Was Cho Seung-hui decision rational or irrational?

[Jeremyhfht]

Read-Only, it's clear you are far beyond any reasoning when you decide to put emotions in front of your logic. Especially in a more formal discussion regarding Cho's sanity.

I request that you go and calm yourself down, and remove your emotional attachments to this thread. Otherwise, continuing would be useless. In that event, just stop posting.

Similarly, you are Soap-boxing. I advise that you rectify this ignorant behavior before it ruins what you might have learned.

 

[Nickelodeon]

I thought Read-Only had decided to read only.

 

[draqon]

I thought Read-Only had decided to read only.

joined up with write-only and now they are both read-&-write-only

 

[S.A.M.]

I thought this thread was about Cho Seung Hui

 

[draqon]

I thought this thread was about Cho Seung Hui

it's nice to talk about other important aspects of life than the culprits of society. Wanna chat?

 

[Enterprise-D]

Haven't been on for a few days so I'm a bit late...but I felt inclined to respond to this:

You've kinda lost me there Enterprise with All the stuff you've highlighted/tagged as "emotive reasoning".

Bushido is a code of warrior conduct. It has nothing to do with nationalism. Since you're a sci-fi fan (at least that's what I'm guessing due to your user name), think of Robocop and his prime directives. Bushido is basically the same thing.
One of those directives includes "achieving a glorious/honorable death". Another is 100% loyalty to the master (follow instructions - give 100% effort no matter what - never surrender). You don't feel Bushido, you follow it.

This is utter crap. If you want to stick with scifi, Klingons also have a "code of warrior conduct" that is CLEARLY emotive. They are an irrational, violent race...whose intents are often good though.

Robocop is a cyborg with a human brain, who has demonstrated emotions.

Bushido is a guide yes, but sticking to a guide requires some sort of loyalty and determination...all emotive. Being a warrior in and of itself is also irrational, when logically ambassadorial endeavours (negotiations etc) are less risky.

BTW humans are NOT Robocop, they do not have prime directives.

You are attempting to justify insanity...this is completely different from its irrationality.

Again...I have highlighted words that demonstrate emotive reasoning. Irrationality.

In the second, I see you've highlighted the words "religious" "righteously" and "infidels".
How is being religious supposed to be emotive reasoning? In becoming religious, a person accepts a number of things as facts, and subscribes to another code of conduct.
"Righteous" only defines something as compliant within a predefined standard, as does "infidel" (which defines someone who does not meet the standard).

Being motivated by religion can only be attributed to emotive reasoning since there is absolutely no logical evidence of any sort of divine benefit whatsoever.

Creating mass hysteria, and achieving eternal paradise are goals, but I'm not really sure why you've mentioned them to support an argument of emotive reasoning. I'm guessing you personally think of these as outrageous and wacky, and must be the result of emotions.

Because my dear Om, I believe I alluded that religious proponents are affected by mass hysteria, they perpetuate it rather than create it. If you would be so kind as to click on the word hysteria, you will see that it's definition is wholly dependant on unstable emotions. Hysteria, and mass hysteria are by all classes of definition the result of illogical, irrational emotions.

Wishing to achieve eternal paradise is a goal yes, however, since we have no evidence of such, the need for it must obviously be based on an emotional desire...irrational.


Basically then:

You can insist all you want that the rationale existed in Cho's mind. You can compare it to warrior conduct, sadness, perception whatever. This may even have been true and just in Cho's mind. We can even study the incident, and try to understand what would drive a person to such extreme measures.

None of this will detract from the fact that by logical and medical definition, Cho was irrational in the extreme, and I am prompted to reiterate that I worry for anyone that would think that his decision was anything but.

 

[Jeremyhfht]

None of this will detract from the fact that by logical and medical definition, Cho was irrational in the extreme, and I am prompted to reiterate that I worry for anyone that would think that his decision was anything but.

Enterprise, I invite you to read my above posts. Cho was not irrational by a logical definition. It's only possible by subjective definition, but that subjectivity is not very accurate.

By a psychology definition, he had problems which his family and everyone around him refused to address. The result of his life is not illogical, merely troubled. As my above posts explain. If you want to debate his logic, I suggest you discuss those posts.

 

[Saquist]

How is it not? Cultures are subjective.

Only to other cultures where subjectivity breaks down to accepted norms.

Sanity and rationality are different. One can have immense logic capability, but still be considered insane.

