Current Status of Rationality

Enrique

I recently came across some new information regarding neuroscience, and analyzing it was of philosophical significance for me. I'm curious what you guys think.

A type of neural fascia has recently been revealed by brain scans to link the pre-frontal cortex, a uniquely human brain region located at the base of the forehead that is correlated with personality and long-term planning, to additional areas in the brain. This fascia does not fully develop until humans reach their mid-20's, probably one of the last main brain structures to mature, so we can be relatively certain by deduction that it holds an important function for self-control and the general management of adult intentionality.

Most healthy teenagers and children evince plenty of personality and accurate recognition of the means to achieve individualized goals, a capacity that vastly increases as the pre-frontal cortex grows, but one of the defining features of adulthood is the diminishment of impulsiveness once an environment for actualizing one's drives has been attained. The adult personality does not fully succumb to affect as the sought after accommodating context is perceived, while the minds of youths toggle more holistically between pre-frontal reasoning and compulsive reaction to cognizance or unbridled satisfaction of desire. This explains why the young are much more prone to display extremeness such as explosive anger, overwhelming sadness, unrestrained enthusiasm, risk-taking, and dejection from failure. At moments, youthful prefrontal cortexes completely submit to an emotional experience, becoming largely incapable of intervening in the act of affective expression, leading to greater propensity for abusing drugs, reckless partying, unmitigated cruelty, dangerous driving habits, and derivative anguish or exhilaration. When excitatory chemicals flood the brain, immature pre-frontal connectivity disengages from behavior, resulting in a generally less nuanced, micromanaged form of emotion-laden decision-making and awareness of personal consequences.

If this is a valid assessment, it suggests that rationality is inextricably bound to physiological structure, and these structures are in some measure constraining. How and to what extent is rationality pre-conditioned or teachable, and what implications does this have for the progressive promotion of reason as an ideal? Where are we going in relation to the molding of human reasoning by social context?

softwhere

↪Enrique

Excellent post! Not that 'we' always do a good job, but I think the ideal is that we protect young people from their own impulsiveness.

I like sushi

↪Enrique

I would resist making leaps of faith based on a few neurological studies. Too many many people use such items as ‘evidence’ to back up their worldview. If you look for evidence to the contrary in studies you’ll likely find just as much clout.

It is also VERY important to consider that many cognitive neuroscientists seek funding by making somewhat misleading and fanciful claims simply because what they really wish to study is so banal finding the required funds to research is near impossible. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a role politics plays in which study receives funding. After all, the researchers need to ‘sell’ their idea to less savory organisations once the first few doors are slammed in their face.

softwhere

t is also VERY important to consider that many cognitive neuroscientists seek funding by making somewhat misleading and fanciful claims simply because what they really wish to study is so banal finding the required funds to research is near impossible. — I like sushi

Food for thought. It's one of the annoying things about specialization. Who has time to keep up with it all? And scientists have to eat too. I have noticed lots of bad journalism abusing science, absurdly interpreting conclusions to generate clicks. Unfortunately all this muddy information just further encourages passivity coupled with fantasy. The machine runs on headlessly.

Galuchat

...one of the defining features of adulthood is the diminishment of impulsiveness...leading to... — Enrique

You forgot: "bravery" in combat.

If this is a valid assessment, it suggests that rationality is inextricably bound to physiological structure, and these structures are in some measure constraining. — Enrique

I think rather than "rationality", a more general and appropriate category would be "pragmatic mental action", because it would include:
1) Controlled Evaluation (cognitive appraisal, explicit attitude).
2) Automatic Evaluation (valence, empathy, conscience, implicit attitude).
3) Controlled Problem-Solving (reflection, analysis, reasoning).
4) Automatic Problem-Solving (heuristics).
5) Controlled Decision-Making (judgment)
6) Automatic Decision-Making (recognition-primed).
7) Controlled & Automatic Planning.

Sir Philo Sophia

@Enrique

the pre-frontal cortex, a uniquely human brain region located at the base of the forehead that is correlated with personality and long-term planning, — Enrique

I believe you are wrong about that. Primates have it too. e.g., see:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03331972

When excitatory chemicals flood the brain, immature pre-frontal connectivity disengages from behavior, resulting in a generally less nuanced, micromanaged form of emotion-laden decision-making and awareness of personal consequences. If this is a valid assessment, it suggests that rationality is inextricably bound to physiological structure, and these structures are in some measure constraining — Enrique

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this already well known that rationality comes from the cortex (executive function) layer of the brain that suppresses urges. However, I'm not so sure that this is completely rationality or reasoning as you are calling it. Could it not be just allot of learned behavior dos and don'ts burned in/learned at the cortex level, and until the cortex fully matures it cannot effectively match situations where those apply or not, which is not so much ‘reasoning’ as ‘pattern matching’

BTW, one can simulate the immature prefrontal and cortex of teens and children by drinking various degrees of alcohol which disrupts the executive function (cortex) ability to suppress the lower (animal/reptile) brain impulses. Alcohol generally does not impair our emotive areas of the brain so they take control.

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