nyan_sandwich comments on How to Not Lose an Argument - Less Wrong

109 Post author: Yvain 19 March 2009 01:07AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 14 December 2011 01:24:45AM * 3 points [-]

Why do you say rationality is not the ideal? Around here we use the term rational as a proxy for "learning the truth and winning at your goals". I can't think of much that is more ideal. There are places where you will go off the track if you think that the ideal is to be rational. Maybe that's what you are referring to?

Now is a good time to taboo "rationality"; explain yourself using whatever "rationality" reduces to so that we don't get confused. (Like I did above with explaining about winning).

Comment author: Boyi 14 December 2011 01:38:28AM * 0 points [-]

I agree that "learning the truth and winning at your goals" should be the ideal. But I also believe the following

-Humans are symbolic creatures: Meaning that to some extent we exist in self-created realities that do not follow a predictable or always logical order. -Humans are social creatures meaning that not only is human survival is completely dependent on the ability to maintain coexistence with other people, but individual happiness and identity is dependent on social networks.

Before I continue I would like to know what you and anyone else thinks about these two statements.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 December 2011 03:59:29AM * 6 points [-]

I suspect many Less Wrong readers will Agree Denotatively But Object Connotatively to your statements. As Nornagest points out, what you wrote is mostly true with one important caveat (the fact that we are irrational in regular and predictable ways). However, your statements are connotatively troubling because phrases like these are sometimes used to defend and/or signal affiliation with the kind of subjectivism that we strongly dislike.

Comment author: Nornagest 14 December 2011 02:18:03AM * 2 points [-]

I'd agree that a lot of our perceptual reality is self-generated -- as a glance through this site or the cog-sci or psychology literature will tell you, our thinking is riddled with biases, shaky interpolations, false memories, and various other deviations from an ideal model of the world. But by the same token there are substantial regularities in those deviations; as a matter of fact, working back from those tendencies to find the underlying cognitive principles behind them is a decent summary of what heuristics-and-biases research is all about. So I'd disagree that our perceptual worlds are unpredictable: people's minds differ, but it's possible to model both individual minds and minds-in-general pretty well.

As to your second clause, most humans do have substantial social needs, but their extent and nature differs quite a bit between individuals, as a function of culture, context, and personality. This too exhibits regularities.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 December 2011 01:47:09AM * 1 point [-]

Humans are symbolic creatures: Meaning that to some extent we exist in self-created realities that do not follow a predictable or always logical order.

I don't understand. Much of our self-identity is symbolic and imaginary. By self-created reality do you mean that our local reality is heavily influenced by us? That our beliefs filter our experiences somewhat? Or that we literally create our own reality? If it's the last one, the standard response is this: There is a process that generates predictions and a process that generates experiences, they don't always match up, so we call the former "beliefs" and the latter "reality". See the map and territory sequence. If that's not what you mean (I hope it is not), make your point.

Humans are social creatures meaning that not only is human survival is completely dependent on the ability to maintain coexistence with other people, but individual happiness and identity is dependent on social networks

yes

Comment author: Boyi 14 December 2011 01:36:08PM -1 points [-]

I don't understand. Much of our self-identity is symbolic and imaginary. By self-created reality do you mean that our local reality is heavily influenced by us? That our beliefs filter our experiences somewhat? Or that we literally create our own reality? If it's the last one, the standard response is this: There is a process that generates predictions and a process that generates experiences, they don't always match up, so we call the former "beliefs" and the latter "reality". See the map and territory sequence. If that's not what you mean (I hope it is not), make your point.

You have heard of Niche Construction right? If not, it is the ability of an animal to manipulate their reality to meet their personal adaptations. Most animals display some sort of niche construction. Humans are highly advanced architects of niches. In the same way ants build colonies and bees build hives, humans create a type of social hive that is infinitely more complex. The human hive is not built through wax or honey but through symbols and rituals held together by rules and norms. A person living within a human hive cannot escape the necessity of understanding the dynamics of the symbols that hold it together so that they can most efficiently navigate its chambers. Keeping that in mind, it stands that all animals must respect the nature of their environment in order to survive. What is unique to humans is that the environments we primarily interact with are socially constructed niches. That is what I mean when I say human reality is self-created.

Earlier I talked about the paradox of rationality. What I meant by that is simply

-For humans what is socially beneficial is rationally beneficial because human survival is dependent on social solidarity. -What is socially beneficial is not always actually beneficial to the individual or the group.

