Are humans able to override their innate urges?

It is called being civilized.

Which is a fluffy cover-up.

Yes we are able to override them.

Why just this morning I had the primal urge to throttle someone who was annoying me.

They are still alive so, obviously, I overcame my innate urge. at least for now

Obviously we can resist at least some of our urges. We do it all the time. Like most of us can at least sometimes resist the urge to stuff our faces with the most sugary and fat substance available, which ended up being encoded in our genome after living for so long in an environment where not doing so could mean you don’t survive the next winter and the most sugary and fat substance available was usually just one unripe apple anyway.

And then there are innate urges that are harder to suppress, such as the urge to breathe.

I manage alright.
I hate the idea of prison.

Some you are never aware of. Others you override daily (for instance you have been overriding one primal urge ever since you were toilet trained.)

We can redirect our natural urges into actions that serve our higher purposes and values when we work at it.

I think we’ll end up being surprised at how little of what we do is volitional in a moral or civilized way. Chemicals determine what and how we think much more than we realize. Inside, it feels like we’re thinking and we’re controlling our thoughts. But maybe someday, you will have a chance to experience how the introduction of a chemical into your brain can literally change the thoughts it is possible for you to think.

Let me tell you—it is a very, very weird feeling.

no, we cannot defy the urge to do whatever seems to make the most sense in a given situation.

@ninjacolin
Insofar as that’s an urge at all, surely we have plenty of less productive contrary urges to choose instead.
Sometimes we do things that don’t make sense even to us, don’t we? In my current situation for example it would make a whole lot of sense to go to bed, since it’s late and I’m tired and I need my sleep, but it wouldn’t be the first time I choose to procrastinate on the internet for a few more hours instead.

staying up just seems like a “better” thing to do. if you believed going to bed was worth it, you’d do it. staying up is your “greatest” urge in the dichotomy between staying up and going to bed. Your greatest urge (or highest preference) is the one that always wins.

Oh, here we go again.

I’m trying to say that the urge that wins is hardly always the urge that has the official approval of the rational part of your mind, the only part that concerns itself with what makes sense. Alternatives win by being more fun, less of a bother or less intimidating, not by making more sense. I think this is obvious and trivial.

I’m also going to bed now before I become more cranky.

< < doesn’t subscribe to the moist robot theory.

see, now your urge to go to bed has finally matured. it was just an idea of an urge until this point. :)

@Fyrius said: “Alternatives win by being more fun, less of a bother or less intimidating, not by making more sense. ”

You’re neglecting time again. Alternatives function logically within a given moment. Those excuses you gave, “more fun, less of a bother, less intimidating”.. these are fallacies. They make the argument to you this way:

I need to do whatever makes the most sense.
Staying up is more fun than going to bed.
Therefore, staying up is what I’m going to do.

What the alternative has deceptively coerced you to do is to assume that “the sensible thing to do” = “the fun, or easiest, or less intimidating thing to do”

That’s the fallacy. Your brain is actually momentarily deceived into behaving according to the fallacy. As far as your brain is concerned you’re achieving your purpose of doing what makes the most sense by ignoring the other potentially true premises such as:

-“failure to go to bed immediately will result in my sleeping in and being late to work”
-“failure to go to bed immediately will result in my being hit by a stray bullet in about twenty seconds”
-“failure to go to bed will result in a huge convoluted discussion with a ninja.”

no….i need to smoke some cannibis to blunt out these awful feelings.
Wait, there is really nothing wrong with that….

When it comes to sex, not me. Lol.

@ninjacolin
I don’t understand what must be going on in your head to make you think every human mind is a fundamentally rational system. I conjecture you’re projecting your self-image as a fundamentally rational person onto the entire human race.

