I can agree with “often”. I think there may be multiple classes of beliefs connected with emotions. The general rule is probably “Beliefs which results in a wrong map are dangerous”. The example I gave earlier of “Life is an undeserved gift” seems to add value to life (which results in gratitude) without any negative side-effects. Wait, wrong maps can be harmless as long as the territory is never explored. If you mistakingly believe that tigers are harmless, you won’t suffer as long as you never meet a tiger. This implies that belief in god (or belief in no god) won’t have any effects besides the psychological ones because the belief cannot have a consequence for you (unfalsifiable → something we cannot interact with → harmless)
You can also cheat social reality. If your emotions can get other people to believe that they’re true, you’ve basically won. For instance, if you feel like a victim, and manipulate other people into thinking that you’re the victim, they will put effort into “correcting” reality by compensating you for the damages you’ve suffered. None of this manipulation works on objective reality, though, it’s only social reality in which it can ever be effective.
There’s many reasons to believe that correct knowledge isn’t optimal—religion seems to have added fitness (the natural selection kind) to human socities, humans are naturally biased, and our brains intentionally lie to us (when you feel like you cannot do any more pushups, you’re only about halfway to your actual limit), plus, infohazard are a thing. When rational people figure out that knowing more is better, I think it’s because they know more relative to other people, which gives them an advantage. I don’t think that everyone having more information is necessarily a good thing. I actually think excessive information is the reason why Moloch exists.
Reframing your thoughts such that you don’t step on your own toes is great. I am not quite sure what you are trying to argue for with the religion point. Do you actually endorse this on a practical basis? Have you convinced yourself that you need to yourself belief in untrue things or that it is good if other people are believing untrue things in just the right way they cancel each other out? Believing in God seems a particularly bad example. Having high alieve you can solve a problem that lots of people haven’t solved before you might be fine for minutes or a few days. But I can’t see how you would get psychological benefits from believing in a god or fate and whatever and that not messing up your epistemics.
I believe that when reality and theory are in conflict, reality is the winner, even when it appears irrational. If religion wasn’t a net positive, it wouldn’t manifest in basically every culture to ever exist. I both believe that there exists false beliefs with positive utility, and that true knowledge about the world can be interpreted in multiple ways, some of which are harmful and some of which are beneficial. Preferences and interpretations seem much more important than knowledge and truth. All animals and all humans except the modern man have not had a good grasp on knowledge and rationality, but have thrived just fine without.
I think believing in god could, for instance, make you more resilient to negative events which would otherwise put you in a state of learned helplessness. But the belief that god is real, on its own, probably doesn’t do a large difference. Behaving as if god is real is probably more effective. A lot of people seem to have had positive outcomes from attempting this, and I think that the utility speaks for itself. I don’t personally do either, but only because I’ve combated nihilism and made myself immune to existential problems through other means.
I think that the perspectives from which knowledge and truth appear as the highest values are very neglectful of the other, more subjective and human aspects of life, and that neglecting these other aspects can put you in some very difficult situations (e.g. inexcapable through logic and reasoning alone, since it’s basically logic and reasoning which trap you)
If there are things which rational and intelligent people can’t do, which stupid people can do, then the rational and intelligent people are not playing optimally. Most rational people seem unable to resist dangerous incentives (e.g. building an AGI, because ‘otherwise, our competitors would build it and outcompete us!’), but I know many regular, average-IQ people who do not have problems like this. Their subjective preferences keep them from harmful exploitation, and because of the large ratio of likeminded people around them, they’re not put at a disadvantage by these preferences. Does this not seem weird? A group of less intelligent people have avoided a problem which is mathematically unsolvable (except maybe from the perspective of Repeated Games, but in reality you tend to get very few repetitions). Religion might even be one of the things keeping these dilemmas at bay. Chesterton’s fence and all that
I believe that when reality and theory are in conflict, reality is the winner, even when it appears irrational. If religion wasn’t a net positive, it wouldn’t manifest in basically every culture to ever exist.
Memetics is similar enough to biology in this regard that, even just on priors, we should expect the existence of purely parasitic memes, beliefs which propagate without being long-term net positive for the hosts (i.e. humans). And on examination of details, that sure does seem to be the case for an awful lot of memes, especially the ideological variety.
I’m not sure if that proves purely parasitic memes, but I do think that unhelpful memes can manifest unless they’re selected against.
That said, I think it’s a solid idea to judge things by their outcomes (a flawless looking theory is inferior to a stupid theory if it brings about worse outcomes). In the case of ideologies, which I mainly consider to be modern movements rather than traditional cultures, I think we can judge them as bad not because the people involved in them are being irrational and wrong (they are), but because they’re also deeply unhappy and arguably acting in pathological patterns. And in my view of the world, social movements aren’t memes or the results of them, they’re symptoms of bad mental development.
