I'm curious: While you were writing your observations about Ayn Rand's obsession with her own rationality, did you anticipate that I might see some ironic relevance to our recent conversations on the subject of your own self-perception as hyperrational?

Not that the connection hadn't already occurred to me. While you express some reservations about Rand, you seem to have internalized most of her beliefs, most vividly the Nietzchean belief that through exercize of The Will you can bend reality to your perceptions and desires. Yet, try as you might to order the universe to suit your brand of "rationality", damn, people keep choosing pistachio despite the perfectly rational choice between vanilla and chocolate. What's a Rationalist to do?

Had you been present when Rand was making her choice, do you think you'd have been successful arguing against it using what you believe is global and universal and absolute logic? Highly unlikely, I think you'd agree. Yet a fine example of how a local logic system, one that's personally meaningful to the person using it, will always trump an externally-imposed logic system.

It all matters very much, I think, because trying to deal with the world only through a self-described global logic, while ignoring the existence of the myriad personal logic systems or simply deriding them, can lead only to serious mistakes.

Let me put it to you this way, Tom: Is it at all rational to ignore the existence of personal rationality when trying to deal with the reality of human affairs? To put it into relentlessly scientific terms: Your theory of global logic, if it has any validity, should be able to predict the actions, reactions, and opinions of groups of people, at least, if not individuals. Yet, how can it, when, by denying the possibility that other people may operate according to their own internal logic, you're simply declaring that other minds are opaque to you? How can you predict anything about a terra incognito?

The example of Iraq is so compelling and obvious that I've been resisting it for two paragraphs. Safe to say that the Bush-Cheney gang shares your certainty that their logic is universal and irresistable, as evidenced by, among many examples, their feverish characterization of Iraqis as basically larval Americans, awaiting only the removal of Saddam Hussein for their minds to all snap right into Full-Out Conservative-American mode and their hands to dip into the basket of flower petals to garnish our soldiers.

Reality didn't match their expectations, did it? What makes you think that your version of the same mindset is any more powerful?