We’re a bunch of monkeys. Our minds are elaborations upon an ancestral brain architecture that didn’t have any concept of reason or sense at all, the way our furry evolutionary cousins still don’t. Large parts of our minds still show symptoms of being adapted to an ape-like life style. Reason is a recent add-on, not the basis of our operating system.
Many of our motivations still consist of instincts, gut feelings, whims, habits and desires. Often we’re not even aware why we do what we do. We do not even always care about what’s the most sensible thing to do. Some people never do.
There are no fallacies that fool people like me into thinking staying up late is the more sensible choice, it’s just a result of not having enough of a spine to do what we know damn well we should do.

I went to bed yesterday when staying up stopped being more fun than going to bed. The prospect of another tedious discussion of misused words abated the urge to procrastinate on, and meanwhile the sense of responsibility urging me to go the heck to bed remained the same, so it became the most influential force and it got its way.

“I don’t understand what must be going on in your head to make you think every human mind is a fundamentally rational system. I conjecture you’re projecting your self-image as a fundamentally rational person onto the entire human race.”

Worse. Onto all living things without exception. Logic is emergent from and based on the physical world. It functions by physical laws. Monkeys are rational, humans are rational, ladybugs are rational. We all function at different levels but the general system is exactly what you reject: a rational one based entirely on sense making.

Consider natural selection: The successful dominate and the unsuccessful die off. This inhuman process displays the same signs of rational decision making as any human makes when deciding what clothes to buy. If the successful died off and the unsuccessful dominated.. it wouldn’t make any sense, so the universe doesn’t do that. Instead, the only things that come to pass are the things that make sense all things considered.

This exactly describes the way you make decisions. Once you’ve accounted for all the factors you can think* of a conclusion is reached and it’s always the one that seems the most sensible. Just like how the rest of the universe works.
* the universe cheats beacuse it actually knows all factors in existence, so it’s decisions are always right. we on the other hand, have to hope we haven’t neglected something important.

Animals demonstrate the exact same behavior only with significant limits on their brain functionality. They’re not as smart on their feet as us and they don’t have the same abilities or physical resources as us. But they make their decisions with a view towards accuracy and sense making as well.

“Many of our motivations still consist of instincts, gut feelings, whims, habits and desires. Often we’re not even aware why we do what we do. We do not even always care about what’s the most sensible thing to do. Some people never do. ”

Instincts, gut feelings, habits, desires.. all of these are meant to work to our advantage. They got us as far as we’ve made it so far. Their job, collectively along with just plain thinking, is to keep us alive and well. Anything that defies this ultimate aim we shy away from… instinctively.

“We do not even always care about what’s the most sensible thing to do. Some people never do.”

This is a false statement. We may not “feel” that we care about what’s the most sensible, (our internal dialog may even claim this out right) but our brains are hardwired to always pursue the most sensible conclusion given whatever premises we are focused on. And this is super important to the point: If you don’t focus on it, you can’t decide to do right about it. If you are focused on something, you will decide to do right about it.

It requires learning and training, but yes. Human beings have the innate urge not to fly airplanes into skyscrapers because it means killing people including themselves. A devious training program can override our natural instincts.

@ninjacolin
You’re losing me.

Now you’re redefining “rational” to refer to any animate or inanimate process that operates on predictable rules, instead of just “thinking logically without being biased by emotions”. Can we please stick to mainstream definitions?

The universe doesn’t deliberately try to make sense; things just happen, following rules our minds can usually grasp. And it’s our minds that create the experience we call “making sense”, being adapted to this universe so that the experience of sense occurs when we understand things that happen.

This is all irrelevant to your actual statement.
You said people cannot resist the urge do that which makes most sense to them. If I may interpret “making sense to them” by the mainstream definition of giving their mind the impression of being logical, this is simply and obviously not true. People often choose to do things that their own rational thought department judges to be illogical.

“People often choose to do things that their own rational thought department judges to be illogical.”

Time! Why do you always neglect time?

Their own rational thought department may judge so after the fact. Or sometimes even before the fact.. But during the moment, the mind doesn’t think the behavior is illogical at all. During the moment, the mind thinks the behavior is sound. Why? Because during that moment, all other factors are IGNORED.

