Does over-rationality exist?

[Dalek Prime]

The character is probably OCD. I think these quirks go with genius. It's the downside to it. Of course he's a caricature, but there is a reason that the charaterization works; because it is often there.

[Hobbes' Choice]

True, it's not the result of reason, but we are not talking about reason here, but rationality.

Psychosomatic pain is as an attempt to use to mind to monitor ailments due to anxiety (in my own case it's because my sister died of cancer at my age). Monitoring is rational behaviour, but it can be overdone, and concomitant anxiety amplifies fairly normal aches and pains.

Being a cancer "survivor" myself I know all about the multiplication of minor aches and pains. In my view pains can be amplified by the most basic fear of relapse. Rationality can combat these fears.
Hence a psychosomatic illness is not the result of reason, but a means to over come it.. Hence "t's definitely possible to rationalise to the point where we interfere with normal instinctive functioning, psychosomatic illness being an example" is false.

But we are not talking about reason. Over-rationality is where we insert our minds into situations best left to instincts.

You are confused Reason is cognative of rationality, and in this context they are practically synonymous
.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Did you ever watch The Big Bang Theory? I know it's trivial but the example is a clear one. A character, Sheldon, was so attached to his spot on the sofa that he'd go into apoplexy whenever someone else sat there. The spot was desirable to him because "in the winter that seat is close enough to the radiator to remain warm, and yet not so close as to cause perspiration. In the summer it's directly in the path of a cross breeze created by open windows there, and there. It faces the television at an angle that is neither direct, thus discouraging conversation, nor so far wide to create a parallax distortion".

His approach was rational, but unreasonable. Over-rational to the point of lacking reason.

OCD people can seem irrational or unreasonable to other people. But the problem is in the other people not with the person who as good reasons for doing what he wants.
In this case the problem is because someone else took his place without knowing it.

You ought to know that seating positions are highly charged anthropological realities. From the Igloo to the Mongolian Yurt. They are divided by age, gender and honour. You might even have come across 'Daddy's chair" in a modern context in your own home.
It is neither irrational nor unreasonable for humans to covet their cherished positions in the home and as that reflects on their social hierarchy.
Mostly it is not easy to see the reason for this, as they are culturally based.

It seems to me that Sheldon has benefited from being able to rationalise what might otherwise seem a irrational or emotional need.

[Greta]

You are confused Reason is cognative of rationality, and in this context they are practically synonymous.

But they are not exactly synonymous and my focus was on that small difference. Reason includes a social dimension that rationality does not. A computer can be more rational than it can be reasonable. Some reasonable people are irrational.

[Hobbes' Choice]

You are confused Reason is cognative of rationality, and in this context they are practically synonymous.

But they are not exactly synonymous and my focus was on that small difference. Reason includes a social dimension that rationality does not. A computer can be more rational than it can be reasonable. Some reasonable people are irrational.

Nope.

[Harbal]

Some reasonable people are irrational.

I consider you to be a reasonable person, Greta, but you are being down right irrational if you have any expectations of Hobbes agreeing with you. Hobbes doesn't do agreeing. So, really, you are proving your point.

[Greta]

Some reasonable people are irrational.

I consider you to be a reasonable person, Greta, but you are being down right irrational if you have any expectations of Hobbes agreeing with you. Hobbes doesn't do agreeing. So, really, you are proving your point.

Maybe that's because, in order to be reasonable you need to sometimes not be rational? For instance, it's not reasonable to be rational while having sex or playing an instrument. The analytical side of your mind from which rational thought springs needs to close down for while and let it flow, although the flow may benefit from prior rationality.