The tendence to adapt one's own reasoning and decisions to the correct rules of logical inference. This implies the capability to identify and avoid psychological biases, social conditioning and logical fallacies.
A rational person is characterized by the following traits:
- The ability to clearly define concepts and avoid ambiguities
- The ability to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information
- The ability to judge specific things by their own intrinsical properties
- The ability to draw connections and recognize patterns between apparently unrelated ideas
- The ability to carefully weight contrasting values and probabilities
In mediatic language, the word "rationality" can have several different meanings, none of which contain any element of rational thought:
- The tendence to limit one's own thoughts to what feels "familiar", and to reject anything that feels "abnormal", "outlandish", or deviates from one's own personal everyday experience.
- The tendence to conform one's own opinions and decisions to what the majority of people regard as true or socially acceptable.
- The tendence to conform one's own opinions and decisions to what the authorities have declared to be true.
- The tendence to avoid any thought that might involve ideas bearing any resemblance to concepts culturally associated with religion/magic/supernatural.
- The tendence to disregard emotions and feelings as *inherently* devoid of any value.