Here’s the conundrum: on the one hand, as rationalists, we’re striving to be rational to the best of our ability. On the other hand, as rationalists, we’re striving to accept reality to the best of our ability. And the reality is that our brains are not rational. Our brains are a hot mess. Our brains are loaded with quirks and kluges and eighty kajillion cognitive biases that are there for good evolutionary reasons but can make for some seriously crummy thinking. And they always will be. I suppose it’s possible that humanity will eventually evolve to a state in which all our cognitive biases will have vanished and we’ve become perfectly calibrated thinking machines, but I doubt it. If that does happen, it won’t be while any of us are alive.

So how do we deal with this? As rationalists, the most obvious way to cope with our cognitive biases is to learn about them, understand them, recognize them, and do our best to counterbalance them or set them aside. That’s usually what we advocate and what we strive for, including me. But can it ever be more rational to just accept our irrationality, work around it or with it, and even use it to our advantage?

Let me give a couple of examples. When it comes to exercise, the rational thing for me to do would be to exercise at home. My gym membership costs money, and it takes time to get to the gym and back—time and money that I’d love to spend in other ways. I have exercise equipment at home; it’s not quite as good as what I use at the gym, but I can get a perfectly good workout with it. But I don’t. I almost never work out at home. And when I do, I don’t keep up a routine for very long. When I’m at home, it’s too easy to get distracted and be enticed by a dozen other things—including the sofa.

When I go to the gym, on the other hand, I do actually work out. The only real willpower involved is getting myself there in the first place. Once I’m there, what else am I going to do? After all, I’ve already spent the time getting myself to the gym. I’m not about to turn around and go home again. It’s the “sunk cost fallacy” in action. And once I start working out at the gym, it’s easier to stay in a groove and just keep exercising until I’m done. It’s not like there’s anything else to do at the gym: there are no kittens to play with, no snacks to eat, no Internet, and not even any TV sets except the ones that you can only watch when you’re on the exercise equipment. A typical home workout for me lasts fifteen minutes at best: at the gym, I usually spend at least an hour.

This is entirely irrational. So do I say to myself, “My gym membership is irrational, so I’m going to cancel it and just make myself work out at home somehow”? Or do I accept the reality that, irrational as it is, as costly of time and money as it is, my gym membership keeps me exercising? Do I accept the fact that my brain is easily distracted and choose to exercise in a place that keeps me focused? Do I not only accept the fact that my brain is wired with the sunk-cost fallacy but actually use it to my advantage? Which is the rational choice?

*****

Thus begins my latest piece for Free Inquiry magazine, Can We Rationally Accept Our Irrationality? To read more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!