Douglas Hofstadter

It would seem, then, that we need to look beyond the merely 'technical' level if we wish to solve the Prisoner's Dilemma. However, this is not to say that rationality is no use to us but that, rather, our conventional understanding of what it means to be 'rational' is simply too narrow and needs broadening a little. Thus, we come back to the quote at the start of this article. Irrationality, says Douglas Hofstadter, is the 'square root' - ie, the cause - of all evil. Fair enough - but how can we distinguish, once and for all, what is rational from what is irrational? A possible answer lies in Hofstadter's concept of superrationality - that is, looking outside one's own decision and taking into account the decisions of others too, and consequently making the decision that one would hope they would also make. In other words, the 'superrationalist' thinks 'globally' - in the wider interest - rather than 'locally', simply with his/her own interest in mind.