As for struggling to help, work with, and reason with the patently irrational - my heart is with you, cos. The broad truth is, you can’t. You can win some battles, but the war is gone - it’s the nature of the issue from the very start, and not a question of “giving up” on someone, but seeing things for what they are, and working within that knowledge.

In my thoughts and experience, there are two ways to manage these kinds of situations (but this isn’t expert advice by any means), when managing such a situation is the decision (butit’s not always the right one).

The first is to address the root issue of irrationality itself (in rather concrete, non-academic terms): the lack of standards, points of reference, over-arching goals, principles, etc. Irrationality is a willy-nilly approach to life, and obviously leads to disaster. But, this presupposes someone interested in leading a more directional and rational life, or who is at least temporarily motivated by difficulties in a specific situation. The rational is always the practical.

Because I know first-hand that you can’t force or even cajole a mind into being rational (or, at root, doing anything else that requires choice, which is by nature free), I think the only hope is to present the case (appealingly) for a different *approach* to thinking and acting - sometimes presenting it ad nauseum, in a plethora of concrete examples where it pays off. But I think that’s all you can do - it’s ultimately a private choice by the other person.

[snip] I’ve changed my mind. There’s only the above approach. As I was typing the second, I saw that it was so thoroughly wrong it was bound to fail - even though I used it quite a lot myself dealing with Neal (which ultimately I failed at). It’s a range-of-the-moment play-their-game approach to getting what you want - doing whatever you can to achieve some goal, without paying attention to the means you actually use to get that goal. And by doing so, it’s super easy (if not guaranteed) to pre-emptively delete all access to the goal. That is, employing means without standards (”anything goes” “whatever it takes”) makes the goal impossible to reach, often basically gutting it of its meaning, value, or potency by the time you get to it “somehow.” I did that a lot, and in his rational moments, Neal saw that and stuck it to me; I had deleted my own credibility so that when it really mattered, and when all I had was my word to go on, it was nothing; there was no way I could convince him of anything, no ground to stand on at all. Trying to use irrationality to have or argue for rationality is, I learned, futile from the start. But I understand the motivation.

So, I guess that leaves me with a whole lot of verbiage and not a lot of help, really. I guess it suffices to say I have a better inkling than most of what you must be going through, and I sympathize.

Watching someone’s rationality erode for biological reasons is a terrible thing. It’s this weird confluence of the chosen and the unchosen, and it puts everyone in an awkward, conflicting situation - cognitively, emotionally, sometimes morally, and very often tangibly. I have no advice on this; I really wonder if anyone does. Maybe something will occur to me tonight. It’s a truly tragic thing, that much I know for sure, and living in close proximity to warp-speed tragedy on this front, I can tell you I paid close attention, worked and thought my ass off, failed spectacularly, and learned more than I thought humanly possible. And it changed the way I think about humans’ relation to existence, to each other, and to themselves - all those relations are cognitive relations. I do know, however, that when choice is not involved in a situation, it is a-moral. Of course, identifying that as what’s going on can sometimes be very difficult.

Fundamentally, a mind cannot function without standards; it will self-destruct or self-decay. Somehow, (patho)physiological processes can wash away one’s grasp and ability to adhere to standards, and I don’t think anyone in all of psychology or neuroscience can presently explain, much less reverse, this fact. I expect it to be well over a century before we understand it. Incredibly, some people voluntarily relinquish an allegiance to a standard or all standards, and impose on themselves (knowingly or not) a similarly awful existence. Seeing this, and choosing instead the opposite, was the basic, bone-level realization I made with Neal. And I count it as perhaps the most important thought and choice I’ve ever made.

Don’t forget to think of you, take care of you, and not sacrifice yourself or your values, for that’s no gain for anyone. Remember, the vast majority of us share the same values, and so it makes sense to share the work. Hopefully Brady and your sibs are helping you out, at least emotionally, with all this.

I’m around, even if remotely. Really.

A window is a thing to see through, an invisible wall between you and the world - but it’s also a moment, a breath and a pause, and many who
long for it haven’t the foggiest what to do when they get what they long for. I don’t know if you longed for a year-long window, but remember - the flipside of a coin is worth as much on tails as on heads. So, heads up and spend it for all you’re worth, however you see fit.

But, that’s not what this post is about, afterall.

All these years, where it takes you 6-9 months to return a call of mine - now’s when it catches up, and when we catch up, and it’ll seem like
no time at all, and I can have back the sister I always fancied having. But better, because older is better. Aristotle said as much this evening over dinner ).

Oh, and the SJ Gould book I mentioned was Structure of Evolutionary Theory, although there are many others worthwhile - The Panda’s Thumb,
for essays, and The Hedgehog, The Fox and the Magister’s Pox for discussions of art + science (so I’m told; it’s on my list too). And Wittgenstein! I won’t pretend to have understood the Tractatus, but I am one who finds poetry in outline format ). His “On Certainty” was highly
recommended, so it’s been bumped up my list and off my shelf. Ah, so much to read! The N. Ethics has proven highly worthwhile, and much more
straightforward than I’d expected. How do you say “thank you” to a man who is dead? I’m in love with Aristotle.

Soon. Always soon. Now you’re but a comment box and anti-spam-measure-number away ;o).

And, by the by, a certain … recurrent thought… is occupying less of the center stage of my mind. But then, I either have multiple center stages, or five in succession and a serious case of ADD, hehe. Many “conditions” are both under-rated and over-rated in my book, lol.

Write on. I love your writing.