They appear the same...intelligence isn't inquestion with either...there is no perceptable break down in the thought process of cause and effect. However both can create a ethical void....Are they truely different?

Rationality/irrationality? No. That's my point. This poll is somewhat poorly organized.

I agree but how would the poll be aranged otherwise?

 

[Enterprise-D]

Enterprise, I invite you to read my above posts. Cho was not irrational by a logical definition. It's only possible by subjective definition, but that subjectivity is not very accurate.

By a psychology definition, he had problems which his family and everyone around him refused to address. The result of his life is not illogical, merely troubled. As my above posts explain. If you want to debate his logic, I suggest you discuss those posts.

I have addressed this already; I will post the definitions for your benefit -

Irrational (adj.)
Dictionary
1. Not endowed with reason.
2. Affected by loss of usual or normal mental clarity; incoherent, as from shock.
3. Marked by a lack of accord with reason or sound judgment: an irrational dislike.

Thesaurus
1. Not governed by or predicated on reason: illogical, unreasonable, unreasoned.

Medical
1. Not rational; marked by a lack of accord with reason or sound judgment

Cho was endowed with the ability to think. Think reasonably? Not necessarily so starting with autism.
Affected by loss of mental clarity? Clearly.
Marked by lack of accord with reason/sound judgement? Obviously.

Irrational.

I agree that his actions were predictable enough. I agree that he was clearly the result of a troubled life. I agree that he was psychologically unstable.

NONE of this justifies anyone trying to insinuate that his actions were rational. And, Jeremy, I also do not care to weave my way through insane logic.

 

[Jeremyhfht]

...wow...you're so busy "correcting" me, that you apparently are utterly ignoring my explanation of subjectivity.

Amongst other things, I know the definition of irrational, and that wasn't even the point of my posts.
Your entire post here serves no purpose.

Let me try again: In his reality, his actions were rational. You may claim that your reality is more "realistic", but your reality is subjective to your own experiences.

Due to this, you cannot objectively say he was irrational. Therefore, I dub him "rational", since you can only judge him by his reality.

 

[Enterprise-D]

I do not care about perspective, I care about logic. I totally understand what you are trying to say. You are however, labouring under a misapprehension.

He was clearly reacting out of emotions. His video was not one of logic. It was clear he was angry and incoherent. You and every Cho-is-rational proponent state in black and white that he was traumatised by external sources. Look at the definition of irrational! It covers everything you're spouting!

The poll is...was Cho's decision rational or irrational? I have demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was irrational. His perspective only gives us an explanation, it does not give us leave to claim that he or his decision was rational. "In his reality" indeed! A warped definition of 'rational' is not rational.

Matter of fact...were he alive and actually judged by a court of law to be in control of his wits (otherwise known as rational) he'd have been executed for 1st degree, premeditated, gratuitous murder of 32 people...rather than be tried as insane, and receive the medical attention that you were clamouring that he needed.

 

[Enterprise-D]

Due to this, you cannot objectively say he was irrational. Therefore, I dub him "rational", since you can only judge him by his reality.

This by the way is total bullshit. How can you claim to judge anyone through his own perspective/reality when you have never experienced that same reality...indeed never heard of this individual til he opened fire on a reknowned university campus? Your judgement of rationality must necessarily come from your own experience, and since I presume you are not insane, you must understand that his reactions are irrational.

 

[Jeremyhfht]

This by the way is total bullshit. How can you claim to judge anyone through his own perspective/reality when you have never experienced that same reality...indeed never heard of this individual til he opened fire on a reknowned university campus? Your judgement of rationality must necessarily come from your own experience, and since I presume you are not insane, you must understand that his reactions are irrational.

While your assertion here is true, you can get very close to it if you employ methods of psychology.

It's highly unlikely that he thought his actions irrational. While your above posts do, in fact, speak truth, they ignore my premise for my point. While at the same time you recognize my premise. How does that work?

Lastly, if I were to judge him by my own subjective reality, I'd say he was irrational. but this, in itself, is an irrational act. As your logic is tainted to begin with.
While it could be said that it's tainted either way, I hold it my personal opinion that if you judge someone by their reality (as best you can), you're much more accurate.

I'm repeating myself now. Ergh. If I must repeat myself again, and simply reword it each time, I'm going to resign from this discussion.

 

[Enterprise-D]

Of course Cho may not have considered himself irrational. But the very same methods of psychology will have told the prosecuting attorney (were Cho alive) that he was insane, and to be tried AS insane!

