The way I’m (operationally) defining Preferences and words like happy/utility, Preferences are by definition what provides us what the most happiness/utility. Consider this thought experiment:
You start off as a blank slate and your memory is wiped. You then are experience some emotion, and you experience this emotion to a certain magnitude. Let’s call this “emotion-magnitude A”.
You then experience a second emotion-magnitude—emotion-magnitude B. Now that you have experienced two emotion-magnitudes, you could compare them and say which one was more preferable.
You then experience a third emotion magnitude, and insert it into the list [A, B] according to how preferable it was. And you do this for a fourth emotion-magnitude. And a fifth. Until eventually you do it for every possible emotion-magnitude (aka conscious state aka mind-state). You then end up with a list of every possible emotion-magnitude ranked according to desirability. [1...n]. These, are your Preferences.
So the way I’m defining Preferences, it refers to how desirable a certain mind-state is relative to other possible mind-states.
Now think about consequentialism and how stuff leads to certain consequences. Part of the consequences is the mind-state it produces for you.
Say that:
Action 1 → mind-state A
Aciton 2 → mind-state B
Now remember mind-states could be ranked according to how preferable they are, like in the thought experiment. Suppose that mind-state A is preferable to mind-state B.
From this, it seems to me that the following conclusion is unavoidable:
Action 1 is preferable to Action 2.
In other words, Action 1 leads you to a state of mind that you prefer over the state of mind that Action 2 leads you to. I don’t see any ways around saying that.
To make it more concrete, let’s say that Action 1 is “going on vacation” and Action 2 is “giving to charity”.
IF going on vacation produces mind-state A.
IF giving to charity produces mind-state B.
IF mind-state A is preferable to mind-state B.
THEN going on vacation leads you to a mind-state that is preferable to the one that giving to charity leads you to.
I call this “preferable”, but in this case words and semantics might just be distracting. As long as you agree that “going on vacation leads you to a mind-state that is preferable to the one that giving to charity leads you to” when the first three bullet points are true, I don’t think we disagree about anything real, and that we might just be using different words for stuff.
Thoughts?
Don’t you wonder why a rational human being would choose terminal goals that aren’t?.
I do, but mainly from a standpoint in being interested in human psychology. I also wonder from a standpoint of hoping that terminal goals aren’t arbitrary and that they have an actual reason for choosing what they choose, but I’ve never found their reasoning to be convincing, and I’ve never found their informational social influence to be strong enough evidence for me to think that terminal goals aren’t arbitrary.
So based on biology and evolution, it seems like a fair assumption that humans naturally put ourselves first, all the time. But is it at all possible for humans to have evolved some small, pure, genuine concern for others (call it altruism/morality/love) that coexists with our innate selfishness? Like one human was born with an “altruism mutation” and other humans realized he was nice to have around, so he survived, and the gene is still working its way through society, shifting our preference ratios? It’s a pleasant thought, anyway.
:))) [big smile] (Because I hope what I’m about to tell you might address a lot of your concerns and make you really happy.)
I’m pleased to tell you that we all have “that altruism mutation”. Because of the way evolution works, we evolve to maximize the spread of our genes.
So imagine that there’s two Mom’s. They each have 5 kids, and they each enter an unfortunate situation where they have to choose between themselves and their kids.
Mom 1 is selfish and chooses to save herself. Her kids then die. She goes on to not have any more kids. Therefore, her genes don’t get spread at all.
Mom 2 is unselfish and chooses to save her kids. She dies, but her genes live on through her kids.
The outcome of this situation is that there are 0 organisms with selfish genes, and 5 with unselfish genes.
And so humans (and all other animals, from what I know) have evolved a very strong instinct to protect their kin. But as we know, preference ratios diminish rapidly from there. We might care about our friends and extended family, and a little less about our extended social group, and not so much about the rest of people (which is why we go out to eat instead of paying for meals for 100s of starving kids).