While those factors cease to be a part of conscious decision making, while they are neglected, the person’s mind is free to form perfectly rational conclusions regarding what to do about it’s current emotional state and all the factors that it is conscious of. But again, all the factors that the brain has ignored are simply not factored in to the decision process. They may as well not exist. The person isn’t “thinking emotionally now” lol. I know that’s the expression we use for it, but that’s not the case. In actuality, the person is STILL thinking logically/rationally, he is simply ignorant/unaware of certain premises in his decision making. Technically, this is called a fallacious thinking. Not emotional thinking. “Emotional thinking” is a euphemism.

After the red button is pushed, sure, then the president may be like: “Gee, I wish I didn’t kill everyone off. I’m pretty bored without any other humans around.” Followed by those famous last words: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

”“People often choose to do things that their own rational thought department judges to be illogical.”

Time! Why do you always neglect time?”
If I have neglected time, it’s because I was unaware of its relevance. I’m still not convinced it’s important.
But very well, then, let me amend that: people often choose to do things that their own rational thought department judges to be illogical, at the time.
I think that adequately covers the aspect of time, but it doesn’t change the point much.

If the time frame you have in mind is one in which the rational awareness that something is not sensible takes a back seat to a different force that makes us choose that option anyway, then during that moment the mind does not think the action is sound or sensible or rational, it doesn’t think anything. If it’s too short for the thought “hang on, this makes no sense” to occur, then it’s too short for any kind of rational thought.

You’re a determinist, surely you wouldn’t disagree that there are forces controlling our decisions other than our conscious intentions. A surge of emotion can do the trick of overwhelming the rational aspects of the mind and moving us to an irrational decision. It will feel like the right thing to do at the moment, but there is nothing rational about that feeling. You might be completely unable to explain why you did it afterwards when the feeling has subsided.

It may be true that there’s no such thing as “emotional thinking”, but that’s in the sense that as long as the emotions are in charge the thinking gets thrown out the window altogether. This is semantics, though, because even without “thinking proper” the mind continues to function. Like the minds of our primate relatives still do 24/7.

As for “it seemed like a good idea at the time”, there are two situations you could describe that way One is “I carefully weighed all the options, and from the incomplete data I had at the moment, this seemed the optimal course of action”, the other is “I wasn’t really thinking, but it felt right.”

Either you use your rationality or you don’t.

The greater portion of this reply won’t seem to tie very closely to the original question but I promise to clean up nicely by the end and get this back on track. Maybe I’ll open a new thread later on to dive deeper into a discussion about the nature of rationality.

@Fyrius said: “If I have neglected time, it’s because I was unaware of its relevance. I’m still not convinced it’s important.”

is that really the reason or is it because you’re so overwhelmed by your emotions that you refuse it’s relevance? (rhetorical, btw) This is the common accusation made against those who have a hard time agreeing. I hate it personally. It’s an insult. It accuses the other person of intentionally side-stepping the truth of a matter when actually the person simply doesn’t understand why it’s important to consider the points they’ve missed. The person is ignorant, not unwilling.

@Fyrius said: “let me amend that: people often choose to do things that their own rational thought department judges to be illogical, at the time. I think that adequately covers the aspect of time, but it doesn’t change the point much.”

Yes, it covers the time aspect.. however now this new statement is demonstrably false. You’ve contradicted the truism I offered. But I would challenge you to find anyone who could admit to it. Even yourself. (provide an example, if you can)

If someone knows what to do and how to get it done.. why wouldn’t they do it? There would have to be a reason why. And if there is a reason why.. then they couldn’t be said to be acting without rationality. Rationality is reason based action.

@Fyrius said: “If it’s too short for the thought “hang on, this makes no sense” to occur, then it’s too short for any kind of rational thought.”

Untrue. One may have no time to reconsider, but the things they’ve considered so far still count as rational considerations! The proper word for the absence of information within a given time frame is “ignorance” not “irrationality.” Truism: Mistakes and bad decisions never occur in the absence of ignorance.

