Mostly silly alternatives to the word 'rationalist'

The -mancy suffix is from Greek manteia, meaning divination or prophecy. It is attached almost entirely to superstitious methods of divination, e.g. cartomancy (card reading); geomancy (reading of patterns of thrown rocks or sand); chiromancy (palmistry); and so forth. The exception is necromancy, which today largely does not mean divination by means of the dead, but rather any magickal practice purporting to deal with death or the dead.

If you need fancy Greek roots to play with, may I recommend logos (word, symbol), gnosis (knowledge), noos (mind), or the cluster of menthere (to care) / manthanein (to learn) / mathema (science) / mathematikos — ultimately related to ancient Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "awareness"? ¹

Do be aware that the Latin/Greek fusion "scientology" is already taken.

You've been reading Erfworld haven't you?

I've seen Bayesjutsu. I don't know how you'd refer to a practitioner.

I don't really think there is ANY word that wouldn't suck, but these are fun so I'll make some anyway.

Cognitor
Bayesian Disciple
Seer of Mind
Timeless (grammar: "He is not only a timeless, but a master of the timeless")
Decider
Rational (As in, saying "I am a Rational." instead of saying "I am a Ratioanlist")
Lwer (pronounced "Elver")
Wielder of the Light Arts
Enlightened
Postsane

One solution might be to use titles that have high correlation to what we mean by a rationalist but isn't exactly the same:

Bayesian
Timeless Decision Theorist
Keeper of Secrets Man Was Never Meant To Know
Inter-universal Broker
Welder of Basilisks
Co-saviour of The Future Lighcone
Correct Contrarian Cluster Cardholder

:p

I like metamancy a lot in that the word conjures an image of thinking about general methods to divine the future (predictions yay!)

Fun!

I like a lot of the -mancers too (and apparently the letter n), like cognomancer, and optimancer (mostly because it's so close to optimizer). I think my favorite on your list is cognician.

To throw in some more...

(From the Greek "Nike" for Victory (or, winning):

• nikosopher

• nikomancer

• nikologist

From Aletheia (Greek for Truth):

• aletheisopher

• alethologer

From Veritas (Latin for Truth):

• veritician

• veritosopher

• veritimancer

• veritologer

From ingenium:

• ingenian

• wingeneer

And others:

• noomancer

• noocian

• neostoic

I also apparently like the letter n.

I prefer every one of those to 'rationalist'.

I thought of "awesomeology" a while ago, and someone else in the NY group independently proposed the same, so it must have some appeal...

(Someone else mentioned that "scientology" would actually be a decent possibility if it weren't already taken.)

I'd like "cognician", if not for the fact that it would sound identical to "cognition" when spoken aloud.

The general problem with coming up with a really cool word for something is that other people might notice that it sounds cool and will try to steal its connotations for unrelated concepts.

"Cartographer." Or, better yet, nothing at all.

What about psychonomer? Scientiatrist?

existential watchdog Bayesian Metaman Metamaximizer Super Rationalist Perfectioneer Supersatisficer intelligence guardian

Mentat Trainee ;)

My suggestions are here.

Like many others I don't care much for the word 'rationalist', since it comes with lots of preexisting negative connotations.

I kind of like that. A term that starts out with some negative connotations is less likely to be co-opted or overloaded.

twat