@grainloom So, I've thought about it some more, and I think I have another way of explaining things that might make sense, if you're willing to re-engage :)

@starkatt Sure, I'm in.

@grainloom Cool :)
So, have you ever been to a really good live music performance? Was that a valuable experience?

@starkatt Yes and yes.

@grainloom Ugh, sorry I missed this earlier. Hope it's okay for this conversation to be asynchronous; I'm going to bed soon.

Anyway.

So, if you saw a really good show, would that experience still be valuable even if the band was regarded by almost everyone else as not very good?

To take it a step further, if you were alone with a friend and they played a really beautiful improvisational composition -- never to be heard again -- would that have value?

@grainloom If yes, the value of that experience has nothing to do with consensus opinion, or repeatability, or predictive power about your future actions, right?

@starkatt Well, not necessarily, in the first case it's more like:
"I have this subjective opinion that goes against the consensus, that might mean I'm wrong and I should re-evaluate it just in case."

Both have value but they don't override rational thinking.

@grainloom The value isn't a function of a rational evaluation though, right? Like, if you went to a rock show that you thought was great, but most people in the audience quietly thought was meh, you still would have had an amazing time, yeah? The subjective experience is what makes it worthwhile.

@grainloom Cards on the table here: me being trans *greatly* informs my thought processes on the value of subjective experience, and was one of the first really important steps in my movement away from strict rationality.

@grainloom At this point, it's six years since I started transition. I've read piles and piles of text about gender theory -- everything from dense academic literature to microblog shitposts.

*And I still have no idea what gender is*. Really. Genuinely. I have no idea what it means to "feel like a woman". But, I viscerally and manifestly did, and had to act upon that.

@grainloom There might very well be a reductionist explanation for why people experience a sense of there own gender, but for me any explanation was and continues to be utterly irrelevant.

There's no objective tests for whether someone is trans -- people have tried and failed to create them. What mattered is how I felt. Ultimately, that was the *only* thing that mattered.

@starkatt TBH I'm still not convinced but I get what you mean.
My interpretation:
people are ultimately selfish and subjective, but rationality is the best long term strategy to achieve large scale subjective success.
Now, what someone's brain considers a "good" input will vary, I personally consider a more rational brain a better brain.
The problem arises when one has to implement rationality with/against irrational people.

@starkatt When discussing rationality I think it makes perfect sense to distance ourselves from the subjective and for me, distancing myself (even temporarily) from my subjective feelings has been my best strategy for self improvement.
That's pretty much why I don't think "qualia" as some mystical, atomic thing makes sense, brains are brains.

@starkatt While trying to build one's worldview from "only I surely exist" is an interesting philosophical thought experiment, it makes no practical sense. An axiom system that is not focused on real world gain is pointless.

@grainloom Where is the "real world gain" in a good rock show, though?

@starkatt Art teaches us and connects us, both are important for survival. There is always a rational reason behind things if you look hard enough.

@grainloom Maybe I phrased that last question wrong. When you decide to go to a show, when you're having a good time at the show, is the good time you're having the result of a deliberate rational value calculation, or a because right at that moment music *feels good* emotionally?

@grainloom meaning can exist on multiple levels of abstraction.

Me (hypothetically) pushing someone off a cliff can be accurately described as "oxidizing sugars converted into kinetic energy to move a 80-kilogram mass at half a meter pet second", but that's not generally the causal layer we as people actually find relevant, right? What we would probably care about is a causal process on the level of human thoughts and agency, not physics and chemistry, yeah?

@grainloom it's not that thinking about the process in purely on physical, reductive terms is *incorrect* in that case, but it doesn't actually provide an explanation in any sense we actually care about.