Let's say you want as much money as you can get. This is probably not rational. Now let's say you have a choice of being given $5 or $10, which do you choose? Why was that not a rational choice? Because it's predicated on an irrational desire?
Intelligence is needed when there are too many possibilities to brute-force. We need to make guesses about which actions may give better results; we have to spot patterns, generalisations and simplifications to allow re-use of previous experience; we need to identify the crucial aspects, in order to narrow down the possibilities; we need to allocate resources efficiently, and know when to give up; and so on.
These are the things we would like machines to do well, but we have no satisfactory theory to explain, measure or compare such things. Introspecting our own thought patterns is not an effective way to reverse-engineer these proceses in humans, as the parent says.
The most we humans can do it to make an intuitive choice, allow the post-hoc rationalization to occur and then check its rationality by analyzing its logic. If the logic is bad, we go back and try another intuitive choice.
Yes, this is true. At least, it is what I believe to be happening.
> Not much point in trying to have a rational conversation.
What? Why not? We seem to be able to converse quite easily.