I judge self-reported well-being, and biological indicators of health to be the best metrics we have to judge the success of peoples. Anyone who uses GDP as a metric for improvement in the world will conclude things which are entirely in conflict with my own conclusions. If you ask me, the Amish are doing just fine, whereas the modern American is in poor shape both physically and mentally. But from what I gather, Amish people are much less educated and poor on average.
To complicate “Judge things by their outcomes” further, imagine two people:
Mr. A saves 100$ every week, he does not have a lot left over for fun because he plays it safe. Mr. B is in a 100$ deficit every week. He enjoys himself and throws parties every now and then.
From an outside perspective, Mr. A will look like a poor person who can’t afford to enjoy himself, and Mr. B will seem like he’s in a comfortable position. When people look at society and judge how it’s doing, I believe they’re mislead by appearances in exactly this manner. Waste can appear as wealth, and frugality can appear as poverty.
I was engaging with this, because I thought maybe you are advocating for some kind of doubles think, and I might spell you out of that, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. I am not interested to get deep into that religion argument (too many different people and different religions). Yes, there are some topics like ethics where most people don’t benefit from reasoning about them explicitly, and even smart people tend to get very confused by them. I remember I was confused for days by my first introduction to ethics.
Some of the things mentioned on the doubles think page does apply here. As for talks about religion, the religions in question are unrelated. “Behaving as if god is real” is just a way of priming ones subconscious for a certain way of living. If one “has more than one god”, they might attempt to live by contradicting rules, which brings all sort of negative effects with it. Imagine a person trying to make a serious comedy movie—sticking to either genre would likely be better, not because one is better than the other, but because pure worldview have less conflict.
Anyway, many (about half) of the claims on the link you sent me are wrong. You can believe that the sky isn’t blue, and you don’t even need to lie to yourself (simply think like this: The color you see is only what is reflected, so the sky is actually every color except blue). You can unlearn things, and while happiness is often a result of ignorance, you could also interpret knowledge in way that it does not invoke unhappiness (acceptance is usually enough). That climbing takes more effort is unrelated—ignorance is not about avoiding effort. That there’s more to life than happiness is also unrelated—your interpretations of things decide how meaningful your life is. The link also seems to imply that biases are wrong—are they really? I think of them as locally right (and as increasingly wrong as you consider a larger scope life than your own local environment)
As a side note, even if rationality is optimal, our attempt to be rational might work so poorly that not trying can work out better. Rationalism is mostly about overcoming instinctual behaviour, but our instincts have been calibrated by darwinism, so they’re quite dangerous to overwrite. Many smart people hurt themselves in way that regular people don’t, especially when they’re being logical (Pascal’s wager, for instance). Ones model of the world easily becomes a shackle/self-imposed limitation
I can agree with “often”. I think there may be multiple classes of beliefs connected with emotions. The general rule is probably “Beliefs which results in a wrong map are dangerous”. The example I gave earlier of “Life is an undeserved gift” seems to add value to life (which results in gratitude) without any negative side-effects. Wait, wrong maps can be harmless as long as the territory is never explored. If you mistakingly believe that tigers are harmless, you won’t suffer as long as you never meet a tiger. This implies that belief in god (or belief in no god) won’t have any effects besides the psychological ones because the belief cannot have a consequence for you (unfalsifiable → something we cannot interact with → harmless)
You can also cheat social reality. If your emotions can get other people to believe that they’re true, you’ve basically won. For instance, if you feel like a victim, and manipulate other people into thinking that you’re the victim, they will put effort into “correcting” reality by compensating you for the damages you’ve suffered. None of this manipulation works on objective reality, though, it’s only social reality in which it can ever be effective.
There’s many reasons to believe that correct knowledge isn’t optimal—religion seems to have added fitness (the natural selection kind) to human socities, humans are naturally biased, and our brains intentionally lie to us (when you feel like you cannot do any more pushups, you’re only about halfway to your actual limit), plus, infohazard are a thing. When rational people figure out that knowing more is better, I think it’s because they know more relative to other people, which gives them an advantage. I don’t think that everyone having more information is necessarily a good thing. I actually think excessive information is the reason why Moloch exists.
Reframing your thoughts such that you don’t step on your own toes is great. I am not quite sure what you are trying to argue for with the religion point. Do you actually endorse this on a practical basis? Have you convinced yourself that you need to yourself belief in untrue things or that it is good if other people are believing untrue things in just the right way they cancel each other out? Believing in God seems a particularly bad example. Having high alieve you can solve a problem that lots of people haven’t solved before you might be fine for minutes or a few days. But I can’t see how you would get psychological benefits from believing in a god or fate and whatever and that not messing up your epistemics.
I believe that when reality and theory are in conflict, reality is the winner, even when it appears irrational. If religion wasn’t a net positive, it wouldn’t manifest in basically every culture to ever exist. I both believe that there exists false beliefs with positive utility, and that true knowledge about the world can be interpreted in multiple ways, some of which are harmful and some of which are beneficial. Preferences and interpretations seem much more important than knowledge and truth. All animals and all humans except the modern man have not had a good grasp on knowledge and rationality, but have thrived just fine without.