As far as evolution goes, this also makes sense. A mom that acts altruistically towards her social circle would gain respect, and the tribes respect may lead to them protecting that mom’s children, thus increasing the chances they survive and produces offspring themselves. Of course, that altruistic act by the mom may decrease her chances of surviving to produce more offspring and to take care of her current offspring, but it’s a trade-off.* On the other hand, acting altruistically towards a random tribe across the world is unlikely to improve her children’s chances of surviving and producing offspring, so the mom’s that did this have historically been less successful at spreading genes than the mom’s that didn’t.
*Note: using mathematical models to simulate and test these trade-offs is the hard part of studying evolution. The basic ideas are actually quite simple.
But honestly, I literally didn’t even know what evolution was until several weeks ago though
I’m really sorry to hear that. I hope my being sorry isn’t offensive in any way. If it is, could you please tell me? I’d like to avoid offending people in the future.
so I don’t really belong bringing up any science at all yet;
Not so! Science is all about using what you do know to make hypothesis about the world and to look for observable evidence to test them. And that seems to be exactly what you were doing :)
Your hypotheses and thought experiments are really impressive. I’m beginning to suspect that you do indeed have training and are denying this in order to make a status play. [joking]
Like one human was born with an “altruism mutation” and other humans realized he was nice to have around, so he survived, and the gene is still working its way through society, shifting our preference ratios?
I’d just like to offer a correction here for your knowledge. Mutations spread almost entirely because they a) increase the chances that you produce offspring or b) increase the chances that the offspring survive (and presumably produce offspring themselves).
You seem to be saying that the mutation would spread because the organism remains alive. Think about it—if an organism has a mutation that increases the chances that it remain alive but that doesn’t increase the chances of having viable offspring, then that mutation would only remain in the gene pool until he died. And so of all the bajillions of our ancestors, only the ones still alive are candidates for the type of evolution you describe (mutations that only increase your chance of survival). Note that evolution is just the process of how genes spread.
Note: I’ve since realized that you may know this already, but figured I’d keep it anyway.
Okay, I guess I should have known some terminology correction was coming. If you want to define “happiness” as the preferred mind-state, no worries. I’ll just say the preferred mind-state of happiness is the harmony of our innate desire for pleasure and our innate desire for altruism, two desires that often overlap but occasionally compete. Do you agree that altruism deserves exactly the same sort of special recognition as an ultimate motivator that pleasure does? If so, your guess that we might not have disagreed about anything real was right.
IF going on vacation produces mind-state A.
IF giving to charity produces mind-state B.
IF mind-state A is preferable to mind-state B.
THEN going on vacation leads you to a mind-state that is preferable to the one that giving to charity leads you to.
Okay...most people want some vacation, but not full-time vacation, even though full-time vacation would bring us a LOT of pleasure. Doing good for the world is not as efficient at maximizing personal pleasure as going on vacation is. An individual must strike a balance between his desire for pleasure and his desire to be altruistic to achieve Harmonious Happiness (Look, I made up a term with capital letters! LW is rubbing off on me!)
I’m pleased to tell you that we all have “that altruism mutation”. Because of the way evolution works, we evolve to maximize the spread of our genes.
Yay!!! I didn’t think of a mother sacrificing herself for her kids like that, but I did think the most selfish, pleasure-driven individuals would quite probably be the most likely to end up in prison so their genes die out and less probably, but still possibly, they could also be the least likely to find spouses and have kids.
I’m really sorry to hear that. I hope my being sorry isn’t offensive in any way. If it is, could you please tell me? I’d like to avoid offending people in the future.
