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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: Father Terrence who wrote (13399)10/24/1997 1:55:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
>>When one's continued motivation falls outside reason, is that not a definition of insanity?<<

1) Not if there's a reason for it! :-)
2) Defining insanity is probably one of the scariest craziest things we can do. That's the final bastion of a totalitarian ideology. All that doesn't fit is either evil or insane. I don't like that; it can be horribly misused.

Don't get me wrong. I subscribe to the scientific method, so long as it is restricted to the phenomenal or concrete world. Edison, Rockefeller, Attila: all these folks kept their attention to practical matters. Sure they've shaped each of our lives; sure I like central heating and cheap wheat. I'm working from the idea that Kick Rock = Toe Booboo is universally accepted.
But there are daily human forces which I don't think can be reduced to an algebra. Ethics is one. We've got an awful lot of very different ethical and political views, and so far, we're all of us right. .
I can imagine that the rigorous method of science might reach one day through biology and neuroscience on into psychology and give us a blueprint for Homo Sap, Mark 1 Mod 0. But I predict hat htis is a far way off. In the mean time I still need to have a reasonable system of ethics to govern my behavior and teach my unborn daughter. I cannot use pure reason founded on scientific fact to do this in any satisfactory manner. I need to introduce extraneous principles. These are necessarily articles of faith.
So I submit that I can operate in a reasonable but not 100% Rational manner, and still lay claim to sanity.
A is A, no problem. But there's a disconnect, seemingly a controversial disconnect between A and A-OK.
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