It's rational, you see... So what?

I have always considered myself to be a rationalist, questioning everything and analyzing reasonably, using facts. I must admit that it has helped me solve quite a range of issues, staying calm and looking at facts, therefore avoiding any nonsense.

But recently I discovered, that it cannot take me the whole way. There have been occasions, where I have thought out everything, all facts checked, every derivation of arguments checked, but still it doesn't seem right. What's the matter then? I thought about it and realized, that everything that can be derived rationally is related to the human mind. It is reasonable, calm and if done correctly, always gets you the right theoretical conclusions. But the point is that they are not always applicable in practice. The reason is fairly simple: human evolution has given us not only our brilliant minds but our feelings, too.

People do things just because they feel so, having no proof whether it is going to work or not. It also means, that they leave some things undone because of the same reason. That is why every rationally derived idea may not work in practice: people just feel it is wrong and oppose - something that could be of the biggest drawbacks of feelings and intuition. But that is not all of it. We need that intuition for our everyday life, I'm quite sure that human species would have been perished long time ago without it. Decision made based on feeling is much faster than any rational discussion. Imagine 2 cavemen fleeing from a lion. They reach a cliff with a long drop to a lake. By the time our first caveman calculates the probability of survival, the other one have already jumped, taking the risk. Our first cavemen will be dead 100% but the other caveman could get lucky and successfully avoid being crushed by lion's teeth. That's called an advantage, which could be the cause of the existence of our feelings and intuition.

Therefore, whatever rationally derived idea we may have got, it is important to check whether it is going to work in real world or not. Too many times have I heard ideas proven to me using facts and solid arguments, which I can't deny and have to accept. But now I know that in the end I can still disagree, smile and answer: "So what?"