I almost never get offended, much less about this. I appreciate the sympathy! But others could find it offensive in that they’d find it arrogant. My thoughts on arrogance are a little unconventional. Most people think it’s arrogant to consider one person more gifted than others or one idea better than others. Some people really are more gifted and have far more positive qualities than others. Some ideas really are better. If you happen to be one of the more gifted people or understand one of the better ideas (evolution, in this case), and you recognize yourself as more gifted or recognize an idea as better, that’s not arrogance. Not yet. That’s just an honest perspective on value. Once you start to look down on people for being less gifted than you are or having worse ideas, that’s when you cross the line and become arrogant. If you are more gifted, or have more accurate ideas, you can happily thank the universe you weren’t born in someone else’s shoes, while doing your best to imagine what life would have been like if you were. You can try to help others use their own gifts to the best of their potential. You can try to share your ideas in a way that others will understand. Just don’t look down on people for not having certain abilities or believing the correct ideas because you really can’t understand what it’s like to be them :) But yeah, if you don’t want to offend people, it’s dangerous to express pity. Some people will look at your “feeling sorry” for those who don’t share your intelligence/life opportunities/correct ideas and call you arrogant for it, but I think they’re wrong to do so. There’s a difference between feeling sorry for people and looking down on them. For example, I am a little offended when one Christian friend and her dad who was my high school Calculus teacher look down on me. Most of my other friends just feel sorry for me, and I would be more offended if they didn’t, because feeling sorry at least shows they care.
Your hypotheses and thought experiments are really impressive. I’m beginning to suspect that you do indeed have training and are denying this in order to make a status play.
I’m flattered!! But I must confess the one thought experiment that was actually super good, the one at the end about free will, wasn’t my idea. It was a paraphrase of this guy’s idea and I had used it in the past to explain my deconversion to my friends. The other ideas were truly original, though :) (Not to say no one else has ever had them! Sometimes I feel like my life is a series of being very pleasantly surprised to find that other people beat me to all my ideas, like how I felt when I first read Famine, Affluence and Morality ten years after trying to convince my family it was wrong to eat in restaurants)
I’d just like to offer a correction here for your knowledge. Mutations spread almost entirely because they a) increase the chances that you produce offspring or b) increase the chances that the offspring survive (and presumably produce offspring themselves).
Hey, this sounds like what I was just reading this week in the rationality book about Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers! I think I get this, and maybe I didn’t write very clearly (or enough) here, but maybe I still don’t fully understand. But if someone is nice to have around, wouldn’t he have fewer enemies and be less likely to die than the selfish guys? So he lives to have kids, and the same goes for them? Idk.
Note: I just read your note and now have accordingly decreased the probability that I had said something way off-base :)
I’ll just say the preferred mind-state of happiness is the harmony of our innate desire for pleasure and our innate desire for altruism, two desires that often overlap but occasionally compete. Do you agree that altruism deserves exactly the same sort of special recognition as an ultimate motivator that pleasure does? If so, your guess that we might not have disagreed about anything real was right.
I agree that in most cases (sociopaths are an exception) pleasure and doing good for others are both things that determine how happy something makes you. And so in that sense, it doesn’t seem that we disagree about anything real.
But you use romantic sounding wording. Ex. “special recognition as an ultimate motivator”.
“ultimate motivator”
So they way motivation works is that it’s “originally determined” by our genes, and “adjusted/added to” by our experiences. So I agree that altruism is one of our “original/natural motivators”. But I wouldn’t say that it’s an ultimate motivator, because to me that sounds like it implies that there’s something final and/or superseding about altruism as a motivator, and I don’t think that’s true.
“special recognition”
I’m going to say my original thought, and then I’m going to say how I have since decided that it’s partially wrong of me.
My original thought is that “there’s no such thing as a special motivator”. We could be conditioned to want anything. Ie. to be motivated to do anything. The way I see it, the inputs are our genes and our experiences, and the output is the resulting motivation, and I don’t see how one output could be more special than another.
But that’s just me failing to use the word special as is customary by a good amount of people. One use of the word special would mean that there’s something inherently different about it, and it’s that use that I argue against above. But another way people use it is just to mean that it’s beautiful or something. Ie. even though altruism is an output like any other motivation, humans find that to be beautiful, and I think it’s sensible to use the word special to describe that.
This all may sound a lot like nitpicking, and it sort of is, but not really. I actually think there’s a decent chance that clarifying what I mean by these words will bring us a lot closer to agreement.
