“That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.”—P. C. Hodgell
Love survives the truth.
Sam Harris
(I am aware that the first would be inappropriate alone, but I felt it provided the correct setup for the Sam Harris, which he said at the Festival of Dangerous Idea in the questions)
Added: The context of Harris was a questioner asking ‘If contra-causal free will doesn’t exist, then do our decisions to love people not exist?’ Harris was saying his argument forced us to give up false beliefs and the false emotions that followed from them (hatred), but our belief that love exists is still correct.
Er, well, you should listen to the talk. I was going to summarise it, but it’s a really great talk, and I’m preparing a LessWrong post on it (although I’ve been thinking of doing that for about a year).
The general idea that I thought was relevant though, was the idea of stripping away all false beliefs and emotions, and that love is still a part of the world.
This seems false. Love survives (and should survive) some truths but not others. There are some things that people can do which will cause other people to stop loving them. Revealing the truth about such things will tend to kill love.
“That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.”—P. C. Hodgell
Sam Harris
(I am aware that the first would be inappropriate alone, but I felt it provided the correct setup for the Sam Harris, which he said at the Festival of Dangerous Idea in the questions)
Added: The context of Harris was a questioner asking ‘If contra-causal free will doesn’t exist, then do our decisions to love people not exist?’ Harris was saying his argument forced us to give up false beliefs and the false emotions that followed from them (hatred), but our belief that love exists is still correct.
So why specifically does hatred not survive when love does?
Er, well, you should listen to the talk. I was going to summarise it, but it’s a really great talk, and I’m preparing a LessWrong post on it (although I’ve been thinking of doing that for about a year).
The general idea that I thought was relevant though, was the idea of stripping away all false beliefs and emotions, and that love is still a part of the world.
Is there a transcript anywhere? I can read much more quickly than I can listen, and the talk is pretty long.
I have to say that I’m skeptical though, that hatred would inherently be any more “false” than love.
I’d guess the talk is mostly a slightly inferior version of Harris’ short ebook Free Will.
Due to fundamental attribution bias, understanding people’s motivations deeply is likely to make you love them more and hate them less.
Well, statistically yes, but necessarily no. I’ve certainly encountered situations where the reverse was true.
I’m afraid I know of no transcript. I would recommend the talk.
Because Light carries energy but Dark does not. What is the speed of dark, anyway?
This seems false. Love survives (and should survive) some truths but not others. There are some things that people can do which will cause other people to stop loving them. Revealing the truth about such things will tend to kill love.
Yeah, I added a note explaining the context of his words.