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Rationality Quotes: June 2011
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- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
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Comments (470)
-- QDB, on immortalism
Man, that site is a funny time sink. Not the best source of rationality quotes, but there are a few that sort of count.
"Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness."
--George Santayana, Quoted by Carl Sagan in Contact, Chapter 14 "Harmonic Oscillator", page 231
Interestingly, I really like this quote about skepticism, even though I strongly dislike its fetishization of sexual inexperience.
How is it a fetish and not a legitimate personal value? And the part relevant to skepticism seems totally off to me. We should never sacrifice skepticism for "fidelity" to an idea.
To reply in reverse order - I see how it's relevant to skepticism because people are quick to believe any old thing that feels truthy to them. But there are some things you actually can put your trust in. Things that have been born out over centuries to get us closer and closer to true knowledge, things that produce real results. Things such as empiricism. You can eventually come to trust empiricism, rationality, the experimental method. You don't have to remain forever entirely skeptical of everything. In that sense it's a decent metaphor to compare it to a (good) long-term relationship - that building of trust by experience until it is simply natural and implicit.
I would consider it a fetish because it will make anyone out of their teens seek age-inappropriate partners. If you're in your thirties or later and you are seeking sexual congress with a virgin then you are looking for someone with the sexual maturity of someone a lot younger than you, regardless of that person's chronological age. Fetishes aren't inherently bad of course, there's lots of great ones out there. :) But this one often serves to either A) degrade non-teen women who aren't emotionally stunted, or B) cause people to severely stunt their own emotional growth to fulfill some future partner's fetish. Both of those seem to be bad things to me, and thus my disapproving words.
But he isn't recommending preferring chastity in others, but rather being chaste ourselves until we have a "ripeness of instinct and discretion" (i.e. have attained maturity).
This definition of chastity includes not just virgins but everyone who shows discretion in choosing sex partners, and doesn't accept the "first comer".
I wouldn't have any problem with the quote if that's the case, discretion is good. However I've never seen chastity used in a way that didn't mean virgin. Actually, come to think of it, the English language could really use a word for "discerning but liberated person".
Ick.
What, in this metaphor, corresponds to fidelity and happiness in the way that skepticism corresponds to chastity? Is Santayana's idea that we should search long for The Answer, but having found it, we should turn off our skepticism, stop thinking, and sink into the warm fuzzies of faith? It reminds me of the sea squirt that eats its own brain when it has found a comfortable spot to live and no longer needs it.
(My presentation of the quote constitutes an assertion that there is an insight here useful for navigating the world of tribal politics, hence the relevance.)
--Bernard Crick
What is a "social demand"? By what method could we determine how much of a good is "socially demanded"?
Justice, for instance. Can one person be reliably counted upon to measure how much justice he or she has received? Probably not. But political processes do work out various means for delivering more or less justice. These means appear to have something to do with the demands of various people. The market analogy is of course not perfect.
Justice, at least the way I've heard it used, is very much revenge without the stigma.
There is a lot to be gained by delegating to a central authority the responsibility of maintaining a credible threat of retaliation.
Criminal justice only if you tune out the rehabilitation aspect. Civil justice only if you tune out everything except punitive damages (which don't exist in many jurisdictions).
Sorry for length, but this a nice sketch on the role of rationality in science :)
C. D. Graham, Jr., Metal. Progress 71, 75 (1957) (actual source)
My favorite - I do this all the time.
Yeah, this one's familiar too. There's a long-ass section in my thesis that basically ends with this. So much data - so little sense.
"I smile and start to count on my fingers: One, people are good. Two, every conflict can be removed. Three, every situation, no matter how complex it initially looks, is exceedingly simple. Four, every situation can be substantially improved; even the sky is not the limit. Five, every person can reach a full life. Six, there is always a win-win solution. Shall I continue to count?" Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt 1947- 2011
That's not how it goes. I'm pretty sure he finishes by saying "Six! Six fingers. AH AH AH AH AH!"
It might be easier to tell whether this is really a rationality quote or an anti-rationality quote if we had a bit more context. For instance, is Goldratt (or whatever character he's put those words into the mouth of) endorsing those propositions, or listing them as false assumptions someone else is making, or what?
From Countdown to Immortality, by FM-2030:
If Simon Baron-Cohen gets his way, a future society could make a certain high level of empathy the norm, with potentially interesting consequences for revived cryonauts.
-- Milton, Paradise Lost: not on Aumann agreement, alas
Yeah, but humans only exist of creatures rational.
We're working on that.
-Charles Murray
This reads as a little applause-lighty for my taste, to be honest. It's really easy to claim that the arbiters of social policy are blind to actual suffering, and not much harder to spin that into an appeal for your particular ideology, which by virtue of its construction or unusual purity or definition of "actual suffering" of course doesn't have these problems.
If a quote on policy would be equally at home heading a libertarian or a socialist or an anarcho-primitivist blog, does it really constrain our anticipations about policy to any meaningful extent?