Okay...most people want some vacation, but not full-time vacation, even though full-time vacation would bring us a LOT of pleasure. Doing good for the world is not as efficient at maximizing personal pleasure as going on vacation is.
True, but that wasn’t the point I was making. I was just using that as an example. Admittedly, one that isn’t always true.
Yay!!!
I’m curious—was this earth shattering or just pretty cool? I got the impression that you thought that humans are completely selfish by nature.
So based on biology and evolution, it seems like a fair assumption that humans naturally put ourselves first, all the time. But is it at all possible for humans to have evolved some small, pure, genuine concern for others (call it altruism/morality/love) that coexists with our innate selfishness?
And that this makes you sad and that you’d be happier if people did indeed have some sort of altruism “built in”.
I didn’t think of a mother sacrificing herself for her kids like that, but I did think the most selfish, pleasure-driven individuals would quite probably be the most likely to end up in prison so their genes die out and less probably, but still possibly, they could also be the least likely to find spouses and have kids.
I think you may be misunderstanding something about how evolution works. I see that you now understand that we evolve to be “altruistic to our genes”, but it’s a common and understandable error to instinctively think about society as we know it. In actuality, we’ve been evolving very slowly over millions of years. Prisons have only existed for, idk, a couple hundred? (I realize you might understand this, but I’m commenting just in case you didn’t)
My thoughts on arrogance are a little unconventional.
Not here they’re not :) And I think that description was quite eloquent.
I used to be bullied and would be sad/embarrassed if people made fun of me. But at some point I got into a fight, ended it, and had a complete 180 shift of how I think about this. Since then, I’ve sort of decided that it doesn’t make sense at all to be “offended” by anything anyone says about you. What does that even mean? That your feelings are hurt? The way I see it:
a) Someone points out something that is both fixable and wrong with you, in which case you should thank them and change it. And if your feelings get hurt along the way, that’s just a cost you have to incur along the path of seeking a more important end (self improvement).
b) Someone points out something about you that is not fixable, or not wrong with you. In that case they’re just stupid (or maybe just wrong).
In reality, I’m exaggerating a bit because I understand that it’s not reasonable to expect humans to react like this all the time.
It was a paraphrase of this guy’s idea and I had used it in the past to explain my deconversion to my friends.
Haha, I see. Well now I’m less impressed by your intellect but more impressed with your honesty!
Sometimes I feel like my life is a series of being very pleasantly surprised to find that other people beat me to all my ideas
Yea, me too. But isn’t it really great at the same time though! Like when I first read the Sequences, it just articulated so many things that I thought that I couldn’t express. And it also introduced so many new things that I swear I would have arrived at. (And also introduced a bunch of new things that I don’t think I would have arrived at)
But if someone is nice to have around, wouldn’t he have fewer enemies and be less likely to die than the selfish guys? So he lives to have kids, and the same goes for them? Idk.
But I wouldn’t say that it’s an ultimate motivator, because to me that sounds like it implies that there’s something final and/or superseding about altruism as a motivator, and I don’t think that’s true.
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant to imply! Finally, I used the right words. Why don’t you think it’s true?
I don’t see how one output could be more special than another.
I did just mean “inherently different” so we’re clear here. I think what makes selfishness and goodness/altruism inherently different is that other psychological motivators, if you follow them back far enough, will lead people to act in a way that they either think will make them happy or that they think will make the world a happier place.
I’m curious—was this earth shattering or just pretty cool? I got the impression that you thought that humans are completely selfish by nature.
Well, the idea of being completely selfish by nature goes so completely against my intuition, I didn’t really suspect it (but I wouldn’t have ruled it out entirely). The “Yay!!” was about there being evidence/logic to support my intuition being true.
I think you may be misunderstanding something about how evolution works. I see that you now understand that we evolve to be “altruistic to our genes”, but it’s a common and understandable error to instinctively think about society as we know it. In actuality, we’ve been evolving very slowly over millions of years. Prisons have only existed for, idk, a couple hundred? (I realize you might understand this, but I’m commenting just in case you didn’t)
Prisons didn’t exist, but enemies did, and totally selfish people probably have more enemies… so yeah, I understand :)
I’ve sort of decided that it doesn’t make sense at all to be “offended” by anything anyone says about you.
