A popular sentiment is “I don’t care about X!!!”. Sometimes this even appears in memes proudly lauding the “fact” of their non-caring about whatever X happens to be. While it may be wise to take people’s knee-jerk disapproval with a grain of salt, clearly we as humans are wired in such a way as to care what others think, for better or for worse. Instead of facing our emotions head-on, and admitting that we do care, it is much easier not to reveal how fragile we are to the world.
An interesting specific case study (although I haven’t been able to generalize a more broad category) would be the argument that Pluto is or should be a planet. People who argue this tend to know a couple of the reasons why it makes sense for scientists to use the term “planet” to refer to the larger bodies, while using the words “dwarf planet” to indicate objects like Pluto and Ceres with another set of characteristics. Their argument is interesting in that it doesn’t seem to occur on the factual level at all, but purely on the emotional, gut reaction level. In other cases, the two usually get tangled up rapidly, with factual arguments on both sides, but this does not occur here. It’s purely an argument about terminology, and that our terminology should not be optimized to reflect the facts of reality, but rather our own traditions and desires for their own sakes alone. There aren’t even any augments that such an awkward naming convention would be instrumentally valuable, say by letting scientists keep the same terminology they’ve been using for years. You see exactly those sorts of arguments for not switching to the Metric system, but not regarding Pluto for some reason.
But what might this tell us about how emotionally based opinions are formed? What’s different in this case? Well, first of all, it is extremely obvious that the outcome of the disagreement will have no harmful impact on anyone anywhere. With political arguments, there’s always a victim, no matter who wins. The question is who’s grievance is worse, or which victim you identify with more. That’s how you choose your side. So, when you need to prove that your side has it worse off, you need to bring facts into the discussion to prove it. We quickly get defensive, and then start rationalizing.
But I wouldn’t call what’s going on in the Pluto debate “rationalizing”. It’s not starting with a conclusion, and then trying to find evidence and arguments to justify it. It’s not starting with evidence either though. It’s the raw belief itself, without any supporting evidence or justifications tacked on. If you want a rationalization, you actually have to probe someone for it, and even then they may or may not respond with one. They are just as likely to respond with “but it’s just really sad that Pluto is getting demoted”. It’s pure nostalgia, or personification of the inanimate, or some mix of other emotions with no logic attached.
No amount of facts or logic will win against this. Instead, the only winning move is to get them to love truth, to find beauty in the structure of logic, to admire the scientific method, to see elegance in simplicity, and to find Joy in the Merely Real. Failing to be able to do so isn’t a Dark Side Epistemology, but rather the gaping yaw that all Dark Side Epistemology is trying to fill. It’s the true cause of a Fake Justification. If we want to actually prevent systemic rational failures from popping up, we need to know the true causal history that originated the need for such beliefs, not just the true causal history that originated the beliefs themselves. Dark Side Epistemology gives rise to the beliefs themselves, but the inability to find joy in the merely real gives rise to the need for such beliefs.
What’s the solution, then? Well, there are already “beautiful engineering” memes, and some visualizing mathematics such as fractals, although the more abstract math is difficult to show that way. But there are plenty of quotes out there proclaiming the beauty of such things. “I Fucking Love Science” is popular, and Neil deGrasse Tyson brings the stars and planets to life fairly effectively. What seems to be missing is a social base promoting formal logic itself, or traits that limit self-deception. There are plenty of skeptics groups, some of which advocate for something like reductionism, but that’s only tangentially relevant to disproving UFO claims. Less Wrong seems to be the closest thing there is to this, but I wouldn’t want to dilute this community down to a meme factory. Things like HPMOR are a big step in the right direction, but we need a true cultural movement to unfold if we want to change the way people think.
A popular sentiment is “I don’t care about X!!!”. Sometimes this even appears in memes proudly lauding the “fact” of their non-caring about whatever X happens to be. While it may be wise to take people’s knee-jerk disapproval with a grain of salt, clearly we as humans are wired in such a way as to care what others think, for better or for worse. Instead of facing our emotions head-on, and admitting that we do care, it is much easier not to reveal how fragile we are to the world.
An interesting specific case study (although I haven’t been able to generalize a more broad category) would be the argument that Pluto is or should be a planet. People who argue this tend to know a couple of the reasons why it makes sense for scientists to use the term “planet” to refer to the larger bodies, while using the words “dwarf planet” to indicate objects like Pluto and Ceres with another set of characteristics. Their argument is interesting in that it doesn’t seem to occur on the factual level at all, but purely on the emotional, gut reaction level. In other cases, the two usually get tangled up rapidly, with factual arguments on both sides, but this does not occur here. It’s purely an argument about terminology, and that our terminology should not be optimized to reflect the facts of reality, but rather our own traditions and desires for their own sakes alone. There aren’t even any augments that such an awkward naming convention would be instrumentally valuable, say by letting scientists keep the same terminology they’ve been using for years. You see exactly those sorts of arguments for not switching to the Metric system, but not regarding Pluto for some reason.
But what might this tell us about how emotionally based opinions are formed? What’s different in this case? Well, first of all, it is extremely obvious that the outcome of the disagreement will have no harmful impact on anyone anywhere. With political arguments, there’s always a victim, no matter who wins. The question is who’s grievance is worse, or which victim you identify with more. That’s how you choose your side. So, when you need to prove that your side has it worse off, you need to bring facts into the discussion to prove it. We quickly get defensive, and then start rationalizing.
But I wouldn’t call what’s going on in the Pluto debate “rationalizing”. It’s not starting with a conclusion, and then trying to find evidence and arguments to justify it. It’s not starting with evidence either though. It’s the raw belief itself, without any supporting evidence or justifications tacked on. If you want a rationalization, you actually have to probe someone for it, and even then they may or may not respond with one. They are just as likely to respond with “but it’s just really sad that Pluto is getting demoted”. It’s pure nostalgia, or personification of the inanimate, or some mix of other emotions with no logic attached.
No amount of facts or logic will win against this. Instead, the only winning move is to get them to love truth, to find beauty in the structure of logic, to admire the scientific method, to see elegance in simplicity, and to find Joy in the Merely Real. Failing to be able to do so isn’t a Dark Side Epistemology, but rather the gaping yaw that all Dark Side Epistemology is trying to fill. It’s the true cause of a Fake Justification. If we want to actually prevent systemic rational failures from popping up, we need to know the true causal history that originated the need for such beliefs, not just the true causal history that originated the beliefs themselves. Dark Side Epistemology gives rise to the beliefs themselves, but the inability to find joy in the merely real gives rise to the need for such beliefs.
What’s the solution, then? Well, there are already “beautiful engineering” memes, and some visualizing mathematics such as fractals, although the more abstract math is difficult to show that way. But there are plenty of quotes out there proclaiming the beauty of such things. “I Fucking Love Science” is popular, and Neil deGrasse Tyson brings the stars and planets to life fairly effectively. What seems to be missing is a social base promoting formal logic itself, or traits that limit self-deception. There are plenty of skeptics groups, some of which advocate for something like reductionism, but that’s only tangentially relevant to disproving UFO claims. Less Wrong seems to be the closest thing there is to this, but I wouldn’t want to dilute this community down to a meme factory. Things like HPMOR are a big step in the right direction, but we need a true cultural movement to unfold if we want to change the way people think.