect, acting under the paradigm that the operating system’s graphical buttons are real buttons is not exactly an invalid way of using the computer, and is true in a sense – as naïve as it is in contradistinction to the technical reality of the hardware. In fact, despite its naïveté, this paradigm may prove advantageous; the user who acts as if buttons exist on a computer screen will be able to operate in a meaningful manner whilst the user overanalyzing the hardware will struggle to see anything but meaningless electronics. The implication here is that inconsistency across different levels of analysis is irrelevant to truthiness or validity within their respective frames of reference; 1+2 does not need to be microscopically representable for it to exist conceptually in our minds.

At my present state of thought I conclude that the optimal perspective is accepting the validity of the high-level frame of reference (e.g., the human soul), and acknowledging the utility of what is apparent irrationality from the context of empirical truth, all the while conceding the probable existence of a mysterious, traditionally incomprehensible external world.