No, you’re right! Whenever someone says something and adds “no offense” I remark that there must be something wrong with me, because I never take offense at anything. I’ve used your exact explanation to talk about criticism. I would rather hear it than not, because there’s a chance someone recognizes a bad tendency/belief that I haven’t already recognized in myself. I always ask for negative feedback from people, there’s no downside to it (unless you already suffer from depression, or something).
In real life, the only time I feel offended/mildly annoyed by what someone flat-out claims I’m lying, like when my old teacher said he didn’t believe me that I spent years earnestly praying for a stronger faith. But even as I was mildly annoyed, I understood his perspective completely because he either had to disbelieve me or disbelieve his entire understanding of the Bible and a God who answers prayer.
Yea, me too. But isn’t it really great at the same time though! Like when I first read the Sequences, it just articulated so many things that I thought that I couldn’t express. And it also introduced so many new things that I swear I would have arrived at. (And also introduced a bunch of new things that I don’t think I would have arrived at)
Yeah, ditto all the way! It’s entirely great :) I feel off the hook to go freely enjoy my life knowing it’s extremely probable that somewhere else, people like you, people who are smarter than I am, will have the ambition to think through all the good ideas and bring them to fruition.
I think what makes selfishness and goodness/altruism inherently different is that other psychological motivators, if you follow them back far enough, will lead people to act in a way that they either think will make them happy or that they think will make the world a happier place.
I think we’ve arrived at a core point here.
See my other comment:
I guess my whole idea is that goodness is kind of special. Most people seem born with it, to one extent or another. I think happiness and goodness are the two ultimate motivators. I even think they’re the only two ultimate motivators. Or at least I can’t think of any other supposed motivation that couldn’t be traced back to one or both of these.
In a way, I think this is true. Actually, I should give more credit to this idea—yeah, it’s true in an important way.
My quibble is that motivation is usually not rational. If it was, then I think you’d be right. But the way our brains produce motivation isn’t rational. Sometimes we are motivated to do something… “just because”. Ie. even if our brain knows that it won’t lead to happiness or goodness, it could still produce motivation.
And so in a very real sense, motivation itself is often something that can’t really be traced back. But I try really hard to respond to what people’s core points are, and what they probably meant. I’m not precisely sure what your core point is, but I sense that I agree with it. That’s the strongest statement I could make.
Unfortunately, I think my scientific background is actually harming me right now. We’re talking about a lot of things that have very precise scientific meanings, and in some cases I think you’re deviating from them a bit. Which really isn’t too big a deal because I should be able to infer what you mean and progress the conversation, but I think I’m doing a pretty mediocre job of that. When I reflect, it difficult to deviate from the definitions I’m familiar with, which is sort of bad “conversational manners”, because the only point of words in a conversation is to communicate ideas, and it’d probably be more efficient if I were better able to use other definitions.
Back to you:
Well, the idea of being completely selfish by nature goes so completely against my intuition, I didn’t really suspect it (but I wouldn’t have ruled it out entirely). The “Yay!!” was about there being evidence/logic to support my intuition being true.
The way I’m (operationally) defining Preferences and words like happy/utility, Preferences are by definition what provides us what the most happiness/utility. Consider this thought experiment:
So the way I’m defining Preferences, it refers to how desirable a certain mind-state is relative to other possible mind-states.
Now think about consequentialism and how stuff leads to certain consequences. Part of the consequences is the mind-state it produces for you.
Say that:
Action 1 → mind-state A
Aciton 2 → mind-state B
Now remember mind-states could be ranked according to how preferable they are, like in the thought experiment. Suppose that mind-state A is preferable to mind-state B.
From this, it seems to me that the following conclusion is unavoidable:
In other words, Action 1 leads you to a state of mind that you prefer over the state of mind that Action 2 leads you to. I don’t see any ways around saying that.
