Claude’s interpretation is consistent with my view. I would add further emphasis to your description of some actions being instrumentally irrational.
Firstly, it’s not obvious to me that many behaviors that get called irrational really are accurately described as irrational. I have a lot of arguments for why it’s not so clear cut, but I’ll put this aside since my next point stands regardless.
My main point is whether asking if a behavior is irrational is instrumentally useful. I believe that in many cases, it’s not a useful question and has the risk of leading to “false insight” and distracting from more sustainably actionable insights. If you could only ever ask one question to learn from a past scenario, I can’t imagine it ever being worthwhile asking.
Better questions to consider:
What led to things happening the way that they did?
How might I realistically have acted differently without having the benefit of hindsight?
If the same scenario occurred again, what would be my priority in approaching things differently?
So my opinion is, in the context of behavioral change, labelling the behavior as rational or irrational offers limited utility. Fixating on this distinction has some risk of being net negative, and in some cases being significantly harmful (e.g. when used in relationships and therapy).
Claude’s interpretation is consistent with my view. I would add further emphasis to your description of some actions being instrumentally irrational.
Firstly, it’s not obvious to me that many behaviors that get called irrational really are accurately described as irrational. I have a lot of arguments for why it’s not so clear cut, but I’ll put this aside since my next point stands regardless.
My main point is whether asking if a behavior is irrational is instrumentally useful. I believe that in many cases, it’s not a useful question and has the risk of leading to “false insight” and distracting from more sustainably actionable insights. If you could only ever ask one question to learn from a past scenario, I can’t imagine it ever being worthwhile asking.
Better questions to consider:
What led to things happening the way that they did?
How might I realistically have acted differently without having the benefit of hindsight?
If the same scenario occurred again, what would be my priority in approaching things differently?
So my opinion is, in the context of behavioral change, labelling the behavior as rational or irrational offers limited utility. Fixating on this distinction has some risk of being net negative, and in some cases being significantly harmful (e.g. when used in relationships and therapy).