I like this post. Sneaking “scary” ideas into fiction, where they can be faced in a context that feels safer—that makes a lot of sense to me. And while I think you’re right that it’s tricky to consciously use the technique on yourself, I’ve certainly had it happen that way for me accidentally. (Though I think it’s worth mentioning that the moment of realization—the moment it hit me that the logical or moral conclusion I had accepted in a fictional context was also valid/applicable in real life—was still sometimes painful or at least jarring.)
You asked about other ways to “reduce the perceived hedonic costs of truthseeking”. I have an example of my own that might be relevant, especially to the word “perceived”. Have you ever seen that trick where someone pulls a tablecloth off a table quickly and smoothly enough that all the plates and glasses and things stay right where they were?
I was speaking to a friend-of-a-friend to whom I had just been introduced—call her Jenny. In casual conversation, Jenny brought up her belief in crystal healing and asked me directly what I thought of it. Our mutual friend winced in horror because she knows how I feel about woo and anticipated a scathing response, or at least a condescending lecture about evidence-based medicine.
I’m not completely tactless, and Jenny was nice. I didn’t want to ruin her evening over some stupid crystals. I had an idea. I said, as near as I can recall, this:
“Oh, yes, I think crystal healing is amazing! Gosh, when you think that just by looking at a little piece of quartz or hematite or topaz and thinking about things like mental clarity or relaxation, we have the power to lower our anxiety levels, lessen our feelings of fatigue, even reduce our own blood pressure—I mean it’s such a beautiful example of the power of the human mind, isn’t it?”
And more in the same vein. Basically I gushed for five minutes about how cool the placebo effect is (without once using the term “placebo effect”) and how cool the natural world is, and how cool it is that we’re constantly learning more about things that used to be mysteries, and so on.
My friend was relieved and Jenny was nodding—a little hesitantly, like she was slightly bewildered by something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but she was listening and she wasn’t upset or defensive or annoyed and the party proceeded without awkwardness or rancor.
I didn’t tell any lies. Crystal healing does work, in the sense that it’s better than nothing. Of course almost anything that doesn’t do active harm or negate the effects of real treatments works better than nothing—that’s the beauty of the placebo. Doesn’t really matter if it’s administered via sugar pill or amethyst or homeopathic milkshake, if the belief is there (and I’ve seen some intriguing evidence to suggest that even true belief isn’t necessary, by the way—you might only need hope).
See what I mean about the tablecloth trick? I was able to introduce Jenny to a less-wrong way of thinking about crystals without the hedonic cost of totally dismantling her beliefs. Now, I don’t think I convinced her that crystals aren’t filled with mysterious healing energy, and we never got near the fact that real medicine should work better than a placebo, but it still felt like a win—because I slipped a line of retreat into her head without setting off her intruder-alert. I gave her the plans for a model where her beloved crystals are cool and interesting and not-useless and not-lame that doesn’t rely on them being magic. I showed her that you could take away the tablecloth and leave her good china in place.
It’s a small example but I think there’s an argument for minimizing perceived hedonic cost by demonstrating to someone that the absence of one cherished belief does not necessarily mean that every cherished belief or value that apparently rests upon it must come crashing down. Relinquishing belief in the magic of crystals doesn’t mean Jenny has to throw out her collection of pretty rocks. Relinquishing belief in God doesn’t mean a life without joy or meaning or domestic felicity and I think that’s the kind of thing a lot of people are really afraid of losing, not the abstract idea of God’s existence itself. They need to know there’s a table under there.
Hello folks!
I think to accurately trace my development as a rationalist I’d have to ramble about my formative years for about fifteen paragraphs and it would bore the bejeezus out of anyone who isn’t my mother, so I’ll spare you, as Holden put it, the David Copperfield crap.
I value reason, logic and the search for truth—but also compassion, patience for human error and a sense of humour. (Hey, I’m Irish, flippancy is written in my genes just as humour with a “u” is written in my dictionary.)
I don’t like irrationality or ignorance, but I detest “shrug” or “let’s agree to disagree” or, worst of all, “who can really say what truth is anyway?”. I believe that someone passionately wrong is closer to being right that someone who doesn’t care. Believing that the truth matters is the sine qua non.
I promise I don’t go around sprinkling Latin into all my arguments, by the way. “Sine qua non” and “semper ubi sub ubi” are about all I’ve got.
I’ve read a great many posts on this site and others like it, and I’ve often constructed chains of reasoning in response to them, in order to work out whether I agree, partially agree, agree with the conclusion but not the steps leading to it or disagree entirely. Thing is, all of that is taking place in an empty room, literally and figuratively.
Talking to the walls in my flat about religion and morality and logic is unsatisfying and may be causing my neighbours some concern. I tried talking to my pot plant but it died, probably of boredom although possibly because I forgot to water it. Either way I’m reluctant to repeat the experiment with a hamster.
My problem is that I often feel awkward and diffident about participating in group discussions. I want to respond to everyone and then I get caught up in etiquette anxiety about what constitutes spamming or whether it’ll look like I’m trying to dominate the discussion, or I get embarrassed about replying to a five-year-old comment on a ten-year-old post, or I go into conflict-resolution mode and end up trying to moderate between two disputants instead of just participating on my own behalf. And I sometimes find being one voice among many competing for attention a bit dispiriting. I don’t just want to (ugh) “express my opinion”, and I certainly don’t want the last word—I can get that by talking to my poor dead pot-plant. I want to convince someone or be convinced myself.
Group discussion is usually not my bag, is what I’m saying, even in such a generally sensible community as LW—but I’ll try to give it a shot.
What I’d really like, though, (and please tell me if this is not an appropriate request or the appropriate place to make it—see etiquette anxiety, supra) is some good old-fashioned one-on-one conversation. So if you’re reading this and you’re at all like me, or you’d just like to do your kind deed for the day, PM me something—anything! - and let’s have a discussion or a debate or an argument. Religion, morality, trolley problems, the Great Santa Question, whatever—I’m down. I could perhaps be of some use to Advanced Rationalist Types who want to assess their ability to explain something clearly to someone with no background in formal logic or probability theory without ruining a dinner party, or to fellow newbs who want to test-drive a line of reasoning before taking it out in public. Try it on the dog, so to speak.
Looking forward to participating one way or another. My username, by the way, is the name of a Terry Pratchett character, and if anyone just wants to talk Pratchett I am so there.