Pavitra comments on Gender Identity and Rationality - Less Wrong

35 Post author: lucidfox 01 December 2010 04:32PM

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Comment author: Pavitra 15 July 2011 07:07:53PM 0 points [-]

Disclaimer: in large part, I am trying to persuade myself.

Even now, I fail to apply the Litany of Tarski. "If I'm really a man, then I desire to bel--" Wait, doesn't compute.

I feel similarly, and I begin to suspect that my brain is treating it like a moral, rather than empirical, proposition. Consider: "If I am evil, then I wish to believe I am evil"? No. It should read: "If I am evil, then I wish to fix that problem."

How then can Tarski apply to a morally-charged proposition? It's probably better not to go around thinking things like "I am an evil person", since such beliefs tend to be self-fulfilling. But I think there's some room to think things like "In certain respects, I have been behaving as though I were evil." By treating the situation in terms of individual symptoms, rather than underlying traits, it becomes much easier to make the world into what you choose. Don't say, "am I really a good person?" but rather "I would like to stop kicking puppies".

Obviously, gender isn't actually a moral proposition. But if you alieve that it is, it might be useful to treat it like one.

Comment author: MugaSofer 07 November 2012 10:12:21AM 1 point [-]

If I am evil, then I wish to believe that I am evil, so that I will know to fix that problem.

It helps to consider the evil individual who doesn't know they're evil. They wont become good, will they? Because they don't know to try.