The practice of knowing when to not apply pure, cold rationality because the situation calls for something else—empathy, intuition, trust, or commitment. It's the understanding that unbounded rationality can be self-defeating (e.g., rationally, you should never trust anyone, but that makes cooperation impossible). Meta-rationality is about choosing the appropriate epistemic framework, which sometimes means turning off the hyper-logical analyzer to actually live your life.
Example: "Rationally, she knew the odds of her marriage lasting were statistically bleak. Meta-rationally, she chose to commit anyway, understanding that the irrational leap of faith was necessary to create the trust and bond the statistics could never measure. She called it 'statistically informed love.'" Meta-Rationality
by Abzugal January 30, 2026
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