@Fyrius said: “A surge of emotion can do the trick of overwhelming the rational aspects of the mind and moving us to an irrational decision. It will feel like the right thing to do at the moment, but there is nothing rational about that feeling.”

I agree that Sensations are not rational, they just happen. Whether it’s the sensation of a surge of emotions or the sensation of learning a premise is true! But I disagree with your conclusion in italics above: Either way, the irrational sensation is first experienced but then the rational mind deals with it.

There is no difference between hearing: “This is a bad neighborhood, I saw someone get shot here the other day!” and the general feeling: “I don’t like the look of this neighborhood.” The intake of premises is always irrational whether it comes externally from someone or something or internally through your own body/hormones/feelings. What the mind does with those premises is always rational. The mind can’t help but be rational. It doesn’t know how to do anything else. It takes all the premises it is consciously aware of (whether that be emotional surges or hard scientific data) then outputs only 100% rational conclusions based on how those premises factor out. When the mind is ignorant of pertinent premises (eg. When a surge of emotions steers the mind away from learning those pertinent premises) fallacious conclusions are drawn. When the mind is cognizant of all pertinent premises, sound conclusions are drawn. Both conclusions, whether fallacious or sound are still rational.

OKAY, now to tie this all back in..

“Steers the mind away from learning” – I thought you’d notice this line. Learning is the key word here. If the person did learn what it needed to learn, it wouldn’t be able to react improperly. Emotional responses sometimes mean that the person’s mind is preoccupied and so doesn’t get the opportunity to learn/consider needed premises. But I reject the notion that the mind is rationally incapacitated. Here’s the big question though:

Can emotions prevent rational thought? Which is the same question as the original post and this is why we’re having this extended discussion; Can innate urges prevent rational thought?

No! Consider someone with an extreme phobia of spiders to the point where they can’t even touch a photo of spider. It is not technically accurate to say that they are “irrationally” afraid of touching a picture of a spider. This is euphemism, not reality.

In reality, the person rationally observes the effect of their emotions and they respond rationally to that evidence. When you feel afraid, isn’t it rational to run? Of course it is! That’s why it can’t be said that their reaction is truly irrational. The only thing that’s irrational is the experience of emotion at all. It happens to be a fact that they are experiencing the emotion just the same as it happens to be a fact that I do not feel those emotions. Both me and the phobic are simply reacting rationally to the irrational circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Many people overcome their phobias over time. How? Easy! Through the intake of new premises that contradict the phobic response. But of course, the only way you can do that is if you happen to exist in an environment where such premises are available to you. For example, perhaps you have a loving family who set you up with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist! After successfully experiencing the CBT the phobic response is no longer available to the person. Why? Because the mind is unable to form conclusions that violate the most sensible factoring of all the available premises it has been exposed to.

That is, the mind can’t help but do whatever makes sense to it’s subjectively informed self.

TL;DR? :) Maybe this is all i had to say:

@Fyrius said: “As for “it seemed like a good idea at the time”, there are two situations you could describe that way One is “I carefully weighed all the options, and from the incomplete data I had at the moment, this seemed the optimal course of action”, the other is “I wasn’t really thinking, but it felt right.”—Either you use your rationality or you don’t.”

I would correct this to the following:
“It felt right” = “I carefully weighed all the options, and from the incomplete data (aka. the feeling) I had at the moment, this seemed the optimal course of action”

curious what you think of this.

Excuse the delay.

”[P]eople often choose to do things that their own rational thought department judges to be illogical, at the time.”
”(...) But I would challenge you to find anyone who could admit to it. Even yourself. (provide an example, if you can)”
Haven’t I already provided one? I stayed up late against my better judgement. Is that not an example of someone doing something they judge to be illogical even at that moment?
The phrase “against my better judgement” is often used, and covers precisely what I mean. If you believe this sort of situation is not an example of doing something you judge to be illogical even at the moment, then what do you suppose this phrase really means?

How does your model handle such ambivalence, where the impulse that’s followed does not make the impression of being the more sensible one?

