In order to believe X falsely, one has to construct a plausible-ish world where X is the case. This distorted-world construction can happen piecemeal, in a sort of auto-sum-threshold attack.
In other words, suppose you want to rationalize your belief in X. You could simply abdicate all logic, and assert X while also asserting everything else that comes from your ordinary truth-seeking beliefs. (Well, that’s not simple, because what do we mean by believing in X, then? Something about actions? I’ll leave this as an open question here.)
However, that method is kinda hard sometimes. For one thing, if you are trying to truth-seek somewhat, you might follow the rule of believing logical implications of your beliefs. That could be out of pure ethics, or it could be for instrumental reasons. So you would very quickly run into contradictions. For another thing, you’d look silly, and have a hard time mind-melding with people on X-related things.
Better might be to construct a “logical counterfactual” where X is the case. You construct a plausible world nearest to our own, but where X is the case. That world may be logically / conceptually / strategically incoherent, but it could be less incoherent.
X is false, and X is related to many things that you know about. So there are many logical rends to mend.
This can happen piecemeal. You don’t have to construct the whole X world in one go. Indeed, doing so would draw a lot of attention, and in particular self-attention. If you try to mend a bunch of rends all in one go, where they all relate to your believe in X and would all be solved by just believing not-X, you might strongly tend to just make that update.
Instead you can do it piecemeal. You mend one rend today, one tomorrow. Any given contradiction can be smoothed over
by coming up with just slightly implausible explanations,
by just slightly questioning some logical links,
by just slightly revising your concepts about X to take a little dent from the contradictory impingement (without actually propagating those modifications to other applications of X, of course),
by installing slight ugh fields and sleepiness-on-demand and boredom-on-demand and other emotional reactions to steer your attention away,
by modifying your environment (e.g. not talking to such and such type of person as much, because they might bring up things related to the contradiction be a bit exhausting / needlessly provocative),
by letting the bailey contract a bit back into the motte just for today,
by doing a bit more training on pretending to acknowledge the falseness of X just to save face but without internally modifying X-related content,
etc.
These can be done in small ways, in covert ways, in forgettable ways. They can get compiled into habits without deliberate choice. They are below the threshold where you or anyone else notices that there’s this big pattern.
But they can add up to what is functionally a distorted world, constructed by an auto-sum-threshold attack.
In order to believe X falsely, one has to construct a plausible-ish world where X is the case. (...) In other words, suppose you want to rationalize your belief in X.
Note that the former isn’t the same at the latter. You may believe, rationally, that you didn’t win the lottery, but, as luck would have it, you actually won, unbeknownst to you. The false belief here is not distorted at all; indeed, the true belief (that you won) would be more “distorted” (irrational) because it has a very low objective probability.
In order to believe X falsely, one has to construct a plausible-ish world where X is the case. This distorted-world construction can happen piecemeal, in a sort of auto-sum-threshold attack.
In other words, suppose you want to rationalize your belief in X. You could simply abdicate all logic, and assert X while also asserting everything else that comes from your ordinary truth-seeking beliefs. (Well, that’s not simple, because what do we mean by believing in X, then? Something about actions? I’ll leave this as an open question here.)
However, that method is kinda hard sometimes. For one thing, if you are trying to truth-seek somewhat, you might follow the rule of believing logical implications of your beliefs. That could be out of pure ethics, or it could be for instrumental reasons. So you would very quickly run into contradictions. For another thing, you’d look silly, and have a hard time mind-melding with people on X-related things.
Better might be to construct a “logical counterfactual” where X is the case. You construct a plausible world nearest to our own, but where X is the case. That world may be logically / conceptually / strategically incoherent, but it could be less incoherent.
X is false, and X is related to many things that you know about. So there are many logical rends to mend.
This can happen piecemeal. You don’t have to construct the whole X world in one go. Indeed, doing so would draw a lot of attention, and in particular self-attention. If you try to mend a bunch of rends all in one go, where they all relate to your believe in X and would all be solved by just believing not-X, you might strongly tend to just make that update.
Instead you can do it piecemeal. You mend one rend today, one tomorrow. Any given contradiction can be smoothed over
by coming up with just slightly implausible explanations,
by just slightly questioning some logical links,
by just slightly revising your concepts about X to take a little dent from the contradictory impingement (without actually propagating those modifications to other applications of X, of course),
by installing slight ugh fields and sleepiness-on-demand and boredom-on-demand and other emotional reactions to steer your attention away,
by modifying your environment (e.g. not talking to such and such type of person as much, because they might
bring up things related to the contradictionbe a bit exhausting / needlessly provocative),by letting the bailey contract a bit back into the motte just for today,
by doing a bit more training on pretending to acknowledge the falseness of X just to save face but without internally modifying X-related content,
etc.
These can be done in small ways, in covert ways, in forgettable ways. They can get compiled into habits without deliberate choice. They are below the threshold where you or anyone else notices that there’s this big pattern.
But they can add up to what is functionally a distorted world, constructed by an auto-sum-threshold attack.
Note that the former isn’t the same at the latter. You may believe, rationally, that you didn’t win the lottery, but, as luck would have it, you actually won, unbeknownst to you. The false belief here is not distorted at all; indeed, the true belief (that you won) would be more “distorted” (irrational) because it has a very low objective probability.
In order to set out to believe falsely.
Ah yes, I delete my comment if you add this in the post.
(I don’t mind / would prefer this clarification in the comments?)