I suspect that the word "confidence" is not being used consistently in this exchange, and you might do well to replace it with a more explicit description of what you intend for it to refer to.

i referenced confidence only because Mugasofer did. What was your understanding of how Mugasofer used "confident as we should be"? Regardless, I am still wondering what the value of being "right" is if we can't determine what is in fact right? If it gives confidence/ego/comfort that you've derived the right answer, being "right" in actuality is not necessary to have those feelings.

To say that "rationality falls short" in these cases suggests that it's being compared to something.

Fair. The use of rationality and the belief in its merits generally biases the decision maker to form a belief that rationality will yield a correct answer, even if it does not -- it seems rationality always errs on applying probabilities (and forming a judgment), even if they are flawed (or you don't know they are accurate). To say it differently, to the extent a question has no clear answer (for example, because we don't have enough information or it isn't worth the cost), I think we'd be better off withholding judgment altogether than forming a judgment for the sake of having an opinion. Rumsfeld had this great quote -- "we dont know what we don't know" -- we also don't know the importance of what we don't know relative to what we do know when forming judgments. From this perspective, having an awareness of how little we know seems far more important than creating judgments based on what we know. Rationality cannot take into account information that is not known to be relevant -- what is the value of forming a judgment in this case? To be clear, I'm not "throwing my hands up" for all of life's questions and saying we don't know anything -- I'm trying to see how far LW is willing to push rationality as a universal theory (or the best theory in all cases short of perfect knowledge, whatever that means).

Truth is relative because its relevance is limited to the extent other people agree with that truth, or so I would argue. This is because our notions of truth are man-made, even if we account for the possibility that there are certain universal truths (what relevance do those truths have if only you know them?). Despite the logic underlying probability theory/science in general, truths derived therefrom are accepted as such only because people value and trust probability theory and science. All other matters of truth are even more subjective -- this does not mean that contradicting beliefs are equally true or equally valid, instead, truth is subjective precisely because we cannot even attempt prove anything as true outside of human comprehension. We're stuck debating and determining truth only amongst ourselves. Its the human paradox of freedom of expression/reasoning trapped within an animal form that is fallible and will die. From my perspective, determining universal truth, if it exists, requires transcending the limitations of man -- which of course i cannot do.