The point isn't to constrain our anticipations about policy; it's to constrain our anticipations about policy-makers. To get actual policy anticipation-control, you need to apply it in a specific context where you know more about the sort of policy the people in question would favour if they (openly) didn't care about actual suffering.
I read it as cautioning us to resist the temptation to unquestioningly accept nice sounding policy as good policy.
Also any quotes that couldn't be read as potentially applicable by a large swath of the political spectrum might trigger blue-green tribalism feelings and kind of defeat the spirit of the no mind killer rule.
Bruce Lee
Myth busted.
Noooot the same thing.
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.” – Jean de la Bruyère
And what does this make it for those of us who do both?
-hilzoy
That lesson is pretty frequently homeschooled, sad to say.
Including such destinations as "Not being the unwilling sex toy of the big bald guy while in prison". Although if you also don't use 'fraud' you may find yourself not in jail in the first place - but it's not always so simple. It also leads you to the destination "still having your food, possessions, dignity and social status in your schoolyard despite having no control of whether you wish to be subject to that environment".
Of course, sometimes one is prepared to find yourself in the kind of place it takes you to. The quote seems to already acknowledge this possibility.
It does, hence allowing for me to phrase the counterpoint within the quote's own framework.
I didn't read the quote as a blanket opposition to violence. It's a warning about one thing to consider before you choose violence.
I also didn't read the quote as only being about violence. It also makes a more general point about means and ends. When you're considering an action in pursuit of a goal, you should consider the action in its own right and try to predict where it is likely to lead. Don't settle on an action just because it seems to fit with the goal. This is especially relevant when you consider using violence, coercion, manipulation, or dishonesty for a noble purpose, but it also applies more generally.
This is confusing. Does your use of violence change your intended destination, or does it just exert certain optimization pressures on future world-states, as do all of your other actions?
Read the (long) linked-to article from which the quote stems. Basically the point is that using violence to achieve a goal teaches the people involved that violence is an effective, legitimate way to achieve goals - and at some later point they will invariably have conflicting goals.
See also: Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I'm not sure there's a useful distinction between those two options. Your future selves are part of the future world-states that it's exerting pressure on, and not exempt from that pressure.
-- Phil Plait
Unsourced; attributed to Albert Einstein.
When I try to learn stuff, I sometimes get good results from the opposite approach: instead of doing the hardest thing, do the easiest thing that counts as progress. In other words, instead of grabbing the highest rung I can reach, I grab the rung I can reach comfortably. Then I take my time to absolutely conquer that rung with perfect technique and control, doing many many repetitions. Then move on to the next.
Advantages of this approach: it's easier, less jerky and more methodical, I can spare attention for ironing out any mistakes in the basics... And most importantly, it feels like I have more "momentum". When my workouts or training sessions look like this, random events are much less likely to derail my schedule of leveling up.
This doesn't seem rational. One must develop an instinct for what one really needs to/wants to/should achieve, and judge whether maximium effort (which I assume would be required to achieve the barely-achievable) is worth the return on that investment.
If you're not putting in maximum effort, you're leaving utility on the table.
But if you put out maximum effort, you can leave longevity and/or quality on the table. Silverbacks, pitchers, office workers, day-to-day-life, running, eating... Short term maximum effort might detract from long-term maximum utility. The cost/benefits analysis is at times subjective. "Utility" can mean different things to different people. "Utility", as I interpret in a Rationalist context has a very specific almost "economic" meaning. But you can choose to reduce effort and not push the envelop, and go home, have dinner, relax, and enjoy your life. Some people might refer to that as utility, others as low hanging fruit, still others as a healthy balance.
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind." Bertrand Russell
"Ahh, there's no such thing as mysterious."
~Strong Bad, from sbemail 140 (Probably not originally intended in a rationalist sense.)
This sounds like a great way to prime yourself. Crossing yourself has all the wrong connotations, but a gesture meaning "I choose good." should help in general. (I like the fist-over-heart Battlestar Galactica salute.)
Having a whole set of gestures, along with pithy quotes, should prove even more effective.
ETA: Or is that reserved for "I choose whatever they aren't expecting"?
I'm new to LW (Well, I've been reading Eliezer's posts in order, and am somewhere in 2008 right now, but I haven't read many of the recent posts) so these may have been posted before. But quote collecting is a hobby of mine and I couldn't pass it up.
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." – Albert Einstein
I very much dislike Einstein quotes that have nothing to do with physics or mathematics. You don't have to be an Einstein to know a false dichotomy when you see one. What about living your life as if some things are miracles and some things aren't like most people who have ever lived? Surely, if most people have done it, then it is possible.
Also, welcome to Less Wrong.
Well for what it's worth, I don't think he means it literally. Or at least so exactly. My interpretation is that he is saying that you must accept a rational basis and explanation for everything, or believe that nothing can be explained - you must accept that the laws of physics apply to every one and everything, and that there are no mysterious phenomena, or you must deny the laws of physics and believe everything is mystical.