Thus the paradox of rationality: What is naturally beneficial/harmful is not aligned with what is socially beneficial/harmful.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 December 2011 02:03:15PM 2 points [-]

Do you think that this is an actual paradox or a problem for rationality? If so, then you're probably not using the r-word the same way we are. As far as I can tell, your argument is: To obtain social goods (e.g. status) you sometimes have to sacrifice non-social goods (e.g. spending time playing videogames). Nonetheless, you can still perform expected value calculations by deciding how much you value various "social" versus "non-social" goods, so I don't see how this impinges upon rationality.

Comment author: Boyi 14 December 2011 02:25:15PM 1 point [-]

My argument is to exist socially is not always alligned with what is nessecary for natural health/survival/happiness, and yet at the same time is nessecary.

We exist in a society where the majority of jobs demand us to remain seated and immobile for the better part of the day. That is incredibly unhealthy. It is also bad for intellectual productivity. It is illogical, and yet for a lot of people it is required.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 December 2011 02:29:48PM 2 points [-]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just another way of saying, "the way we do things is poorly optimized"?

Comment author: Boyi comment score below threshold [+] (55 children)

Comment author: Bugmaster 14 December 2011 02:35:12AM * 0 points [-]

Humans are symbolic creatures: Meaning that to some extent we exist in self-created realities that do not follow a predictable or always logical order.

While our internal models of reality are not always "logical", I would argue that they are quite predictable (though not perfectly so). Just to make up a random example, I can confidently predict that the number of humans on Earth who believe that the sky is purple with green polka dots is vanishingly small (if not zero).

not only is human survival is completely dependent on the ability to maintain coexistence with other people, but individual happiness and identity is dependent on social networks.

Agreed, but I would argue that there are other factors on which human survival and happiness depend, and that these factors are at least as important as "the ability to maintain coexistence with other people".

Comment author: Boyi comment score below threshold [+] (6 children)

Comment author: Boyi 14 December 2011 01:56:02PM -3 points [-]

While our internal models of reality are not always "logical", I would argue that they are quite predictable (though not perfectly so). Just to make up a random example, I can confidently predict that the number of humans on Earth who believe that the sky is purple with green polka dots is vanishingly small (if not zero).

I am not trying to be rude or aggressive here, but I just wanted to point out that your argument is based upon a fairly deceptive rhetorical tactic. The tactic is to casually introduce an example as though it were a run of the mill example, but in doing so pick an extreme. You are correct that a person with a normally functioning visual cortex and no significant retina damage can be predicted to seeing the sky in a certain way, but that does not change the fact that a large portion of human existence is socially created. Why do we stop at stop lights or stop signs? There is nothing inherent in the color read that means stop, in other cultures different colors or symbols signify the same thing. We have arbitrarily chosen read to mean stop.

Some things can be logically predicted given the biological capacity of humans, but it is within the biological capacity of humans to create symbolic meaning. We know this to be fact, and yet we are unable to as easily predict what it is that people believe, because unlike the color of the sky major issues of the social hive are not as empirically clear. Issues about what constitutes life, what is love, what is happiness, what is family are in some cases just as arbitrarily defined as what means stop and what means go, but these questions are of much graver concern.

Just to clarify, It is not that I do not think there is a way to rationally chose symbolic narrative, but that initiating rational narrative involves understanding the processes by which narratives are constructed. That does not mean abandoning rationality, but abandoning the idea of universal rationality. Instead I believe rationalists should focus more on understanding the irrationality of human interaction to use irrational means to foster better rationality.

Comment author: Bugmaster 14 December 2011 02:32:00PM 1 point [-]

You are correct that a person with a normally functioning visual cortex and no significant retina damage can be predicted to seeing the sky in a certain way, but that does not change the fact that a large portion of human existence is socially created. Why do we stop at stop lights or stop signs?

My example wasn't meant to be a strawman, but simply an illustration of my point that human thoughts and behaviors are predictable. You may argue that our decision to pick red for stop signs is arbitrary (I disagree even with this, but that's beside the point), but we can still predict with a high degree of certainty that an overwhelming majority of drivers will stop at a stop signs -- despite the fact that stop signs are a social construct. And if there existed a society somewhere on Earth where the stop signs were yellow and rectangular, we could confidently predict that drivers from that nation would have a higher chance of getting into an accident while visiting the U.S. Thus, I would argue that even seemingly arbitrary social constructs still result in predictable behaviors.

but it is within the biological capacity of humans to create symbolic meaning

I'm not sure what this means.

and yet we are unable to as easily predict what it is that people believe ... Issues about what constitutes life, what is love, what is happiness, what is family are in some cases just as arbitrarily defined as what means stop and what means go

I am fairly certain I personally can predict what an average American believes regarding these topics (and I can do so more accurately by demographic). I'm just a lowly software engineer, though; I'm sure that sociologists and anthropologists could perform much better than me. Again, "arbitrary" is not the same as "unpredictable".

