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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 8455786" data-attributes="member: 53980">While sanity and rationality are typically considered to be strongly correlated, I would say that in a world with magic they don't necessarily have to be.A person can be rational or irrational, irrespective of their sanity. I would say that this has a significant basis in the premises they hold to be true. It's akin to performing a mathematical computation. A rational person using an incorrect premise is like someone who does a perfect calculation with the wrong inputs. The steps they took were perfectly logical and correct, but because they used an incorrect input they'll get an incorrect output. Whereas the irrational person will perform the calculation incorrectly, and thereby end up with the wrong output irrespective of whether or not they started with the correct input.To put it another way, imagine two people who believe that the Illuminati are real and have mind control satellites. The rational person might always wear a helmet specially constructed of insulating materials that could disrupt signals from such a satellite, were such a thing to exist. The irrational person might insist on periodically hitting themselves in the head with a wooden plank slathered with chicken salad to disrupt the signal. The first is arguably rational within the scope of the premise that the Illuminati are real and have mind control satellites, whereas the latter is quite illogical irrespective of whether or not that was their starting premise.I think that, by default, wizards are rational. However, their premises might not be the same as most people. And, in fact, in a magical world the wizard's premises are probably not even wrong, even if they seem completely bananas by the standards of an average person.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 8455786, member: 53980"] While sanity and rationality are typically considered to be strongly correlated, I would say that in a world with magic they don't necessarily have to be. A person can be rational or irrational, irrespective of their sanity. I would say that this has a significant basis in the premises they hold to be true. It's akin to performing a mathematical computation. A rational person using an incorrect premise is like someone who does a perfect calculation with the wrong inputs. The steps they took were perfectly logical and correct, but because they used an incorrect input they'll get an incorrect output. Whereas the irrational person will perform the calculation incorrectly, and thereby end up with the wrong output irrespective of whether or not they started with the correct input. To put it another way, imagine two people who believe that the Illuminati are real and have mind control satellites. The rational person might always wear a helmet specially constructed of insulating materials that could disrupt signals from such a satellite, were such a thing to exist. The irrational person might insist on periodically hitting themselves in the head with a wooden plank slathered with chicken salad to disrupt the signal. The first is arguably rational within the scope of the premise that the Illuminati are real and have mind control satellites, whereas the latter is quite illogical irrespective of whether or not that was their starting premise. I think that, by default, wizards are rational. However, their premises might not be the same as most people. And, in fact, in a magical world the wizard's premises are probably not even wrong, even if they seem completely bananas by the standards of an average person. [/QUOTE]

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