Why doesn’t rational analysis lead all sensible people to the same conclusions on important matters of the day?
Portfolism is a set of ideas and metaphors that try to make sense of this lack of rational convergence, recognising the limits of rational calculation without slipping into the relativism of postmodernism.
The metaphor that we live in separate social bubbles is misleading because it suggests that meaningful dialogue might never be possible between people living in different bubbles.
In my latest video I argue that our embodiment in the world prevents such a level of unbounded relativism. We don’t live in separate bubbles, we live in different fingers of the same hand.
This latest video explores the question of whether it is best to understand the world that we experience as being socially constructed or as objectively real.
After a few months break I’ve finally published a new video on my Go Meta channel. It’s a simple vlog video introducing the channel.
The latest Covid-19 lockdown has further reduced the available time I have to make videos and write blog posts, but I also feel compelled to make at least some progress on the projects that are deeply important to me.
This blog post is associated with the following video on my YouTube channel:
For the moment, here is simply a transcript of that video:
Around the world today so many public discussions descend into polarised debates in which each side thinks the other cannot think clearly or is acting disingenuously. But most people do genuinely want our societies to improve, so why can’t we discuss the options in a civil and constructive way? Obviously there are many factors at play, but I think a useful perspective on this problem is to recognise that often each side of the discussion is reasoning from a different dialect of reason. In this video I’ll explain what I mean by that.
This is the associated blog post for the video on my YouTube channel about why rational arguments can be so persuasive. The video looks at the rise in our ability to perform calculations and why it is that calculations can be so persuasive.
This blog post accompanies a YouTube video of the same title that outlines the definitions of the words rational and reason that I like to work with. The video explains why I think the traditional definitions don’t quite capture what we mean by these words and aren’t as solid as one would have hoped for such important words.