We’re much better in this crowd at overcoming the surface manifestations of self-deception promoting processes than we are at resisting self-deception.
Yet another example of Goodhart’s Law, no? How does one defend against that? If self-deception usually operates below our conscious radar, then you usually have to shine conscious attention on it in order to notice it, and I assume you have to be able to notice it in order to fight it. But if rewarding oneself for successfully focusing conscious attention on self-deception, over time, inevitably makes one aware primarily of only the surface manifestations of self-deception, then attempting to increase one’s focus on self-deception is largely futile. I really don’t know what to suggest, but I urgently want a strategy.
for instrumental rationality the optimal courses are dance, yoga, and above all acting.
Let’s say acting is a useful dark art. What on earth does that have to do with yoga or dancing? Yoga tends to improve my posture and breathing and calm, but those aren’t dark arts; those are purely defensive light arts. They make me less susceptible to stress and panic, but not necessarily better able to mislead or manipulate people. Dancing, on a very, very, very good day makes me more sexually attractive, but surely you’re not suggesting that the key to epistemic rationality is to seduce one’s ideological opponents on the dance floor? I’m more than a bit confused, here.
Great point about Goodhart’s Law. Our eternal and tireless enemy. The best defense, I think, is internal cooperation. Stop self-deceiving by giving elements of yourself reasons that matter to them not to deceive other elements, and by giving them reasons to cooperate.
I almost say just that; the dance floor is only where the most overt type of dancing takes place. Did you really just say that its not a dark art to stretch your neck further than you voluntarily could by using an imaginary hook to pull your head up?
Good heuristic; if pot makes you better at it, its a ‘dark art’ in the sense of drawing on non-deliberate thought but not in the sense of moving you towards less accurate beliefs, and it won’t feel evil but will feel aesthetically right. If pride motivates or empowers it its a dark art in the latter, worse sense of moving you away from truth. If deliberative thought helps the performance, not just the training, it won’t corrupt you but it will feel cunning/tricky/evil even when you are good at it.
Drawing on non-deliberate thought but not in the sense of moving you towards less accurate beliefs, and it won’t feel evil but will feel aesthetically right
I am a fan of Waitzkin, but I don’t think I got this from him. As far as I can tell, things pretty much have to be this way in any plausible psychological theory.
But if rewarding oneself for successfully focusing conscious attention on self-deception, over time, inevitably makes one aware primarily of only the surface manifestations of self-deception, then attempting to increase one’s focus on self-deception is largely futile. I really don’t know what to suggest, but I urgently want a strategy.
Tentative suggestion: Aim for self-reward for increased awareness and checking for truth, not for any particular finding.
Yet another example of Goodhart’s Law, no? How does one defend against that? If self-deception usually operates below our conscious radar, then you usually have to shine conscious attention on it in order to notice it, and I assume you have to be able to notice it in order to fight it. But if rewarding oneself for successfully focusing conscious attention on self-deception, over time, inevitably makes one aware primarily of only the surface manifestations of self-deception, then attempting to increase one’s focus on self-deception is largely futile. I really don’t know what to suggest, but I urgently want a strategy.
Let’s say acting is a useful dark art. What on earth does that have to do with yoga or dancing? Yoga tends to improve my posture and breathing and calm, but those aren’t dark arts; those are purely defensive light arts. They make me less susceptible to stress and panic, but not necessarily better able to mislead or manipulate people. Dancing, on a very, very, very good day makes me more sexually attractive, but surely you’re not suggesting that the key to epistemic rationality is to seduce one’s ideological opponents on the dance floor? I’m more than a bit confused, here.
Great point about Goodhart’s Law. Our eternal and tireless enemy. The best defense, I think, is internal cooperation. Stop self-deceiving by giving elements of yourself reasons that matter to them not to deceive other elements, and by giving them reasons to cooperate.
I almost say just that; the dance floor is only where the most overt type of dancing takes place. Did you really just say that its not a dark art to stretch your neck further than you voluntarily could by using an imaginary hook to pull your head up?
Good heuristic; if pot makes you better at it, its a ‘dark art’ in the sense of drawing on non-deliberate thought but not in the sense of moving you towards less accurate beliefs, and it won’t feel evil but will feel aesthetically right. If pride motivates or empowers it its a dark art in the latter, worse sense of moving you away from truth. If deliberative thought helps the performance, not just the training, it won’t corrupt you but it will feel cunning/tricky/evil even when you are good at it.
Something sounds like Waitzkin.
I am a fan of Waitzkin, but I don’t think I got this from him. As far as I can tell, things pretty much have to be this way in any plausible psychological theory.
Tentative suggestion: Aim for self-reward for increased awareness and checking for truth, not for any particular finding.
Hell yeah.
And if you can fully pull That One off, you are now non-attached… a Bodhisattva.
Fortunately, even partial success is very useful.
I suppose that what I offered was a meta-strategy, and getting it down to strategy and tactics is the hard part.
And “self-reward” has its own problems, of course.
‘Hell yeah’ as Michael would put it. Did you have any concrete strategies of self-rewarding that worked at all?