To make it more concrete, let’s say that Action 1 is “going on vacation” and Action 2 is “giving to charity”.
IF going on vacation produces mind-state A.
IF giving to charity produces mind-state B.
IF mind-state A is preferable to mind-state B.
THEN going on vacation leads you to a mind-state that is preferable to the one that giving to charity leads you to.
I call this “preferable”, but in this case words and semantics might just be distracting. As long as you agree that “going on vacation leads you to a mind-state that is preferable to the one that giving to charity leads you to” when the first three bullet points are true, I don’t think we disagree about anything real, and that we might just be using different words for stuff.
Thoughts?
I do, but mainly from a standpoint in being interested in human psychology. I also wonder from a standpoint of hoping that terminal goals aren’t arbitrary and that they have an actual reason for choosing what they choose, but I’ve never found their reasoning to be convincing, and I’ve never found their informational social influence to be strong enough evidence for me to think that terminal goals aren’t arbitrary.
:))) [big smile] (Because I hope what I’m about to tell you might address a lot of your concerns and make you really happy.)
I’m pleased to tell you that we all have “that altruism mutation”. Because of the way evolution works, we evolve to maximize the spread of our genes.
So imagine that there’s two Mom’s. They each have 5 kids, and they each enter an unfortunate situation where they have to choose between themselves and their kids.
Mom 1 is selfish and chooses to save herself. Her kids then die. She goes on to not have any more kids. Therefore, her genes don’t get spread at all.
Mom 2 is unselfish and chooses to save her kids. She dies, but her genes live on through her kids.
The outcome of this situation is that there are 0 organisms with selfish genes, and 5 with unselfish genes.
And so humans (and all other animals, from what I know) have evolved a very strong instinct to protect their kin. But as we know, preference ratios diminish rapidly from there. We might care about our friends and extended family, and a little less about our extended social group, and not so much about the rest of people (which is why we go out to eat instead of paying for meals for 100s of starving kids).
As far as evolution goes, this also makes sense. A mom that acts altruistically towards her social circle would gain respect, and the tribes respect may lead to them protecting that mom’s children, thus increasing the chances they survive and produces offspring themselves. Of course, that altruistic act by the mom may decrease her chances of surviving to produce more offspring and to take care of her current offspring, but it’s a trade-off.* On the other hand, acting altruistically towards a random tribe across the world is unlikely to improve her children’s chances of surviving and producing offspring, so the mom’s that did this have historically been less successful at spreading genes than the mom’s that didn’t.
*Note: using mathematical models to simulate and test these trade-offs is the hard part of studying evolution. The basic ideas are actually quite simple.
I’m really sorry to hear that. I hope my being sorry isn’t offensive in any way. If it is, could you please tell me? I’d like to avoid offending people in the future.
Not so! Science is all about using what you do know to make hypothesis about the world and to look for observable evidence to test them. And that seems to be exactly what you were doing :)
Your hypotheses and thought experiments are really impressive. I’m beginning to suspect that you do indeed have training and are denying this in order to make a status play. [joking]
I’d just like to offer a correction here for your knowledge. Mutations spread almost entirely because they a) increase the chances that you produce offspring or b) increase the chances that the offspring survive (and presumably produce offspring themselves).
You seem to be saying that the mutation would spread because the organism remains alive. Think about it—if an organism has a mutation that increases the chances that it remain alive but that doesn’t increase the chances of having viable offspring, then that mutation would only remain in the gene pool until he died. And so of all the bajillions of our ancestors, only the ones still alive are candidates for the type of evolution you describe (mutations that only increase your chance of survival). Note that evolution is just the process of how genes spread.
Note: I’ve since realized that you may know this already, but figured I’d keep it anyway.
I got a “comment too long error” haha
Okay, I guess I should have known some terminology correction was coming. If you want to define “happiness” as the preferred mind-state, no worries. I’ll just say the preferred mind-state of happiness is the harmony of our innate desire for pleasure and our innate desire for altruism, two desires that often overlap but occasionally compete. Do you agree that altruism deserves exactly the same sort of special recognition as an ultimate motivator that pleasure does? If so, your guess that we might not have disagreed about anything real was right.
