I would like to explore certain kinds of experiential knowledge that appear to me to be difficult to investigate rationally as the rational attitude itself might be the cause of a reluctance to explore. If this is already covered in one of the articles on the site please refer me to it.
In this thought experiment we will use the example of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a state in which a person realises they are dreaming while they are dreaming. The subtleties of the state are not relevant to this discussion.
Circumstances
[1] We will assume the experiment takes place at a time where the existence of the experience of lucid dreaming hasn't been scientifically proven yet. We will also assume that a proof is not possible in the current state of technological or methodological development.
[2] Person A has a (true) belief on the existence of lucid dreaming that is based on his personal experience of the state.
[3] He is trying to communicate the existence of lucid dreaming to someone else. Let us call him person B.
[4] Actually becoming lucid in a dream is quite a complex process that requires among other things1:
[4.1] Expending large amounts of effort.
[4.2] Following guidelines and exercises that appear strange.
[4.3] A time investment of significant length.
In the described circumstances we have an internal experience that has not be scientifically proven but is nevertheless true. We know this in our time through scientific studies but B does not know it in his world. Person B would have to actually believe in the existence of lucid dreaming and trust A to guide him through the process. But since there is no sufficient evidence to support the claim of A, the required effort is significantly large and the methods appear strange to those not understanding the state how can B rationally decide to expend the effort?
Proposed Conclusion
[5] People focusing on rational assessment can be mislead when dealing with experiential knowledge that is not yet scientifically proven, is not easily testable and has no obvious external function but is, nevertheless, experientially accessible.
1 Even if you disagree with the level of difficulty or the steps required please accept [4] and its sub-headings as being accurate for the duration of the argument.
That's related to Science Doesn't Trust Your Rationality.
What I'd say is this:
Personally, I find the lucid-dreaming example rather absurd, because I tend to believe a friend who claims they've had a mental experience. I might not agree with their analysis of their mental experience; for example, if they say they've talked to God in a dream, then I would tend to suspect them of mis-interpreting their experience. I do tend to believe that they're honestly trying to convey an experience they had, though. And it's plausible (though far from certain) that the steps which they took in order to get that experience will also work for me.
So, I can imagine a skeptic who brushes off a friend's report of lucid dreaming as "unscientific", but I have no sympathy for it. My model of the skeptic is: they have the crazy view that observations made by someone who has a phd, works at a university, and publishes in an academic journal are of a different kind than observations made by other people. Perhaps the lucid-dreaming studies have some interesting MRI scans to show differences in brain activity (I haven't read them), but they must still rely on descriptions of internal experience which come from human beings in order to establish the basic facts about lucid dreams, right? In no sense is the skeptic's inability to go beyond the current state of science "rational"; in fact, it strikes me as rather irrational.
This is an especially easy mistake for non-Bayesian rationalists to make because they lack a notion of degrees of belief. There must be a set of trusted beliefs, and a process for beliefs to go from untrusted to trusted. It's natural for this process to involve the experimental method and peer review. But this kind of naive scientism only makes sense for a consumer of science. If scientists used the kind of "rationality" described in your post, they would never do the experiments to determine whether lucid dreaming is a real thing, because the argument in your post concludes that you can't rationally commit time and effort to testing uncertain hypotheses. So this kind of naive scientific-rationalism is somewhat self-contradictory.
Yes, that makes sense. I don't think we disagree much. I might be just confusing you with my clumsy use of the word rationality in my comments. I am using it as a label for a social group and you are using it as an approach to knowledge. Needless to say this is my mistake as the whole point of this post is about improving the rational approach by becoming aware of what I think as a difficult space of truth.
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