I think believing in god could, for instance, make you more resilient to negative events which would otherwise put you in a state of learned helplessness. But the belief that god is real, on its own, probably doesn’t do a large difference. Behaving as if god is real is probably more effective. A lot of people seem to have had positive outcomes from attempting this, and I think that the utility speaks for itself. I don’t personally do either, but only because I’ve combated nihilism and made myself immune to existential problems through other means.
I think that the perspectives from which knowledge and truth appear as the highest values are very neglectful of the other, more subjective and human aspects of life, and that neglecting these other aspects can put you in some very difficult situations (e.g. inexcapable through logic and reasoning alone, since it’s basically logic and reasoning which trap you)
If there are things which rational and intelligent people can’t do, which stupid people can do, then the rational and intelligent people are not playing optimally. Most rational people seem unable to resist dangerous incentives (e.g. building an AGI, because ‘otherwise, our competitors would build it and outcompete us!’), but I know many regular, average-IQ people who do not have problems like this. Their subjective preferences keep them from harmful exploitation, and because of the large ratio of likeminded people around them, they’re not put at a disadvantage by these preferences. Does this not seem weird? A group of less intelligent people have avoided a problem which is mathematically unsolvable (except maybe from the perspective of Repeated Games, but in reality you tend to get very few repetitions). Religion might even be one of the things keeping these dilemmas at bay. Chesterton’s fence and all that
Are you aware that transposons are a thing? Also prions?
Memetics is similar enough to biology in this regard that, even just on priors, we should expect the existence of purely parasitic memes, beliefs which propagate without being long-term net positive for the hosts (i.e. humans). And on examination of details, that sure does seem to be the case for an awful lot of memes, especially the ideological variety.
I’m not sure if that proves purely parasitic memes, but I do think that unhelpful memes can manifest unless they’re selected against.
That said, I think it’s a solid idea to judge things by their outcomes (a flawless looking theory is inferior to a stupid theory if it brings about worse outcomes). In the case of ideologies, which I mainly consider to be modern movements rather than traditional cultures, I think we can judge them as bad not because the people involved in them are being irrational and wrong (they are), but because they’re also deeply unhappy and arguably acting in pathological patterns. And in my view of the world, social movements aren’t memes or the results of them, they’re symptoms of bad mental development.
I judge self-reported well-being, and biological indicators of health to be the best metrics we have to judge the success of peoples. Anyone who uses GDP as a metric for improvement in the world will conclude things which are entirely in conflict with my own conclusions. If you ask me, the Amish are doing just fine, whereas the modern American is in poor shape both physically and mentally. But from what I gather, Amish people are much less educated and poor on average.
To complicate “Judge things by their outcomes” further, imagine two people:
Mr. A saves 100$ every week, he does not have a lot left over for fun because he plays it safe.
Mr. B is in a 100$ deficit every week. He enjoys himself and throws parties every now and then.
From an outside perspective, Mr. A will look like a poor person who can’t afford to enjoy himself, and Mr. B will seem like he’s in a comfortable position. When people look at society and judge how it’s doing, I believe they’re mislead by appearances in exactly this manner. Waste can appear as wealth, and frugality can appear as poverty.
I was engaging with this, because I thought maybe you are advocating for some kind of doubles think, and I might spell you out of that, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. I am not interested to get deep into that religion argument (too many different people and different religions). Yes, there are some topics like ethics where most people don’t benefit from reasoning about them explicitly, and even smart people tend to get very confused by them. I remember I was confused for days by my first introduction to ethics.
Some of the things mentioned on the doubles think page does apply here. As for talks about religion, the religions in question are unrelated. “Behaving as if god is real” is just a way of priming ones subconscious for a certain way of living. If one “has more than one god”, they might attempt to live by contradicting rules, which brings all sort of negative effects with it. Imagine a person trying to make a serious comedy movie—sticking to either genre would likely be better, not because one is better than the other, but because pure worldview have less conflict.
Anyway, many (about half) of the claims on the link you sent me are wrong. You can believe that the sky isn’t blue, and you don’t even need to lie to yourself (simply think like this: The color you see is only what is reflected, so the sky is actually every color except blue). You can unlearn things, and while happiness is often a result of ignorance, you could also interpret knowledge in way that it does not invoke unhappiness (acceptance is usually enough). That climbing takes more effort is unrelated—ignorance is not about avoiding effort. That there’s more to life than happiness is also unrelated—your interpretations of things decide how meaningful your life is. The link also seems to imply that biases are wrong—are they really? I think of them as locally right (and as increasingly wrong as you consider a larger scope life than your own local environment)
As a side note, even if rationality is optimal, our attempt to be rational might work so poorly that not trying can work out better. Rationalism is mostly about overcoming instinctual behaviour, but our instincts have been calibrated by darwinism, so they’re quite dangerous to overwrite. Many smart people hurt themselves in way that regular people don’t, especially when they’re being logical (Pascal’s wager, for instance). Ones model of the world easily becomes a shackle/self-imposed limitation