“If someone knows what to do and how to get it done.. why wouldn’t they do it? There would have to be a reason why.”
A reason, or a cause. I think you might be conflating those two by accident.

Here’s another example.
Imagine you’re on a desert island and you have a toothache. You have enough knowledge of dental care to realise the tooth has to be pulled, and you know how to do it. You also know it’s going to hurt like a mothertrucker when you do it. And you’re too scared to do it.
You know it has to be done for the sake of your health, you know how to do it, but still the rational arguments can’t defeat the overwhelming urge to chicken out.
If you can’t imagine yourself saying no to rationality that way, picture a less enlightened individual. There are plenty of people who would make this sort of mistake. I’m not too sure I’m not among them.

There’s an obvious explanation why you don’t just pull the tooth, but it’s not a rational reason by any standard. It’s just the involuntary activation of an archaic self-preservation mechanism that makes you avoid pain. And although in other situations that might be a good system, this time it only gets in the way.

“What the mind does _with those premises is always rational. The mind can’t help but be rational. It doesn’t know how to do anything else.“_
How is that possible?
All the other animals can only operate entirely without rationality. Do we agree about this?
If so, do you think it’s plausible that our minds would suddenly evolve into a completely different architecture that can’t avoid being rational?

“Both conclusions, whether fallacious or sound are still rational.”
I have a feeling we’re juggling with definitions again; this sounds to me like a contradiction. Is fallacious thinking ever rational?

A note on to your arachnophobia thought experiment:
“In reality, the person rationally observes the effect of their emotions and they respond rationally to that evidence. When you feel afraid, isn’t it rational to run? Of course it is! That’s why it can’t be said that their reaction is truly irrational.”
Hang on, there’s nothing “of course” about that.
It is rational to run away when you’re afraid if and only if it would actually be better for your purposes if there’s more distance between you and the thing you’re afraid of. But a photo of a spider does not pose a real threat to you. Running out of a dentist’s or doctor’s office at the sight of a syringe would actually be detrimental to your health, and running away from a presentation you are expected to give could harm your carreer.
In such circumstances you may be scared out of your wits, but running away is not a rational thing to do. It does not solve the problem and sometimes makes it worse.

Now, what I believe this exchange really boils down to is the following question:
Can the property of being rational be considered inherent to the process by which we make decisions?

We might have to invest some more time into defining the word “rational” before we can resolve this question.

thick Australian accent: that’s not a delay, this is a delay! (it’s also an apology :)

@Fyrius said: “Haven’t I already provided one? I stayed up late against my better judgement. Is that not an example of someone doing something they judge to be illogical even at that moment?”

You really have to look deeper at what’s going on moment by moment in your brain. I know it might seem trivial but I promise you I wouldn’t be belaboring the matter unless time was sufficiently significant.

Zoom in with me for a moment to a given 3 second period of existence where any decision may or may not occur. When you say: Against your better judgement. What you really meant to say is: Against the better judgement that you reasoned on 1 second ago. In the 2nd second, your mind has ceased to focus on the now passed “better judgement.” Your consciousness knows what judgement existed (past tense), it knows the great sound advice you gave yourself, but it spent the next second forgetting the reasons, the pertinence of that sound advice. Your brain has compartmentalized it away as “good advice” and has stuck it to a mental cork board to be revisited at a later time when you might possibly care about it. Another thing happens in this 2nd second, your brain refocuses on the most immediately gratifying options available to you. The 3rd second is of course spent pursuing that immediate gratification over the “better judgement”.. why? because a new “Better judgement” has been formed in the ignorance of the one past. This new judgement has relevance to your focused consciousness: “Stay up and philosophize, yay! philosophy is sooooo cool!”

