I know that that’s Hanson’s quote, not yours, but the fact that you quote it indicates you agree with it to some extent.
A very fair assessment. (But I’ll tell you what I disagree with in Hanson’s view in a second.) I do think Hanson is correct that, in as far as evolutionary psychology has established anything, it has shown that evolution has provided for signaling and deception. If it enhances fitness for others to think you care about truth, evolution will tend to favor creating the impression to a greater extent than is warranted by the facts of your actual caring. See, for example, Robert Trivers recent book. Hanson maintains that the “far” mode (per construal-level theory—you can’t avoid taking that into consideration in evaluating Hanson’s position) evolved as a semi-separate mental compartment largely to accommodate signaling for purposes of status-seeking or ostentation. (The first part of my “Construal-level theory: Matching linguistic register to the case’s granularity” provides a succinct summary of construal-level theory without Hanson’s embellishments.)
I disagree with Hanson in his tendency to overlook the virtues of far thinking and overstate those of “near” thinking—his over-emphasis of signaling in the role of “far” thought. I disagree with Hanson in his neglect of the banefulness of moralism in general and religion in particular. Many of the virtues he paints religion as having reflect in-group solidarity and are bought at the expense of xenophobia and cultural extra-punitiveness. And also, as Eliezer Yudkowsky points out, falsehood has broader consequences that escape Hanson’s micro-vision; forgoing truth produces a general loss of intellectual vitality.
But more than anything, I reject on ethical grounds Hanson’s tacit position that what evolution cares about is what we should care about. If the ideal of truth was created for show, that shouldn’t stop us from using it as a lever to get ourselves to care more about actual truth. (To me, a rationalist is above all one who values, even hyper-values, actual truth.) To put it bluntly, I don’t see where Hanson can have further intellectual credibility after signaling that he doesn’t seek truth in his far beliefs: those being the beliefs he posts about.
I am very happy to see your clarification, you write pretty much nothing I disagree with. I think the only place where we might disagree is the mechanism by which evolution accomplishes its goal of providing for signalling and deception. I believe that evolution usually gives us desires for things like truth and altruism which are, on some mental level, completely genuine. It then gives us problems like akrasia, laziness, and self-deception, which are not under full control of our conscious minds, and which thwart us from achieving our lofty goals when doing so might harm our inclusive genetic fitness.
Therefore, I think that people are entirely truthful in stating the have high and lofty ideals like truth-seeking, they are just sabotaged by human weakness. I think someone who says “I am a truthseeker” is usually telling the truth, even if they spend more time playing Halo than they do reading non-fiction. To me saying someone doesn’t care very much about truthseeking because their behavior does not always seek the truth is like saying someone doesn’t care very much about happiness because they have clinical depression.
I cannot quite tell from your comments whether you hold the same views on this as I do or not, as you do not specify how natural selection causes people to signal and deceive.
Therefore, I think that people are entirely truthful in stating the have high and lofty ideals like truth-seeking, they are just sabotaged by human weakness. I think someone who says “I am a truthseeker” is usually telling the truth, even if they spend more time playing Halo than they do reading non-fiction.
From a construal-level-theory standpoint, we should be talking about people who value truth at an abstract-construal level (from “far”) but whose concrete-construal-level inclinations (“near”) don’t much involve truth seeking. Some people might be inclined to pursue truth both near and far but might be unable to effectively because of akrasia (which I think another line of research, ego-depletion theory, largely reduces to “decision fatigue”).
So, the first question is whether you think there’s a valid distinction to be made, such as I’ve drawn above. The second is, if you agree on the distinction, what could cause people to value truth from far but have little inclination to pursue it near. Consider the religious fundamentalist, who thinks he wants truth but tries to find it by studying the Bible. If this is an educated person, I think one can say this fundamentalist has only an abstract interest in truth. How he putatively pursues truth shows he’s really interested in something else.
The way evolution could produce signaling is by creating a far system serving signaling purposes. This isn’t an either-or question, in that even Hanson agrees that the far system serves purposes besides signaling. But he apparently thinks the other purposes are so meager that the far system can be sacrificed to signaling with relative impunity. The exact extent to which the far system evolved for signaling purposes is a question I don’t know the answer to. But where Hanson goes dangerous is in his contempt for the integrity of far thinking and his lack of interest in integrating it with near thinking, at least for the masses and even for himself.
