There’s an interesting duality between morality as “the belief that truthseeking is pragmatically important to society” and morality as the result of social truthseeking, which is closer to the usual sense, or rather what the usual sense would ideally be. I’d like to see this explored further if anyone has a link in mind.
royf
Karma: 291
“If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm.”
This quote conflates “true beliefs” and what we may call “correct beliefs”. True beliefs are ones which assign high probability to the truth, i.e. the actual state of things. Correct beliefs are ones which follow from an agent’s priors and observations. The former are objective, the latter subjective but not irrational. If the iron has been cool the last 107 times it has approached your face, but hot this 108th time, your belief that it is cool is correct but false (perhaps better terms are needed).
Also, a belief is not binary. You may be 99.8% sure that the iron is hot and still rationally fear it. A hot iron on your face is far more costly than a needless avoidance.
No, correct beliefs should only be contagious among honest folk who believe each other to be rational and honest. If I make the claim that The FSM is dictating these words to me, you would probably think me lunatic or liar. But if I truly can correctly recognize when I have been Touched by His Noodly Appendage, then my beliefs are entangled with reality but, understandably, not contagious. Furthermore, it would be perfectly rational for me to believe this revelation and at the same time not to consider it evidence for others. The point is that some beliefs, certainly the more extraordinary of them, should not be contagious, except through evidence as raw and unprocessed as possible.
Also, entanglement is necessary but not sufficient for correct beliefs. The fact that my beliefs contain information about the world is not enough for them to be correct. For example, if I misread the photon pattern, I could think that my shoelaces are tied when they are not, and untied when they are tied. This still has the same amount of entanglement, the same amount of information, yet the beliefs are incorrect.