“Better judgement” is only better if it is known and focused on. It is useless, immaterial, essentially non-existent while it is being ignored. If it is not being ignored, then it is being followed. However, this was not the case when you stayed up too late that night. :)

Now, these 3 phases which I’ve separated into Seconds don’t have to be actual seconds. They could all happen within a split second, really. Brains are fast little buggers. So fast that you could be holding a pen one second, just picked it up from the table, and then you forget how much concentration is needed to keep it in your hand, perhaps because your super hot sexy wife comes in the room and startles you.. perhaps an idea pops in your head that inspires you and your focus is lost.. whatever the case, the pen you just picked up finds itself again on the table or floor. The reason for this is simply that whatever your brain has decided is right and good and just one moment may be completely forgotten and/or ignored in the next. Not by choice, simply by being overloaded with other thoughts and processes. The sound of the pen hitting the floor can again overrule your better judgement (judgement: that looking at your hot wife would be a good thing) forcing you to quickly try again to grab the pen again or at least see what fell.

@Fyrius said: ”“If someone knows what to do and how to get it done.. why wouldn’t they do it? There would have to be a reason why.” – A reason, or a cause. I think you might be conflating those two by accident.”

Not by accident. I am conflating the two because there appears to be no significant/practical difference. Reasons, conscious reasons, are causes for however you will behave:

@Fyrius said: “There’s an obvious explanation why you don’t just pull the tooth, but it’s not a rational reason by any standard. It’s just the involuntary activation of an archaic self-preservation mechanism that makes you avoid pain.”

This might just blow up in our faces here: The involuntary activation occurs to you in no different of a way than the answer to the grade 4 math exam question “what is 2 + 3?” occurs to you. Decisions, such as to procrastinate from pulling a tooth, are the result of calculation. Specifically logical calculation (aka, Rationality)

To prove this, consider our having a man forcibly pull out your tooth right now. Your immediate reaction is calculated as: “No! Dear god!” But now, if we have that man (he’s big and burly, by the way) cover your face with a chloroform rag for a bit.. not to kill you, just to knock you out. Then if we have the man try to extract your tooth, you would notice (ha, actually only the rest of us would notice) yourself lacking that “no” reaction. Why? Because complex logic and decision making is an emergent phenomenon of basic brain function! You wouldn’t even have a chance to shudder in fear! Everything that you decide is calculated. Lacking consciousness, your brain cannot compute decisions such as “shuddering” or “procrastination.” Your “archaic brain functions” are what cause you to come up with reasons. Those reasons translate into actions such as procrastination or nay saying or even pursuing other options!

@Fyrius said: “What the mind does _with those premises is always rational. The mind can’t help but be rational. It doesn’t know how to do anything else.“ – How is that possible?”

magic! obviously enough.

@Fyrius said: “All the other animals can only operate entirely without rationality. Do we agree about this?”

no, it should be clear now that my opinion is not so common. The (non-human) animals are as rational as they are able given the quality of brain that they have. Animals can be compared to a car without air conditioning. You can still open the windows. No, it’s not as advanced, but it serves the same purpose. Animals are exactly like us in that they attempt to reason and make sound decisions to the best of their abilities. Our ability is greater, but our motivation is the same. Animals can’t avoid doing whatever makes the most sense to their minds either.

@Fyrius said: “Is fallacious thinking ever rational?”

One of us should really make this a fluther question for the masses!
My answer is yes. Fallacious thinking is still rational. For example, you might choose a lesser fallacy over a more obvious one.

@Fyrius said: “In such circumstances you may be scared out of your wits, but running away is not a rational thing to do. It does not solve the problem and sometimes makes it worse.”

Running away at an improper time is a fallacious rational decision based on the “arguments” your body’s biological reaction is giving you. If you feel afraid AND you are unable to cope with staying, the rational thing to do is run. Retrospect is irrelevant in the moment. The moment contains all your focus. If you are only focused on running away, as I said earlier, you will be unable to do anything else. Your brain is overloaded with focus on and evidence that running is a good idea and it will remain that way until your mind is converted by new evidence. For example, perhaps you’re running from a bear when suddenly you recognize a safe place to hide. At that point hiding becomes a better option than running and you will attempt to do it without fail.. as long as the belief persists that the hiding spot is the best option.

@Fyrius said: Can the property of being rational be considered inherent to the process by which we make decisions?