Clearly you have stymied yourself with an incorrect premise.

Also, you keep mentioning that your own reality is subjective. Of course it is. However, its subjectivity does not make your experience an invalid tool to gauge the rationality or lack thereof of another individual.



And I maintain, were you the judge, jury and executioner of Cho; you would have judged him rational, thus premeditative; and be forced to throw the chair switch yourself.

 

[Jeremyhfht]

Of course Cho may not have considered himself irrational. But the very same methods of psychology will have told the prosecuting attorney (were Cho alive) that he was insane, and to be tried AS insane!

The term "insane" is always thrown about loosely. Insane does not mean irrational.

Clearly you have stymied yourself with an incorrect premise.

Clearly you aren't understanding my premise.

Also, you keep mentioning that your own reality is subjective. Of course it is. However, its subjectivity does not make your experience an invalid tool to gauge the rationality or lack thereof of another individual.

No, but I'm speaking from my experience. One can merely judge him as unstable, not irrational.

Note that my argument that he's rational is only achieved if you attempt to look at it through his eyes. In his mind, of course it was rational.

And I maintain, were you the judge, jury and executioner of Cho; you would have judged him rational, thus premeditative; and be forced to throw the chair switch yourself.

Incorrect. I'd have judged him as unstable. And since courts do not judge people based on how they view themselves, and rather use subjective methods, then I could not judge him as rational.

So you can't really maintain that if I was the judge, jury, etc, I'd have done "such and such".

 

[Sputnik]

Don´t know how to say this gently, Jeremy ............

A few days ago we had an analysis by specialists ( both shrinks and psychologists ) of Cho , on national tv :

Final verdict : delusional in his concept of the world , irrational in his decision of doing this ..... but nicely executed ...........

Sorry ............

 

[Enterprise-D]

I'd love to know how you can judge someone as unstable. Cho didn't think he was unstable...you're not judging him from his reality! Thus you're on unstable ground trying to judge Cho as unstable, because your "stability" wasn't his "stability".

Clearly Jeremy, you were speaking out of the wrong hole in trying to use some sort of romanticized, sorrowful and even apologist excuse of psychology.


As posted by Sputnik, learned specialists have deemed the boy to be delusional and irrational. Nuff said.

 

[Read-Only]

Read-Only, it's clear you are far beyond any reasoning when you decide to put emotions in front of your logic. Especially in a more formal discussion regarding Cho's sanity.

I request that you go and calm yourself down, and remove your emotional attachments to this thread. Otherwise, continuing would be useless. In that event, just stop posting.

Similarly, you are Soap-boxing. I advise that you rectify this ignorant behavior before it ruins what you might have learned.

Jer-whatever, I'm not inserting any emotions here - quite the contrary, I'm very detached on this issue.

It's clear to everyone here - except you, obviously - that your "subjective" reasoning is pure bunk. Every irrational person THINKS they are perfectly rational. So your argument is circular and leads to nothing.

Besides all that, it's impossible to have a meaningful debate with a fool like you who makes up their own definitions to suit their own purposes. So, I'm totally finished with you on this and any other matter. Go ahead and have the last word (I know you will) and it will be just as worthless as anything else you've said here. Pure poppycock.

 

[Jeremyhfht]

Final verdict : delusional in his concept of the world , irrational in his decision of doing this ..... but nicely executed ...........

No source, and specifically: an appeal to authority fallacy. Yeah. Totally a good way to prove me wrong.

I'd love to know how you can judge someone as unstable. Cho didn't think he was unstable...you're not judging him from his reality! Thus you're on unstable ground trying to judge Cho as unstable, because your "stability" wasn't his "stability".

Heh, I expected this. And was well prepared:

Psychology is a generalization of multiple cultures, thought patterns, etc. More specifically, it's directed at dealing with mindsets. One of the more famous sayings, although not entirely true: "Crazy people don't know they're crazy".

Similarly, psychology (unlike pure logic) purposefully relies on that subjectivity. Without it, psychology has no use.

The logic applied to whether he's rational/irrational though, is not. Logic is not generalized whatsoever. And psychology is on an entirely different scale of subjectivity.

You are blindly staggering about attempting to land KO's, rather than considering my arguments. Fallacy KO's, no less.

Clearly Jeremy, you were speaking out of the wrong hole in trying to use some sort of romanticized, sorrowful and even apologist excuse of psychology.