...but these questions are of much graver concern.

I don't know, are they ? I personally think that questions such as "how can we improve crop yields by a factor of 10" can be at least as important as the ones you listed.

Instead I believe rationalists should focus more on understanding the irrationality of human interaction to use irrational means to foster better rationality.

I don't think that you could brainwash or trick someone into being rational (since your means undermine your goal); and besides, such heavy-handed "Dark Arts" are, IMO, borderline unethical. In any case, I don't see how you can get from "you should persuade people to be rational by any means necessary" to your original thesis, which I understood to be "rationality is unattainable".

Comment author: Boyi 14 December 2011 03:55:40PM 0 points [-]

My example wasn't meant to be a strawman, but simply an illustration of my point that human thoughts and behaviors are predictable.

I did not say your example was a strawman, my point was that it was reductionist. Determining the general color of the sky or whether or not things will fall is predicting human thoughts and behaviors many degrees simpler than what I am talking about. That is like if I were to say that multiplication is easy, so math must be easy.

I am fairly certain I personally can predict what an average American believes regarding these topics

Well you are wrong about that. No competent sociologist or anthropologist would make a claim to be able to do what you are suggesting.

I don't know, are they? I personally think that questions such as "how can we improve crop yields by a factor of 10" can be at least as important as the ones you listed.

You can make fun of my diction all you want, but I think it is pretty obvious love; morality, life, and happiness are of the utmost concern (grave concern) to people.

don't know, are they? I personally think that questions such as "how can we improve crop yields by a factor of 10" can be at least as important as the ones you listed.

I what subsume the concern of food stock under the larger concern of life, but I think it is interesting that you bring up crop yield. This is a perfect example of the ideology of progress I have been discussing in other response. There is no question to whether it is dangerous or rational to try to continuously improve crop yield, it is just blindly seen as right (i.e as progress).

However, if we look at both the good and the bad of the green revolution of the 70s-80s, the practices currently being implemented to increase crop yield are board line ecocide. They are incredibly dangerous, yet we continue to attempt to refine them further and further ignoring the risks in light of further potential to transform material reality to our will.

IMO, borderline unethical. In any case, I don't see how you can get from "you should persuade people to be rational by any means necessary" to your original thesis, which I understood to be "rationality is unattainable".

The ethical issues at question are interesting because they are centered around the old debate over collectivist vs. individualist morality. Since the cold war America has been heavily indoctrinated in an ideology of free will (individual autonomy) being a key aspect of morality. I question this idea. As many authors on this site point out, a large portion of human action, thought, and emotion is subconsciously created. Schools, corporations, governments, even parents consciously or unconsciously take advantage of this fact to condition people into ideal types. Is this ethical? If you believe that individual autonomy is essential to morality than no it is not. However, while I am not a total advocate of Foucault and his ideas, I do agree that autonomous causation is a lot less significant than then individualist individually wants to believe.
Rather than judging the morality of an action by the autonomy it proivdes for the agents involved I tend to be more of a pragmatist. If we socially engineer people to develop the habits and cognitions they would if they were more individually rational, then I see this as justified. The problem with this idea is who watches the watchmen. By what standard do you judge the elite that would have to produce mass habit and cognition? Is it even possible to control that and maintain a rational course through it?

This I do not know, which is why I am hesitant to act on this idea. But I do think that there a mass of indoctrinated people that does not think about what it is they belief is a social reality.

Comment author: Bugmaster 14 December 2011 06:59:44PM 1 point [-]

I did not say your example was a strawman, my point was that it was reductionist. Determining the general color of the sky or whether or not things will fall is predicting human thoughts and behaviors many degrees simpler than what I am talking about.

Agreed, but you appeared to be saying that human thoughts and actions are entirely unpredictable, not merely poorly predictable. I disagree. For example, you brought up the topic of "what is love, what is happiness, what is family":

Well you are wrong about that. No competent sociologist or anthropologist would make a claim to be able to do what you are suggesting.

