Very rarely, but I would guess at least once in your life, you will be faced with a decision whose outcome is so important that all of this is stripped away, like rationalization. At which point you are faced with the decision: to signal, or not to signal. But it is not clear which choice corresponds to which outcome: does treating it as a signal correspond to signalling more, or to signalling less, as suggested by Dagon’s comment?
Would you rather be trustworthy, or trusted?
The OP suggests that maybe we can have both, but what if that’s not always the case? And what if the outcome you get, is the exact opposite of the outcome you choose?
I have no good solutions here, my stopgaps are “double-check important decisions through people you trust” and “cooperate with yourself, even if you seem like a selfish person”.
A different frame on what I see as the same puzzle:
If faced with the choice, would you rather self-deceive, or die?
It sure looks like the sane choice is self-deception. You might be able to unwind that over time, whereas death is hard to recover from.
Sadly, this means you can be manipulated and confused via the right kind of threat, and it’ll be harder and harder for you over time to notice these confusions.
You can even get so confused you don’t actually recognize what is and isn’t death — which means that malicious (to you) forces can have some sway over the process of your own self-deception.
It’s a bit like the logic of “Don’t negotiate with terrorists”:
The more scenarios in which you can precommit to choosing death over self-deception, the less incentive any force will have to try to present you with such a choice, and thus the more reliably clear your thinking will be (at least on this axis).
It just means you sincerely have to be willing to choose to die.
Hmm, I am trying to see if it is really the same puzzle?? The self-deception I see, since if you get the opposite of whatever you choose then it motivates you to self-deceive so that you’ll choose the opposite of whatever you want to get. But then why is the alternative death? Ah well, maybe it’ll make sense to me later.
This is all true.
And yet.
Very rarely, but I would guess at least once in your life, you will be faced with a decision whose outcome is so important that all of this is stripped away, like rationalization. At which point you are faced with the decision: to signal, or not to signal. But it is not clear which choice corresponds to which outcome: does treating it as a signal correspond to signalling more, or to signalling less, as suggested by Dagon’s comment?
Would you rather be trustworthy, or trusted?
The OP suggests that maybe we can have both, but what if that’s not always the case? And what if the outcome you get, is the exact opposite of the outcome you choose?
I have no good solutions here, my stopgaps are “double-check important decisions through people you trust” and “cooperate with yourself, even if you seem like a selfish person”.
If I understand the sort of thing you’re talking about correctly, I like Miles Vorkosigan’s solution (from Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold):
“The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.”
A different frame on what I see as the same puzzle:
If faced with the choice, would you rather self-deceive, or die?
It sure looks like the sane choice is self-deception. You might be able to unwind that over time, whereas death is hard to recover from.
Sadly, this means you can be manipulated and confused via the right kind of threat, and it’ll be harder and harder for you over time to notice these confusions.
You can even get so confused you don’t actually recognize what is and isn’t death — which means that malicious (to you) forces can have some sway over the process of your own self-deception.
It’s a bit like the logic of “Don’t negotiate with terrorists”:
The more scenarios in which you can precommit to choosing death over self-deception, the less incentive any force will have to try to present you with such a choice, and thus the more reliably clear your thinking will be (at least on this axis).
It just means you sincerely have to be willing to choose to die.
Hmm, I am trying to see if it is really the same puzzle?? The self-deception I see, since if you get the opposite of whatever you choose then it motivates you to self-deceive so that you’ll choose the opposite of whatever you want to get. But then why is the alternative death? Ah well, maybe it’ll make sense to me later.