Absolutely. Rational decision making is merely the fruition of mental physics! It is based on what premises you subjectively believe are true. Every individual has a different set of premises that they consider true and those differences are what give us our unique perspectives. Just as every landscape has a different set of rocks and plants on it which is what gives them their unique appearance, different premises believed to be true is what gives each individual their unique rational output.

I agree that a discussion on the term “rational” is both pertinent and imminent. :)
i’m going away on a trip though, back soon!

http://www.fluther.com/88587/are-humans-able-to-override-their-innate-urges/#quip1435669

“You really have to look deeper at what’s going on moment by moment in your brain.”
At this moment my brain is experiencing a sensation of comprehension that might indicate that what you actually meant all along is finally getting through to me.
You’re saying, then, that better-judgement ambivalence is a matter of the judgement of this moment disagreeing with that of a second ago, yes? That would mean that a current judgements often can’t override decisions taken seconds ago, even if it seems superior at this moment. At least for people who do things against their better judgement.

So what we have here is what seems to be a fairly accurate (laypeople’s) model of the way we make decisions. Now, to lead this back to the main subject, we should ask: is this process inherently rational? What definitions for “rational” would make it so, and should we use any of those definitions?

“I am conflating the two because there appears to be no significant/practical difference.”
Oh, but I beg to differ. Reasons imply deliberateness, or even deliberation; you do things for a reason when you know what you’re doing. Causes aren’t like that.
A high blood alcohol level can cause you to do swerve to and fro on the road, without there being a reason for you to do so.

”[Burly dentist with chloroform thought experiment]”
You lost me.
I don’t follow what point you’re trying to illustrate in this paragraph. No, if you’re unconscious, your brain doesn’t do a whole lot any more. So… what?
The point we disagree on is whether the choice to chicken out and let your tooth rot away, instead of manning up and accepting it’s pain time, can be called “rational”.
And for that we need to precisely define the term “rational”. And by extension, the phrase “making sense”, which started all this.

”“How is that possible?”
magic! obviously enough.”
¬_¬

“The (non-human) animals are as rational as they are able given the quality of brain that they have.”
We seriously need to defince “rational”.
What I meant is that animals act on urges and instinct; they’re not self-conscious, they have no meta-awareness of what happens in their minds. A silverback won’t realise he’s just short-tempered because he hasn’t eaten yet.

“My answer is yes. Fallacious thinking is still rational. For example, you might choose a lesser fallacy over a more obvious one.”
We urgently need to define “rational”.
It might be more rational than the alternative, perhaps? Another way to phrase it would be to say: less irrational, or closer to rational.

“If you feel afraid AND you are unable to cope with staying, the rational thing to do is run.”
We really, really need to define “rational”.

As a side note: Your point of view seems to imply it’s okay to make mistakes, because you can’t help it. Right here you seem to be defending the decision to run out of a dentist’s office and let your teeth rot away.
A result of your determinist convictions, maybe. But I’d worry that this might lead you to go easy on your mind if you notice it’s doing something stupid. Determinism or no, I think it’s infinitely more constructive to do your best to purge irrationality from your skull and cultivate the cognitive habits you approve of.

”Can the property of being rational be considered inherent to the process by which we make decisions?”
“Absolutely. Rational decision making is merely the fruition of mental physics!”
“Rational”, define, need to, we, etc.

“I agree that a discussion on the term “rational” is both pertinent and imminent. :)”
We really urgently need to… oh. Yes.

Well, my definition of “rational” would be:
1. Relying on dry reason, as opposed to emotions, urges, impulses, instincts, moods, desires, comfort, or cognitive habits or traditions. (And probably some other stuff. Let’s just say: as opposed to anything else decisions could rely on.)
2. Of or pertaining to any endeavour to reconfigure one’s ways of thinking so as to make them more efficient at building accurate models of the world (in other words, to become better at not being wrong); of or pertaining to a state of mind resulting from this, if done right.

I don’t think yours is the same. How do you define it?