As posted by Sputnik, learned specialists have deemed the boy to be delusional and irrational. Nuff said.

Appeal to authority, and nothing more. Also lacking any news source. I tried googling using keywords regarding mental health specialists, but that turned up no results.

I'd also like to point out that many specialists disagree. Just because a select few chosen by the media does not make them accurate. The media has a nasty habit of feeding people controversy instead of facts.

I do not see, in any way, how what little content your message has proves my arguments wrong. they merely prove you're resorting to continual fallacious reasoning to prove yours.

My point is a philosophy regarding the subjectivity of logic, and how it's a misapplication to call someone else rational/irrational when it's not a subject of evidence/etc. Nothing more.

It's clear to everyone here - except you, obviously - that your "subjective" reasoning is pure bunk. Every irrational person THINKS they are perfectly rational. So your argument is circular and leads to nothing.

See above, I explained just above about what my argument is directed at. And it is not the general irrational populace.

You've also made another fallacy, appealing to the amount of people voicing their disagreement with my purposed idea.

This is quite comical.That's over seven fallacy's in three posts. What next? Telling me my argument is bogus because I'm an idiot? Oh wait, see down below.

P.S: Notice how 13 people voted RATIONAL? Yeah. So sorry, it appears it's an almost equal divide.

Besides all that, it's impossible to have a meaningful debate with a fool like you who makes up their own definitions to suit their own purposes. So, I'm totally finished with you on this and any other matter. Go ahead and have the last word (I know you will) and it will be just as worthless as anything else you've said here. Pure poppycock.

:bugeye: ...uh huh....so tell me, you're detached from the argument?

So...I'm a fool, who makes up my own definitions (note how you don't point out where I do so), stating it's impossible to have a meaningful discussion on the premise that I'm a fool...and the premise of that is because I disagree and refute your statements that disagree with mine.

I don't know, read. It would appear your summarization deserves an F in logic.

So...that's about three people vs. me. Well, this is almost fair. Anybody care to make it four?

 

[Enterprise-D]

Heh, I expected this. And was well prepared:

Psychology is a generalization of multiple cultures, thought patterns, etc. More specifically, it's directed at dealing with mindsets. One of the more famous sayings, although not entirely true: "Crazy people don't know they're crazy".

Similarly, psychology (unlike pure logic) purposefully relies on that subjectivity. Without it, psychology has no use.

The logic applied to whether he's rational/irrational though, is not. Logic is not generalized whatsoever. And psychology is on an entirely different scale of subjectivity.

You are blindly staggering about attempting to land KO's, rather than considering my arguments. Fallacy KO's, no less.

You actually refuse to see that you're KO'ed. By my reality, I've won this argument a number of pages ago.

And I hope the irony of the above statement isn't lost on you. If you look at this whole argument from my reality, you cannot come to any other conclusion that you, Jeremy, are debating from a futile position.

Clearly then, this whole "judge only by the other person's reality" is a farce. Of course "crazy people don't know they're crazy". It is up to us rational people to judge by sanity yardsticks, so that we can attempt to treat irrational folk.

You play at being a bleeding heart without understanding why you're doing it.

Appeal to authority, and nothing more. Also lacking any news source. I tried googling using keywords regarding mental health specialists, but that turned up no results.

I'd also like to point out that many specialists disagree. Just because a select few chosen by the media does not make them accurate. The media has a nasty habit of feeding people controversy instead of facts.

I do not see, in any way, how what little content your message has proves my arguments wrong. they merely prove you're resorting to continual fallacious reasoning to prove yours.

My point is a philosophy regarding the subjectivity of logic, and how it's a misapplication to call someone else rational/irrational when it's not a subject of evidence/etc. Nothing more.

Prof. P.T. Wong comments on VA Tech

This was pretty easy to find thru Google. The article is on Newswire as well. Of course we realise catalysts, but as Wong says Cho was "pushed over the edge" (irrational). And, the 'appeal to authority' claim only works if the expert simply asserts without assessment or proof that can't be followed by colleagues or readers. Demonizing the media also does not remove the truth from the fact that Cho was clearly irrational.

"There can be no justification for the evil of mass killing" Wong says, and I agree; how can shooting 32 defenseless people ever be a rational decision to anyone?

I completely understand, Jeremy, that you purport that Cho's state of mind would have led him to believe that he was sane. However, the question is "Was Cho's decision rational or irrational?" The question is not "Did Cho think he was rational or irrational?"

You have wasted time answering the wrong question.