I agree with everything you say, but you vascillate between somewhat contradictory positions: that the default is to have disconnected beliefs; or that the default is to have particular “antibodies” preventing action on particular “beliefs.” Could you elaborate on this?
I do agree that both are important phenomena. I think the default is disconnected beliefs. I’m not clear on the prevalence and role of “antibodies.” Maybe they’re just for over-verbal nerds infected with the Enlightenment. But I think they’re more general.
“Antibodies” is a vague metaphor, by which I meant any aspect of your decision process that blocks or sidetracks a dangerous chain of reasoning. I didn’t think about whether these blocks were active responses, or passive omission of a justified inference (eg., disconnected beliefs).
It operates as a metaphor by suggesting co-evolutionary dynamics as a way of looking at the problem. It’s not a valid metaphor for trying to figure out the exact mechanism.
I didn’t think about whether these blocks were active responses, or passive omission of a justified inference (eg., disconnected beliefs).
It operates as a metaphor by suggesting co-evolutionary dynamics as a way of looking at the problem. It’s not a valid metaphor for trying to figure out the exact mechanism.
As it stands now, it’s all omitted inference. But I think the monk is the default—almost all inferences are omitted. If that’s the default, I think drawing attention to them and calling them “antibodies” is a figure-ground error. (But maybe you don’t think it’s the default.)
I might talk about co-evolution, not between beliefs and blind spots, but between actions and excuses. The excuses can’t be too incoherent, because some people pay some attention to them. What I took to be “antibodies” were elaborate excuses, excuses for not drawing inferences between the first-order excuses, but I think the race example was the only example you gave of this. Maybe these are rare and most people just use first-order excuses for what they do, not excuses for why they don’t actually follow the first-order excuses.
Maybe the default is disconnected beliefs and actions driven by imitation. New religions tell people that they shouldn’t base their actions on imitation of their local authorities, forcing them back on nominal beliefs and forcing them to make inferences.
Maybe the default is disconnected beliefs and actions driven by imitation. New religions tell people that they shouldn’t base their actions on imitation of their local authorities, forcing them back on nominal beliefs and forcing them to make inferences.
Why don’t they just imitate the missionary? Surely, the missionary communicates “be like me,” not “be different from them”? I guess it could be only the over-verbal converts who notice that menstruating women have cooties. They might make good stories without being representative. But there is the general principle that converts are more observant; are they radically more observant, or do they merely find more observant people to imitate? (if the latter, why?)
A better metaphor than antibodies is probably vectors. The degree of compartmentalization in a person’s belief network is a feature of the memetic environment- equivalent to the concentration of population or prevalence of vermin in the context of microbes. When people have a low degree of compartmentalization mimetic schema take over lots domains of thought just has urban living (pre-sanitation) increased the spread of disease. I don’t think there is an obvious sense in which the degree of vectorization has a ‘default’ though, unless you just want to make it zero because that is convenient.
I agree with everything you say, but you vascillate between somewhat contradictory positions: that the default is to have disconnected beliefs; or that the default is to have particular “antibodies” preventing action on particular “beliefs.” Could you elaborate on this?
I do agree that both are important phenomena. I think the default is disconnected beliefs. I’m not clear on the prevalence and role of “antibodies.” Maybe they’re just for over-verbal nerds infected with the Enlightenment. But I think they’re more general.
“Antibodies” is a vague metaphor, by which I meant any aspect of your decision process that blocks or sidetracks a dangerous chain of reasoning. I didn’t think about whether these blocks were active responses, or passive omission of a justified inference (eg., disconnected beliefs).
It operates as a metaphor by suggesting co-evolutionary dynamics as a way of looking at the problem. It’s not a valid metaphor for trying to figure out the exact mechanism.
voted up for backing away from the details of the metaphor rather than trying to justify them. Not always an easy choice.
As it stands now, it’s all omitted inference. But I think the monk is the default—almost all inferences are omitted. If that’s the default, I think drawing attention to them and calling them “antibodies” is a figure-ground error. (But maybe you don’t think it’s the default.)
I might talk about co-evolution, not between beliefs and blind spots, but between actions and excuses. The excuses can’t be too incoherent, because some people pay some attention to them. What I took to be “antibodies” were elaborate excuses, excuses for not drawing inferences between the first-order excuses, but I think the race example was the only example you gave of this. Maybe these are rare and most people just use first-order excuses for what they do, not excuses for why they don’t actually follow the first-order excuses.
Maybe the default is disconnected beliefs and actions driven by imitation. New religions tell people that they shouldn’t base their actions on imitation of their local authorities, forcing them back on nominal beliefs and forcing them to make inferences.
Why don’t they just imitate the missionary? Surely, the missionary communicates “be like me,” not “be different from them”? I guess it could be only the over-verbal converts who notice that menstruating women have cooties. They might make good stories without being representative. But there is the general principle that converts are more observant; are they radically more observant, or do they merely find more observant people to imitate? (if the latter, why?)
Or maybe (just speculating) “I too am a sinner; I am merely a bringer of good news; look to God, not to me”.
A better metaphor than antibodies is probably vectors. The degree of compartmentalization in a person’s belief network is a feature of the memetic environment- equivalent to the concentration of population or prevalence of vermin in the context of microbes. When people have a low degree of compartmentalization mimetic schema take over lots domains of thought just has urban living (pre-sanitation) increased the spread of disease. I don’t think there is an obvious sense in which the degree of vectorization has a ‘default’ though, unless you just want to make it zero because that is convenient.