Why not ? Here are my predictions:

The average American thinks that love is a mysterious yet important feeling -- perhaps the most important feeling in the world, and that this feeling is non-physical in the dualistic sense. Many, thought not all, think that it is a gift from a supernatural deity, as long as it's shared between a man and a woman (though a growing minority challenge this claim).
Most Americans believe that happiness is an entity similar to love, and that there's a distinction between short-term happiness that comes from fulfilling your immediate desires, and long-term happiness that comes from fulfilling a plan for your life; most, again, believe that the plan was laid out by a deity.
Most Americans would define "my family" as "everyone related to me by blood or marriage", though most would add a caveat something like, "up to N steps of separation", with N being somewhere between 2 and 6.

Ok, so those are pretty vague, and may not be entirely accurate (I'm not an anthropologist, after all), but I think they are generally not too bad. You could argue with some of the details, but note that virtually zero people believe that "family" means "a kind of pickled fruit", or anything of that sort. So, while human thoughts on these topics are not perfectly predictable, they're still predictable.

You can make fun of my diction all you want,

I was not making fun of your diction at all, I apologize if I gave that impression.

but I think it is pretty obvious love; morality, life, and happiness are of the utmost concern (grave concern) to people.

First of all, you just made an attempt at predicting human thoughts -- i.e., what's important to people. When I claimed to be able to do the same, you said I was wrong, so what's up with that ? Secondly, I agree with you that most people would say that these topics are of great concern to them; however, I would argue that, despite what people think, there are other topics which are at least as important (as per my earlier post).

...the practices currently being implemented to increase crop yield are board line ecocide. They are incredibly dangerous, yet we continue to attempt to refine them further and further ignoring the risks...

Again, that's an argument against a particular application of a specific technology, not an argument against science as a discipline, or even against technology as a whole. I agree with you that monocultures and wholesale ecological destruction are terrible things, and that we should be more careful with the environment, but I still believe that feeding people is a good thing. Our top choices are not between technology and nothing, but between poorly-applied technology and well-applied technology.

Since the cold war America has been heavily indoctrinated in an ideology of free will (individual autonomy) being a key aspect of morality. I question this idea.

Ok, first of all, "individual autonomy" is a concept that predates the Cold War by a huge margin. Secondly, I have some disagreements with the rest of your points regarding "collectivist vs. individualist morality"; we can discuss them if you want, but I think they are tangential to our main discussion of science and technology, so let's stick to the topic for now. However, if you do advocate "collectivist morality" and "socially engineer[ing] people", would this not constitute an application of technology (in this case, social technology) on a grand scale ? I thought you were against that sort of thing ? You say you're "hesitant", but why don't you reject this approach outright ?

BTW:

But I do think that there a mass of indoctrinated people that does not think about what it is they belief is a social reality.

This is yet another prediction about people's thoughts that you are making. This would again imply that people's thoughts are somewhat predictable, just like I said.

Comment author: TimS 14 December 2011 02:26:14PM 1 point [-]

You are correct that a person with a normally functioning visual cortex and no significant retina damage can be predicted to seeing the sky in a certain way, but that does not change the fact that a large portion of human existence is socially created.

Some portion of human experiences includes facts "I don't fall through the floor when I stand on it" or "I will die if I go outside in a blizzard without any clothes for any length of time." Some portion of human experience includes facts like "I will be arrested for indecent exposure if I go outside without wearing any clothes for any length of time."

Facts of the first kind are the overwhelmingly more numerous than facts of the second kind. Facts of the second kind are more important to human life. I agree with you that this community underestimates the proportion of facts of the second kind, which are not universalizable the way facts of the first kind are. But you weaken the case for post-modern analysis by asserting that anything close to a majority of facts are socially determined.

Comment author: Boyi 14 December 2011 03:24:20PM 0 points [-]

Facts of the first kind are the overwhelmingly more numerous than facts of the second kind. Facts of the second kind are more important to human life. I agree with you that this community underestimates the proportion of facts of the second kind, which are not universalizable the way facts of the first kind are. But you weaken the case for post-modern analysis by asserting that anything close to a majority of facts are socially determined.

I was never trying to argue that the majority of facts are socially determined. I was arguing that the majority of facts important to human happiness and survival are socially determined. I agree that facts of the first kind are more numerous, but as you say facts of the second kind are more important. Is it logical to measure value by size?

Comment author: TimS 14 December 2011 03:36:27PM 0 points [-]

Fair enough. I respectfully suggest that your language was loose.

For example:

a large portion of human existence is socially created.

Consider the difference between saying that and saying "a large portion of human decisions are socially created, even if they appear to be universalizable. A much larger proportion than people realize."

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