I wasn’t attempting to do Eliezer’s homework. I wasn’t even aware it existed when I wrote this post. What happened is I wrote this post and then, while tagging it, I discovered that Eliezer had written about the subject and there was a prominent puzzle that I might be spoiling (part of) the answer to. I added the spoiler just because I didn’t want to contribute any hints.
lsusr
Karma: 14,268
Good question.
First of all, talking about meditation a lot probably is selected against (at least slightly). Even slight selection effects add up rapidly over evolutionary timescales.
But I don’t think that’s the crux of the issue. In general, meditators who achieve enlightenment or who “pull up hatred by the roots” also don’t show sudden major changes in longterm behavior.
Suppose instead of “free will” that we were discussing dukkha (roughly “suffering”).
Dukkha serves an obvious evolutionary purpose. Dukkha (just like free will) is a useful component to motivating intentional behavior. But advanced meditators frequently transcend dukkha. When they do, they tend to keep doing basically what they have always been doing (with some flamboyant exceptions that are not relevant to this discussion). Why? Because they don’t suddenly forget all the good habits and mental models they built up over many years of living.
I think the illusion of free will, just like dukkha, is most important to brains without strong meta-cognition. Especially young ones.
Free Will is [REDACTED]
MrBeast’s Squid Game Tricked Me
I can give a concrete example.
If you’re writing a novel (novel-writing is not a subfield of rationality) then you don’t need to keep in mind the principle “[i]f you don’t understand an idea’s limitations then you don’t understand that idea.”
On the other hand, if you are trying to figure out whether Capitalism is the best ideological framework to apply to a region (which is a question within the domain of rational analysis) then you absolutely must keep in mind the limits of the Capitalist framework.
Rationality.
Always know where your abstractions break
Science and Math
Fixed. Thanks.
[Book Review] “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel
The Teacup Test
Nope. It’s just due to personal life circumstances.
Thank you for writing this.
Usually doctrine means what people have been trained to do. In the case of nuclear doctrine, it’s a widely-publicized (to its allies and rivals) statement of intent.
I’m less concerned. Russian nuclear doctrine lists the circumstances under which Russia would launch its nukes.
a) ICBMS are launched against Russia.
b) WMDs are deployed against Russia or its allies.
c) Russia’s ability to retaliate with nukes is threatened.
d) Russia’s state faces an existential threat.
Nothing about the Ukraine war meets any of the above criteria.
Bayesianism defines probability in terms of belief. Frequentism defines probability as a statement about the world’s true probabiliity. Saying “[t]he Frequentist now believes” is therefore asking for a Frequentist’s Bayesian probability.
What are you for?
Fixed for real this time. Thanks.
It would add technical complications to the logic but wouldn’t change the conclusion.