Okay...most people want some vacation, but not full-time vacation, even though full-time vacation would bring us a LOT of pleasure. Doing good for the world is not as efficient at maximizing personal pleasure as going on vacation is. An individual must strike a balance between his desire for pleasure and his desire to be altruistic to achieve Harmonious Happiness (Look, I made up a term with capital letters! LW is rubbing off on me!)
Yay!!! I didn’t think of a mother sacrificing herself for her kids like that, but I did think the most selfish, pleasure-driven individuals would quite probably be the most likely to end up in prison so their genes die out and less probably, but still possibly, they could also be the least likely to find spouses and have kids.
I almost never get offended, much less about this. I appreciate the sympathy! But others could find it offensive in that they’d find it arrogant. My thoughts on arrogance are a little unconventional. Most people think it’s arrogant to consider one person more gifted than others or one idea better than others. Some people really are more gifted and have far more positive qualities than others. Some ideas really are better. If you happen to be one of the more gifted people or understand one of the better ideas (evolution, in this case), and you recognize yourself as more gifted or recognize an idea as better, that’s not arrogance. Not yet. That’s just an honest perspective on value. Once you start to look down on people for being less gifted than you are or having worse ideas, that’s when you cross the line and become arrogant. If you are more gifted, or have more accurate ideas, you can happily thank the universe you weren’t born in someone else’s shoes, while doing your best to imagine what life would have been like if you were. You can try to help others use their own gifts to the best of their potential. You can try to share your ideas in a way that others will understand. Just don’t look down on people for not having certain abilities or believing the correct ideas because you really can’t understand what it’s like to be them :) But yeah, if you don’t want to offend people, it’s dangerous to express pity. Some people will look at your “feeling sorry” for those who don’t share your intelligence/life opportunities/correct ideas and call you arrogant for it, but I think they’re wrong to do so. There’s a difference between feeling sorry for people and looking down on them. For example, I am a little offended when one Christian friend and her dad who was my high school Calculus teacher look down on me. Most of my other friends just feel sorry for me, and I would be more offended if they didn’t, because feeling sorry at least shows they care.
I’m flattered!! But I must confess the one thought experiment that was actually super good, the one at the end about free will, wasn’t my idea. It was a paraphrase of this guy’s idea and I had used it in the past to explain my deconversion to my friends. The other ideas were truly original, though :) (Not to say no one else has ever had them! Sometimes I feel like my life is a series of being very pleasantly surprised to find that other people beat me to all my ideas, like how I felt when I first read Famine, Affluence and Morality ten years after trying to convince my family it was wrong to eat in restaurants)
Hey, this sounds like what I was just reading this week in the rationality book about Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers! I think I get this, and maybe I didn’t write very clearly (or enough) here, but maybe I still don’t fully understand. But if someone is nice to have around, wouldn’t he have fewer enemies and be less likely to die than the selfish guys? So he lives to have kids, and the same goes for them? Idk.
Note: I just read your note and now have accordingly decreased the probability that I had said something way off-base :)
I agree that in most cases (sociopaths are an exception) pleasure and doing good for others are both things that determine how happy something makes you. And so in that sense, it doesn’t seem that we disagree about anything real.
But you use romantic sounding wording. Ex. “special recognition as an ultimate motivator”.
So they way motivation works is that it’s “originally determined” by our genes, and “adjusted/added to” by our experiences. So I agree that altruism is one of our “original/natural motivators”. But I wouldn’t say that it’s an ultimate motivator, because to me that sounds like it implies that there’s something final and/or superseding about altruism as a motivator, and I don’t think that’s true.
I’m going to say my original thought, and then I’m going to say how I have since decided that it’s partially wrong of me.
My original thought is that “there’s no such thing as a special motivator”. We could be conditioned to want anything. Ie. to be motivated to do anything. The way I see it, the inputs are our genes and our experiences, and the output is the resulting motivation, and I don’t see how one output could be more special than another.
