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JohnDavidBustard comments on Belief as Attire - Less Wrong
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I am in the process of working through these delicious posts so apologies in advance if my comments are redundant.
Perhaps group membership of a mutually supportive tribe has the greatest value (for example from both a psychological and survival perspective). If this is the goal, what is the most rational course of action? Will a rational person inevitably run into problems where the tool they are using to solve their problems becomes their primary source of problems?
I like this site for the very reason that it represents a community where my natural problem solving inclinations are not compromising my sense of being similar to those I interact with. But as with all communities I step with trepidation for fear of violating a social taboo which may be rationalised but is not reasonable (belief as attire). If we choose to be irrational because rationally we have decided it is the most rational course of action are we still rational?
Can we truly choose to be irrational, though? Recognizing the irrationality of a belief, and valuing reason, the most we can do is act as if we hold others' irrational beliefs. I'm sure there are many people who have done this throughout time; the tragedy is that each of these people may have "come out" as nonbelievers if they were aware of the others' presence.
While I personally think that a person compromises his integrity when he acts contrary to his beliefs, there are certainly many instances in which this course of action has survival value, and so can be said to be rational.
Using drugs, we could probably make ourselves less rational on purpose. Drinking lots of alcohol, for instance.