Reviewing for 2024, but I don’t recall reading it previously. I think I bounced off the name. I’ve long felt the Trivers deception theory of you deceive yourself to deceive others to be compelling and concerning. I’m a big fan of Elephant in the Brain. Whereas my recollection of that is a great collection of evidence that self-deception is at play, I think this post might be the clearest and most detailed description of the phenomenon I know of and there’s a meaningful discussion of what to do about it.
I don’t think that discussion is sufficient, but it’s something.
Plausibly linked to why I bounced off the title, I think the diagnosis of the cause is wrong – and like much self and other deception – self-flattering. Others insisting we have the correct mental state is one reason to pretend to have certain innards, but there’s no shortage of motivation to want to hostile-y deceive others about self-serving such things like I’m doing this for your benefit, I’m doing this because I’m altruistic, and so on.
My guess is self-deception is incentivized so long as other deception is incentivized, and the ugly reality is that it is typically is. Everyone has the incentive to be publicly against deception while trying to covertly defect.
Regarding the mother whose glasses broke as hostile telepath: I think a more charitable interpretation is she’s ineffective socializer. The goal is to have the child affirm they understand they caused damage, assigned negative valence to having done so, and commit not to do it again. That is a good thing to raise your children to do. There’s a sense in which the child is interfering with a beneficial process when they pretend (also a sense in which they’re protecting themselves).
I strong upvoted and probably give +9 in the review, even though I think the highest level of framing is wrong here, since the core is so good.
My guess is self-deception is incentivized so long as other deception is incentivized
I think you’re probably right.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t trying to lay out a theory of all self-deception. I was trying to lay out a theory of one cause of at least one kind of self-deception (namely Newcomblike self-deception). I noticed that the problem seemed like it should be real, and it has multiple solutions, Newcomblike self-deception being one of them. That setup had some interesting logic that panned out with some casual experimentation.
I kind of wonder what portion of self-deception is entirely about dealing with hostile telepaths. Is it 100%? Probably not. My intuitive impression is that it’s well over 50% though. But even if it’s just 10% I don’t think that affects the logic of the post whatsoever. It’s a suggestion that thus-and-such type of self-deception arises from solving a particular problem that has other possible solutions, not a theory that all self-deception comes from this mechanism.
Regarding the mother whose glasses broke as hostile telepath: I think a more charitable interpretation is she’s ineffective socializer.
Someone else brought this up too. I think you’re right. And perhaps I wrote that part in a misleading way!
That said, I don’t think your very accurate point affects the example whatsoever.
The question isn’t about what’s really going on. The question is, from the perspective of the child, is he dealing with a hostile telepath? Which is to say, is he dealing with someone (a) who seems to be able to read his internal states and (b) whom he doesn’t trust won’t make his life worse based on what she finds? If the answer is “yes”, he’s faced with a hostile telepath problem, for which he needs some kind of solution.
It really doesn’t matter whatsoever how badly that represents the mother’s subjective state or motivations. The child doesn’t have access to that. The child just knows that Mother is mad at him, is demanding that he “be sorry”, and is checking. It’s possible the mom isn’t even mad! Maybe she’s a perfect saint bringing pure love and care and understanding while gently guiding the child to the best of her ability. But if the child perceives the mother as a hostile telepath, then he needs a solution. Which Newcomblike self-deception is one such solution.
It seems relevant that another reviewer gave the same pushback though. I wonder if I’ve been unclear, or if I’m missing something. Let me know if it seems to you like I’ve missed your point.
Reviewing for 2024, but I don’t recall reading it previously. I think I bounced off the name. I’ve long felt the Trivers deception theory of you deceive yourself to deceive others to be compelling and concerning. I’m a big fan of Elephant in the Brain. Whereas my recollection of that is a great collection of evidence that self-deception is at play, I think this post might be the clearest and most detailed description of the phenomenon I know of and there’s a meaningful discussion of what to do about it.
I don’t think that discussion is sufficient, but it’s something.
Plausibly linked to why I bounced off the title, I think the diagnosis of the cause is wrong – and like much self and other deception – self-flattering. Others insisting we have the correct mental state is one reason to pretend to have certain innards, but there’s no shortage of motivation to want to hostile-y deceive others about self-serving such things like I’m doing this for your benefit, I’m doing this because I’m altruistic, and so on.
My guess is self-deception is incentivized so long as other deception is incentivized, and the ugly reality is that it is typically is. Everyone has the incentive to be publicly against deception while trying to covertly defect.
Regarding the mother whose glasses broke as hostile telepath: I think a more charitable interpretation is she’s ineffective socializer. The goal is to have the child affirm they understand they caused damage, assigned negative valence to having done so, and commit not to do it again. That is a good thing to raise your children to do. There’s a sense in which the child is interfering with a beneficial process when they pretend (also a sense in which they’re protecting themselves).
I strong upvoted and probably give +9 in the review, even though I think the highest level of framing is wrong here, since the core is so good.
I think you’re probably right.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t trying to lay out a theory of all self-deception. I was trying to lay out a theory of one cause of at least one kind of self-deception (namely Newcomblike self-deception). I noticed that the problem seemed like it should be real, and it has multiple solutions, Newcomblike self-deception being one of them. That setup had some interesting logic that panned out with some casual experimentation.
I kind of wonder what portion of self-deception is entirely about dealing with hostile telepaths. Is it 100%? Probably not. My intuitive impression is that it’s well over 50% though. But even if it’s just 10% I don’t think that affects the logic of the post whatsoever. It’s a suggestion that thus-and-such type of self-deception arises from solving a particular problem that has other possible solutions, not a theory that all self-deception comes from this mechanism.
Someone else brought this up too. I think you’re right. And perhaps I wrote that part in a misleading way!
That said, I don’t think your very accurate point affects the example whatsoever.
The question isn’t about what’s really going on. The question is, from the perspective of the child, is he dealing with a hostile telepath? Which is to say, is he dealing with someone (a) who seems to be able to read his internal states and (b) whom he doesn’t trust won’t make his life worse based on what she finds? If the answer is “yes”, he’s faced with a hostile telepath problem, for which he needs some kind of solution.
It really doesn’t matter whatsoever how badly that represents the mother’s subjective state or motivations. The child doesn’t have access to that. The child just knows that Mother is mad at him, is demanding that he “be sorry”, and is checking. It’s possible the mom isn’t even mad! Maybe she’s a perfect saint bringing pure love and care and understanding while gently guiding the child to the best of her ability. But if the child perceives the mother as a hostile telepath, then he needs a solution. Which Newcomblike self-deception is one such solution.
It seems relevant that another reviewer gave the same pushback though. I wonder if I’ve been unclear, or if I’m missing something. Let me know if it seems to you like I’ve missed your point.