What Does It Mean to Seek Meaning in the Irrational?
Irrational has a number of different definitions. In conversational English, it means without reason. From Chinese history to ancient Greece, even extending into modern popular culture, there appears a philosophy that attempts to seek meaning in the irrational.
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Ambiguity
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The cyclical, balanced yin-yang symbolizes the patterns that can be found in chaos. The philosophy of Taoism can be described as relative and skeptical. Taoism actually resists any strict definitions due to its inherent ambiguity, actually looking for rationale in the irrational. Modern ideas such as anarchism and non-invasive government trace their roots back to Taoism.
Spirituality
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Buddhist philosophy discourages the attempt to find meaning in reason or rationality. Buddhism took the anti-authoritarianism of the Tao and joined it with such concepts as moving the mind and spirit beyond accepted social norms, like family bonds and materialistic desire, thus seeking meaning from often-irrational things such as the emotional bonds of family.
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Doubt
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Greek philosophy had a school of thought that defied structure and conclusions. As it's name implies, the philosophy of skepticism is to reserve conclusive judgment and to doubt sensory evidence. It reflected the philosophy of Buddhism in the sense that its aim was to seek release from the structure of theories and reach a calm state of mind.
Unpredictability
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Chaos theory was featured in a film called, "The Butterfly Effect." Chaos theory seeks to find meaning (but not order or predictability) in the irrational behavior of certain aspects of a larger system, and how these unpredictable aspects effect that entire system's behavior.
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