The realization that the sky is not red and that the sky is blue are two different things. Accepting “the sky is red” as irrational is possible without discovering that the sky is blue. If I happen to find an irrational belief in my map but have nothing to put there instead, what is the correct behavior? When I need to act on that area of the map, and all I have is an irrational belief, what should be done?
The first thing is to realize that you don’t have even the irrational belief, because if the map is wrong, it’s worse than useless. You should regress to the prior, accept not knowing the answer, but at the same time being careful about “you either win the lottery or lose, hence equal odds” fallacy (it’s “privileging the hypothesis” lingering even after you remove a given hypothesis from dominance). Incidentally, it’s rarely a mistake to let go of your beliefs: if they are correct, reality will imprint them back.
I experienced this process while erasing my beliefs in folk medicine practices. At one point, I decided to forget all I knew about this stuff since I was little, and to draw the judgment anew in each case, as if I heard of it for the first time. In a few cases this led to me not believing in the suggested effects that turned out to be real, but that’s only to be expected (and the reason I know of these cases is that in time, I learned whether particular pieces of tradition carried any truth, it’s like education by osmosis with epistemic hygiene turned on, done from scratch all over again). On the plus side, I got rid of some annoying “rituals”, like being afraid of every draught for fear of getting a cold.
The first thing is to realize that you don’t have even the irrational belief, because if the map is wrong, it’s worse than useless. You should regress to the prior, accept not knowing the answer, but at the same time being careful about “you either win the lottery or lose, hence equal odds” fallacy (it’s “privileging the hypothesis” lingering even after you remove a given hypothesis from dominance). Incidentally, it’s rarely a mistake to let go of your beliefs: if they are correct, reality will imprint them back.
I think I understand you. Let me repeat what you said with my words and see if I get it:
An irrational belief is damaging. It is better to hold no belief and regress to the “I don’t know” state of assigning probabilities to outcomes.
Unfortunately, “privileging the hypothesis” is pulling an “article I should have read by now” tag from my memory. Apparently I should go read an article. :)
The followup question I have is how do I act when I cannot find an alternative hypothesis? In other words, I have an irrational belief and I have to use that area of the map. “Do nothing,” is an action. Should I just insert that an hope for the best? What if “Do nothing” is the rational belief? Act randomly? And so on so forth.
My point here can be boiled down to this: Beliefs fuel actions. Actions are expected from reality. Better beliefs produce better actions. What happens when I have no belief or only irrational beliefs when deciding how to act? Assume there is no time for further introspection or fact-finding.
The second-best guess after the disabled known-irrational solution is often more interesting than “do nothing”. On the other hand, “do nothing”, when it’s the way to go, may be hard to accept for a number of reasons (it can be seen as a signal of not caring, or of excessive loyalty to your position of disbelieving). This is a dangerous pressure, one that can push you to accept a different dogma in place of the discarded one just to fill the gap.
Soft reminder: This is just theory-chat and it has nothing to do with me or my post.
Part of the problem is that some maps don’t keep track of second-best solutions. Namely, a common irrational behavior is to chuck everything that doesn’t match or adhere to principal dogma. The problem is not so much that there needs to be a way to choose a second-best. The problem is what happens when there is no second best.
This is a dangerous pressure, one that can push you to accept a different dogma in place of the discarded one just to fill the gap.
I am unable to parse, “This”. What are you referring to? As in, what is a dangerous pressure?
The pressure to “do something”, in particular to accept a system of beliefs that promotes a particular “something”, when for all you know you should just “stay there”.
The first thing is to realize that you don’t have even the irrational belief, because if the map is wrong, it’s worse than useless.
This isn’t always the case. It is fairly easy to find anecdotes of explorers (and especially those in war) that have gotten lost and found their way to safety using the “wrong map”. Sometimes having a map (even the wrong one) can provide just the amount of hope needed to press onwards.
There are far fewer available anecdotes of explorers who persisted in using an incorrect map, became even more lost, and were never heard from again. I suspect this is a matter of selection bias.
The first thing is to realize that you don’t have even the irrational belief, because if the map is wrong, it’s worse than useless. You should regress to the prior, accept not knowing the answer, but at the same time being careful about “you either win the lottery or lose, hence equal odds” fallacy (it’s “privileging the hypothesis” lingering even after you remove a given hypothesis from dominance). Incidentally, it’s rarely a mistake to let go of your beliefs: if they are correct, reality will imprint them back.
I experienced this process while erasing my beliefs in folk medicine practices. At one point, I decided to forget all I knew about this stuff since I was little, and to draw the judgment anew in each case, as if I heard of it for the first time. In a few cases this led to me not believing in the suggested effects that turned out to be real, but that’s only to be expected (and the reason I know of these cases is that in time, I learned whether particular pieces of tradition carried any truth, it’s like education by osmosis with epistemic hygiene turned on, done from scratch all over again). On the plus side, I got rid of some annoying “rituals”, like being afraid of every draught for fear of getting a cold.
I think I understand you. Let me repeat what you said with my words and see if I get it:
An irrational belief is damaging. It is better to hold no belief and regress to the “I don’t know” state of assigning probabilities to outcomes.
Unfortunately, “privileging the hypothesis” is pulling an “article I should have read by now” tag from my memory. Apparently I should go read an article. :)
The followup question I have is how do I act when I cannot find an alternative hypothesis? In other words, I have an irrational belief and I have to use that area of the map. “Do nothing,” is an action. Should I just insert that an hope for the best? What if “Do nothing” is the rational belief? Act randomly? And so on so forth.
My point here can be boiled down to this: Beliefs fuel actions. Actions are expected from reality. Better beliefs produce better actions. What happens when I have no belief or only irrational beliefs when deciding how to act? Assume there is no time for further introspection or fact-finding.
The second-best guess after the disabled known-irrational solution is often more interesting than “do nothing”. On the other hand, “do nothing”, when it’s the way to go, may be hard to accept for a number of reasons (it can be seen as a signal of not caring, or of excessive loyalty to your position of disbelieving). This is a dangerous pressure, one that can push you to accept a different dogma in place of the discarded one just to fill the gap.
Soft reminder: This is just theory-chat and it has nothing to do with me or my post.
Part of the problem is that some maps don’t keep track of second-best solutions. Namely, a common irrational behavior is to chuck everything that doesn’t match or adhere to principal dogma. The problem is not so much that there needs to be a way to choose a second-best. The problem is what happens when there is no second best.
I am unable to parse, “This”. What are you referring to? As in, what is a dangerous pressure?
The pressure to “do something”, in particular to accept a system of beliefs that promotes a particular “something”, when for all you know you should just “stay there”.
Ah, gotcha. That makes sense.
This isn’t always the case. It is fairly easy to find anecdotes of explorers (and especially those in war) that have gotten lost and found their way to safety using the “wrong map”. Sometimes having a map (even the wrong one) can provide just the amount of hope needed to press onwards.
There are far fewer available anecdotes of explorers who persisted in using an incorrect map, became even more lost, and were never heard from again. I suspect this is a matter of selection bias.
Sounds probable.