The truth would exact a terrible price on us, were we to learn of it. There is too much of it. It does not fit into our tiny minds. For most of the truth in the universe, we are better off not-knowing about it.
That is true, but it only means that we don’t want to learn everthing. Not that we want to be lied to. The AI can dole out information as it becomes relevant to you without ever giving you false information.
It was part of an experiment to see if subscribers would vote down truths they are uncomfortable with and would rather not hear about.
Seriously, this is obvious—finding and remembering the truth has costs, and most truth in the universe is irrelevant to us because it concerns things which are far-away in spacetime.
This is a “truth, glorious truth post”. And the comments were mostly just nodding. Less Wrong is full of this sort of truth-worshiping. The observation that truth has a price seems trivially-obvious to me, but it seems to me that a number of other people around here don’t get it—and don’t like it being pointed out to them.
I think talking about it as “a price” may be tripping speculative-fiction-quest-sacrifice-buttons or something. (“Yes, we have the MacGuffin, but at what cost?!”) If all you’re saying is that truths take up brain space and brain space is both finite and valuable, I guess I can’t disagree with that, but I value my brain space mostly because it can hold truths.
Among truth-worshipers, saying anything bad about the truth is tantamout to blasphemy. Obviously that makes me one of those evil lie worshipers, who must
be sacrificed with Occam’s razor before I spread the terrible truth-slander further.
That additional beliefs take up space and time to learn is an obvious point, nobody disagrees with that. Because this point is obvious, restating it as an important truth seems silly, and suggesting that other people don’t accept it offensive. See Costs of rationality for the links to more interesting points.
Uh, the first paragraph of the post does explicity disagree, saying “one can only gain from having true information”—claiming the only exception is due to irrationality.
Note the difference between “There is one implicit assumption that makes this line of reason not true in all cases”, an actual statement from the article, and the modified version “There is only one implicit assumption that makes this line of reason not true in all cases.”
You are critiquing the modified version. It seems to me that you are searching for any unfavorable interpretation so that you can offer contrarian dissent.
Note that people have not been disagreeing with your point about the resource cost of representing true information, but also don’t think that this is a problem for the article, and object to the unclear way you have presented your point.
Your statement had two interpretations; one is mystical bullshit, and the other is trivially true but misleadingly written and irrelevant to the sort of truth-seeking we actually deliberate about. Thus the downvotes.
That seems like an unsympathetic reading. Personally, I can’t see the “mystical bullshit” interpretation after looking.
The original post ignored the costs of the truth. It seemed to me that someone needed to alert the nodding readership to the uncomfortable fact the truth has a price.
When comparing believing a truth to believing a corresponding lie, the resource costs of representing that truth should balance with the resource cost of representing the lie (otherwise the comparison also involves believing a precise theory versus believing an approximation).
The article was not about learning every fact about the entire universe, it was about the utility of believing lies about things we care about.
Check with the post’s first paragraph. What it says it is about is how “one can only gain from having true information”. In fact, most truths in the universe are bad for us, because of their costs—thus my reality check.
First, as I just explained elsewhere, you are misrepresenting the article by quoting out of context.
Second, there is a difference between claiming “one can only gain from having true information” (implicitly as opposed to having false information) and claiming that having true information is always a benifet.
The truth would exact a terrible price on us, were we to learn of it. There is too much of it. It does not fit into our tiny minds. For most of the truth in the universe, we are better off not-knowing about it.
That is true, but it only means that we don’t want to learn everthing. Not that we want to be lied to. The AI can dole out information as it becomes relevant to you without ever giving you false information.
What makes you say that? Do you regret knowing a majority of the things you know?
It was part of an experiment to see if subscribers would vote down truths they are uncomfortable with and would rather not hear about.
Seriously, this is obvious—finding and remembering the truth has costs, and most truth in the universe is irrelevant to us because it concerns things which are far-away in spacetime.
It’s trivially right and connotationally wrong, both issues not contributing to the quality of remark.
This is a “truth, glorious truth post”. And the comments were mostly just nodding. Less Wrong is full of this sort of truth-worshiping. The observation that truth has a price seems trivially-obvious to me, but it seems to me that a number of other people around here don’t get it—and don’t like it being pointed out to them.
I think talking about it as “a price” may be tripping speculative-fiction-quest-sacrifice-buttons or something. (“Yes, we have the MacGuffin, but at what cost?!”) If all you’re saying is that truths take up brain space and brain space is both finite and valuable, I guess I can’t disagree with that, but I value my brain space mostly because it can hold truths.
Among truth-worshipers, saying anything bad about the truth is tantamout to blasphemy. Obviously that makes me one of those evil lie worshipers, who must be sacrificed with Occam’s razor before I spread the terrible truth-slander further.
That additional beliefs take up space and time to learn is an obvious point, nobody disagrees with that. Because this point is obvious, restating it as an important truth seems silly, and suggesting that other people don’t accept it offensive. See Costs of rationality for the links to more interesting points.
Uh, the first paragraph of the post does explicity disagree, saying “one can only gain from having true information”—claiming the only exception is due to irrationality.
That was part of a line of reasoning that was introduced by “I used to think that”. Pay more attention to context.
You have to read all 5 sentences in that paragraph, to read about the new position as I just described it. The original postion was much more wrong.
Note the difference between “There is one implicit assumption that makes this line of reason not true in all cases”, an actual statement from the article, and the modified version “There is only one implicit assumption that makes this line of reason not true in all cases.”
You are critiquing the modified version. It seems to me that you are searching for any unfavorable interpretation so that you can offer contrarian dissent.
Note that people have not been disagreeing with your point about the resource cost of representing true information, but also don’t think that this is a problem for the article, and object to the unclear way you have presented your point.
Your statement had two interpretations; one is mystical bullshit, and the other is trivially true but misleadingly written and irrelevant to the sort of truth-seeking we actually deliberate about. Thus the downvotes.
That seems like an unsympathetic reading. Personally, I can’t see the “mystical bullshit” interpretation after looking.
The original post ignored the costs of the truth. It seemed to me that someone needed to alert the nodding readership to the uncomfortable fact the truth has a price.
Heh. I wrote my comment before reading yours, and I expressed exactly the same conclusion.
Proof of concept for a coherent extrapolated rejoinder?
When comparing believing a truth to believing a corresponding lie, the resource costs of representing that truth should balance with the resource cost of representing the lie (otherwise the comparison also involves believing a precise theory versus believing an approximation).
The article was not about learning every fact about the entire universe, it was about the utility of believing lies about things we care about.
Check with the post’s first paragraph. What it says it is about is how “one can only gain from having true information”. In fact, most truths in the universe are bad for us, because of their costs—thus my reality check.
First, as I just explained elsewhere, you are misrepresenting the article by quoting out of context.
Second, there is a difference between claiming “one can only gain from having true information” (implicitly as opposed to having false information) and claiming that having true information is always a benifet.