A rationalist struggles to turn far thinking to rational purpose, regardless of its origins. Hanson is the paradox of an intellectual who thinks contemptuous far thoughts about far thinking.
A very fair assessment. (But I’ll tell you what I disagree with in Hanson’s view in a second.) I do think Hanson is correct that, in as far as evolutionary psychology has established anything, it has shown that evolution has provided for signaling and deception. If it enhances fitness for others to think you care about truth, evolution will tend to favor creating the impression to a greater extent than is warranted by the facts of your actual caring. See, for example, Robert Trivers recent book. Hanson maintains that the “far” mode (per construal-level theory—you can’t avoid taking that into consideration in evaluating Hanson’s position) evolved as a semi-separate mental compartment largely to accommodate signaling for purposes of status-seeking or ostentation. (The first part of my “Construal-level theory: Matching linguistic register to the case’s granularity” provides a succinct summary of construal-level theory without Hanson’s embellishments.)
I disagree with Hanson in his tendency to overlook the virtues of far thinking and overstate those of “near” thinking—his over-emphasis of signaling in the role of “far” thought. I disagree with Hanson in his neglect of the banefulness of moralism in general and religion in particular. Many of the virtues he paints religion as having reflect in-group solidarity and are bought at the expense of xenophobia and cultural extra-punitiveness. And also, as Eliezer Yudkowsky points out, falsehood has broader consequences that escape Hanson’s micro-vision; forgoing truth produces a general loss of intellectual vitality.
But more than anything, I reject on ethical grounds Hanson’s tacit position that what evolution cares about is what we should care about. If the ideal of truth was created for show, that shouldn’t stop us from using it as a lever to get ourselves to care more about actual truth. (To me, a rationalist is above all one who values, even hyper-values, actual truth.) To put it bluntly, I don’t see where Hanson can have further intellectual credibility after signaling that he doesn’t seek truth in his far beliefs: those being the beliefs he posts about.
I am very happy to see your clarification, you write pretty much nothing I disagree with. I think the only place where we might disagree is the mechanism by which evolution accomplishes its goal of providing for signalling and deception. I believe that evolution usually gives us desires for things like truth and altruism which are, on some mental level, completely genuine. It then gives us problems like akrasia, laziness, and self-deception, which are not under full control of our conscious minds, and which thwart us from achieving our lofty goals when doing so might harm our inclusive genetic fitness.
Therefore, I think that people are entirely truthful in stating the have high and lofty ideals like truth-seeking, they are just sabotaged by human weakness. I think someone who says “I am a truthseeker” is usually telling the truth, even if they spend more time playing Halo than they do reading non-fiction. To me saying someone doesn’t care very much about truthseeking because their behavior does not always seek the truth is like saying someone doesn’t care very much about happiness because they have clinical depression.
I cannot quite tell from your comments whether you hold the same views on this as I do or not, as you do not specify how natural selection causes people to signal and deceive.
From a construal-level-theory standpoint, we should be talking about people who value truth at an abstract-construal level (from “far”) but whose concrete-construal-level inclinations (“near”) don’t much involve truth seeking. Some people might be inclined to pursue truth both near and far but might be unable to effectively because of akrasia (which I think another line of research, ego-depletion theory, largely reduces to “decision fatigue”).
So, the first question is whether you think there’s a valid distinction to be made, such as I’ve drawn above. The second is, if you agree on the distinction, what could cause people to value truth from far but have little inclination to pursue it near. Consider the religious fundamentalist, who thinks he wants truth but tries to find it by studying the Bible. If this is an educated person, I think one can say this fundamentalist has only an abstract interest in truth. How he putatively pursues truth shows he’s really interested in something else.
The way evolution could produce signaling is by creating a far system serving signaling purposes. This isn’t an either-or question, in that even Hanson agrees that the far system serves purposes besides signaling. But he apparently thinks the other purposes are so meager that the far system can be sacrificed to signaling with relative impunity. The exact extent to which the far system evolved for signaling purposes is a question I don’t know the answer to. But where Hanson goes dangerous is in his contempt for the integrity of far thinking and his lack of interest in integrating it with near thinking, at least for the masses and even for himself.
A rationalist struggles to turn far thinking to rational purpose, regardless of its origins. Hanson is the paradox of an intellectual who thinks contemptuous far thoughts about far thinking.