Thomas comments on People who "don't rationalize"? [Help Rationality Group figure it out] - Less Wrong
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"I have goofed" is hardly a rationalization, is it?
Or "I did this, because all the elephants are flying." is not making an excuse, IF you really believe that they are indeed flying - either. No matter that at least some elephants are not flying. You just have a wrong belief.
A rationalization is (in the sense of "making excuses"), when you are rationalizing with a knowingly wrong reason.
Would you call THIS comment "a rationalization"?
As I noted in the previous thread, I can tell (sometimes) that I'm rationalising, even if my conclusion does turn out to be correct - it's a matter of arriving at a belief by a bad process. (In my case I get my polemicist on even though there's a little voice in my head noticing that my epistemology isn't quite justified. This is harder to notice because my output looks much the same those times I consider that I really do have my epistemological ducks in a row - I have to notice it while I'm doing it.)