I’m also bewildered by this idea of knowingly and intentionally identifying with only one conceptual part of your mind in opposition to others. (Or maybe less dualistically, the part that’s connected to your mouth and fingers reporting that it identifies with some parts and not others—how do the repudiated parts feel about it?)
We say this, but it still seems to me that many people I run into (for example, at introductory CFAR workshops) implicitly identify as their riders and treat their elephants as annoying pets that have to be managed so that they, meaning their riders, can get on with their lives. I think this is… “wrong” would be a type error, and also unkind. But I’m sad about it.
I’m pretty sure I know what OP means by this and I agree that it’s bad, but it also seems like something that generally happens by accident. Why would you deliberately cultivate this kind of disconnect in the opposite direction?
It doesn’t feel deliberate to me, and I think there are genuine asymmetries between the rider and the elephant; among other things, the elephant is much larger, and I think an elephant with no rider is still human and still has moral value (corollary: I think all of the EA work on understanding consciousness in order to understand which things have moral value is misguided, because to me consciousness is not a necessary condition for moral value), but a rider with no elephant is basically nothing.
I don’t claim that the way I’m set up is optimal; probably I have some growth to do in the direction of incorporating the rider into my self-concept. One reason I treat my rider with some suspicion is that it often speaks for Moloch, not for me.
I think I understand what Qiaochu means except I identify with the rider most of the time. I don’t think it’s a question of knowingly choosing to identify with one part of your mind, versus just automatically feeling like that part is “Actually You.” To give a different example of the same thing: there’s a part of me that is still “high school internet troll” and although I understand his positions and feelings I find it hard to identify as that person at all.
I’m also bewildered by this idea of knowingly and intentionally identifying with only one conceptual part of your mind in opposition to others. (Or maybe less dualistically, the part that’s connected to your mouth and fingers reporting that it identifies with some parts and not others—how do the repudiated parts feel about it?)
I’m pretty sure I know what OP means by this and I agree that it’s bad, but it also seems like something that generally happens by accident. Why would you deliberately cultivate this kind of disconnect in the opposite direction?
It doesn’t feel deliberate to me, and I think there are genuine asymmetries between the rider and the elephant; among other things, the elephant is much larger, and I think an elephant with no rider is still human and still has moral value (corollary: I think all of the EA work on understanding consciousness in order to understand which things have moral value is misguided, because to me consciousness is not a necessary condition for moral value), but a rider with no elephant is basically nothing.
I don’t claim that the way I’m set up is optimal; probably I have some growth to do in the direction of incorporating the rider into my self-concept. One reason I treat my rider with some suspicion is that it often speaks for Moloch, not for me.
All right. It sounds like I misunderstood some of your previous comments about this.
I think I understand what Qiaochu means except I identify with the rider most of the time. I don’t think it’s a question of knowingly choosing to identify with one part of your mind, versus just automatically feeling like that part is “Actually You.” To give a different example of the same thing: there’s a part of me that is still “high school internet troll” and although I understand his positions and feelings I find it hard to identify as that person at all.