That would be all very well for master rationalists so expert that they have no beliefs that might require a crisis of faith. I don’t happen to know any of those; do you? I would be skeptical about anyone (yourself included; I hope you aren’t offended) who claims to have none: how do you know you aren’t merely failing to notice some tightly-held beliefs?
Fair enough. First, master rationalist is probably pushing it a bit too far in what’s required; rather, you just need to work towards a “mind like water” state, flowing in whichever way the evidence directs it, and once you get close enough to that state the need for a true crisis of faith should disappear.
As for myself and and others who might make a claim to have no crises of faith, it’s a fair question to ask if we’re simply not seeing them. It’s entirely possible that there are some beliefs that I have that I am unaware are so tightly held that I don’t even see them as beliefs, but as truths about the world. However, I have had many experiences which you might identify as a crisis of faith (although I didn’t handle any of them with much in the way of rationality, and it was luck as much as anything else that I was dumped out in the state of mind that I was in), and I have not since encountered anything that has led me to a crisis of faith. Given the huge amount I have learned since that last crisis of faith, I consider the odds of me having another one low.
There is one caveat I should mention, though: this whole issue may come down to a matter of perspective. To me, it’s not a real crisis of faith unless you have to change your entire world view. Up until my last crisis of faith, I spent a lot of time thinking about how everything fit together in the universe. But then I had the realization, which came over me like a wave but soaked in to me very slowly, that all that really mattered was the evidence. So compared to that experience, nothing else has felt worthy of being called a crisis of faith.
That said, the method that Eliezer outlines seems to be a good one to follow. I have applied several of the techniques described with good success. So now that I think of it, maybe it is all just a matter of differences in what we really consider to be a crisis.
That would be all very well for master rationalists so expert that they have no beliefs that might require a crisis of faith. I don’t happen to know any of those; do you? I would be skeptical about anyone (yourself included; I hope you aren’t offended) who claims to have none: how do you know you aren’t merely failing to notice some tightly-held beliefs?
Fair enough. First, master rationalist is probably pushing it a bit too far in what’s required; rather, you just need to work towards a “mind like water” state, flowing in whichever way the evidence directs it, and once you get close enough to that state the need for a true crisis of faith should disappear.
As for myself and and others who might make a claim to have no crises of faith, it’s a fair question to ask if we’re simply not seeing them. It’s entirely possible that there are some beliefs that I have that I am unaware are so tightly held that I don’t even see them as beliefs, but as truths about the world. However, I have had many experiences which you might identify as a crisis of faith (although I didn’t handle any of them with much in the way of rationality, and it was luck as much as anything else that I was dumped out in the state of mind that I was in), and I have not since encountered anything that has led me to a crisis of faith. Given the huge amount I have learned since that last crisis of faith, I consider the odds of me having another one low.
There is one caveat I should mention, though: this whole issue may come down to a matter of perspective. To me, it’s not a real crisis of faith unless you have to change your entire world view. Up until my last crisis of faith, I spent a lot of time thinking about how everything fit together in the universe. But then I had the realization, which came over me like a wave but soaked in to me very slowly, that all that really mattered was the evidence. So compared to that experience, nothing else has felt worthy of being called a crisis of faith.
That said, the method that Eliezer outlines seems to be a good one to follow. I have applied several of the techniques described with good success. So now that I think of it, maybe it is all just a matter of differences in what we really consider to be a crisis.