But that’s just me failing to use the word special as is customary by a good amount of people. One use of the word special would mean that there’s something inherently different about it, and it’s that use that I argue against above. But another way people use it is just to mean that it’s beautiful or something. Ie. even though altruism is an output like any other motivation, humans find that to be beautiful, and I think it’s sensible to use the word special to describe that.
This all may sound a lot like nitpicking, and it sort of is, but not really. I actually think there’s a decent chance that clarifying what I mean by these words will bring us a lot closer to agreement.
True, but that wasn’t the point I was making. I was just using that as an example. Admittedly, one that isn’t always true.
I’m curious—was this earth shattering or just pretty cool? I got the impression that you thought that humans are completely selfish by nature.
And that this makes you sad and that you’d be happier if people did indeed have some sort of altruism “built in”.
I think you may be misunderstanding something about how evolution works. I see that you now understand that we evolve to be “altruistic to our genes”, but it’s a common and understandable error to instinctively think about society as we know it. In actuality, we’ve been evolving very slowly over millions of years. Prisons have only existed for, idk, a couple hundred? (I realize you might understand this, but I’m commenting just in case you didn’t)
Not here they’re not :) And I think that description was quite eloquent.
I used to be bullied and would be sad/embarrassed if people made fun of me. But at some point I got into a fight, ended it, and had a complete 180 shift of how I think about this. Since then, I’ve sort of decided that it doesn’t make sense at all to be “offended” by anything anyone says about you. What does that even mean? That your feelings are hurt? The way I see it:
a) Someone points out something that is both fixable and wrong with you, in which case you should thank them and change it. And if your feelings get hurt along the way, that’s just a cost you have to incur along the path of seeking a more important end (self improvement).
b) Someone points out something about you that is not fixable, or not wrong with you. In that case they’re just stupid (or maybe just wrong).
In reality, I’m exaggerating a bit because I understand that it’s not reasonable to expect humans to react like this all the time.
Haha, I see. Well now I’m less impressed by your intellect but more impressed with your honesty!
Yea, me too. But isn’t it really great at the same time though! Like when I first read the Sequences, it just articulated so many things that I thought that I couldn’t express. And it also introduced so many new things that I swear I would have arrived at. (And also introduced a bunch of new things that I don’t think I would have arrived at)
Yeah, definitely!
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant to imply! Finally, I used the right words. Why don’t you think it’s true?
I did just mean “inherently different” so we’re clear here. I think what makes selfishness and goodness/altruism inherently different is that other psychological motivators, if you follow them back far enough, will lead people to act in a way that they either think will make them happy or that they think will make the world a happier place.
Well, the idea of being completely selfish by nature goes so completely against my intuition, I didn’t really suspect it (but I wouldn’t have ruled it out entirely). The “Yay!!” was about there being evidence/logic to support my intuition being true.
Prisons didn’t exist, but enemies did, and totally selfish people probably have more enemies… so yeah, I understand :)
No, you’re right! Whenever someone says something and adds “no offense” I remark that there must be something wrong with me, because I never take offense at anything. I’ve used your exact explanation to talk about criticism. I would rather hear it than not, because there’s a chance someone recognizes a bad tendency/belief that I haven’t already recognized in myself. I always ask for negative feedback from people, there’s no downside to it (unless you already suffer from depression, or something).
In real life, the only time I feel offended/mildly annoyed by what someone flat-out claims I’m lying, like when my old teacher said he didn’t believe me that I spent years earnestly praying for a stronger faith. But even as I was mildly annoyed, I understood his perspective completely because he either had to disbelieve me or disbelieve his entire understanding of the Bible and a God who answers prayer.
Yeah, ditto all the way! It’s entirely great :) I feel off the hook to go freely enjoy my life knowing it’s extremely probable that somewhere else, people like you, people who are smarter than I am, will have the ambition to think through all the good ideas and bring them to fruition.
I think we’ve arrived at a core point here.
See my other comment:
Back to you:
Oh, I see.