And thanks, it's a great blog. I've learned so much reading Eliezer's work. Well, perhaps learned isn't the best word. Realized may be more appropriate.
I think he's saying that there are only two ways to live consistent with the world as it is, and they are identical except that the second includes the sense of awe or wonder. It's a miracle (a wonder, unexplained) that anything exists at all. Religion that believes only some things are miracles is not either of the ways he supports.
Thank you for laying out that interpretation. I thought for years (perhaps because of the first context I saw it in) that it presented a choice between seeing the beauty in everything or not seeing it anywhere. Your interpretation makes much more sense.
You can check on whether quotes have been posted already by using search for the site.
K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation Chapter 6
From wikiquote
Jewish Atheist, in reply to Mencius Moldbug
I would think this an irrationality quote? "Fuzzy" thinking skills are ridiculously important. "Intuition" may be somewhat unreliable, but in certain domains and under certain conditions, it can be - verifiably - a very powerful method.
I took as being rationality in the sense that it follows the form: "just because you want to action x does not mean that action x is possible", which is always a good reminder.
That's so, but it's also true that just because you're personally not good at X, that does not mean that X is impossible or worthless.
"When he is confronted by the necessity for a decision, even one which may be trivial from a normal standpoint, the obsessive-compulsive person will typically attempt to reach a solution by invoking some rule, principle, or external requirement which might, with some degree of plausibility, provide a "right" answer....If he can find some principle or external requirement which plausibly applies to the situation at hand, the necessity for a decision disappears as such; that is, it becomes transformed into the purely technical problem of applying the correct principle. Thus, if he can remember that it is always sensible to go to the cheapest movie, or "logical" to go to the closest, or good to go to the most educational, the problem resolves to a technical one, simply finding which is the most educational, the closest, or such. In an effort to find such requirements and principles, he will invoke morality, "logic," social custom, and propriety, the rules of "normal" behavior (especially if he is a psychiatric patient), and so on. In short he will try to figure out what he "should" do.
-David Shapiro, Neurotic Styles
Please post anything there might be on how to deal with that. I'm exactly like that, and my rules often break down and then I'm unable to decide.
I've known someone else like that. She made rules about food because it made it easier to decide what to eat.
Could you also post the cites on why "obsessive-compulsive"? Neither I nor the other person have an OCD diagnosis or seem to match the criteria. Any OCD LWers want to chip in?
This quote was written in 1965 by a psychoanalyst, so I don't even know if they had the same diagnostic criteria for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that they do today. He's talking about "styles" of behavior. Based on a little searching, it seems to me that a preoccupation with rules is characteristic of what is called Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. As is so often the case, there's a broad spectrum from quirky behavior to personality disorder.
What makes it a disorder is if it is interferring with your enjoyment of life. It is irrational to choose according to arbitrary rules when doing so makes you miss out on outcomes that are preferable but require you going outside of your rules.
A little searching on the Internet says the treatment for the disorder is talk therapy. It's possible that could work.
I would say first of all you have to recognize when living according to rules is making your life better and when living based on rules is boxing you in. Having rules can make decisions easier, but it can make you miss out on a lot of life. Seek feedback from friends and family members about areas in which you might be too rigid. Make sure you tell them you really want honest feedback. Then take baby steps to break out of routines. Doing so will also build your courage.
Accept that it's OK to make mistakes. Failure is a great source of learning. If you have an attitude that says, "I am going to make mistakes," then you might not feel so much anxiety about making a less-than-optimal choice. (I recommend the book The Pursuit of Perfect by Tal Ben-Shahar. I learned a lot about avoiding perfectionism from that book.)
You might find that something like an improv comedy class makes you more spontaneous and able to see how rules for behavior aren't as fixed as you might think they are. People get by and thrive by doing things totally differently from how you do, and you might like a different way better, if you gave yourself the chance.
Try something that you wouldn't have ever thought you'd do before. See how it doesn't feel that bad. (Again, you might start small: browse through the section of the bookstore where you would normally never be caught dead.)
Be courageous. Be spontaneous. Have fun.
talk therapy doesn't work see "House of Cards" by Robyn Dawes. Instead use CBT cognitive behavioral therapy.
The cognitive part is understanding that your rituals/behavior are irrational and the behavioral part is actually acting on that understanding against the subjective pull to do otherwise. Good advice on the latter can be found in the link below, with video:
http://www.ocduk.org/2/foursteps.htm
The problem is not to muster the courage to break rules, it's to decide what to do when you don't have relevant rules.
There seems to be an irrational underlying assumption here "I need rules to decide."
edit: see also my other reply above.
I seem to have run into a strange inferential distance.
The word "obsessive-compulsive" seems to have suggested the wrong picture. I do not mean rules as impulses to perform stereotyped ritual behaviors.
What I'm trying to describe is a way to handle explicit choices. "Are you coming home this weekend?", "Do I want some chocolate?", "Am I enjoying this movie?". Much (most?) of the time, a simple "yes, good" or "no, bad" gut feeling somehow gets generated with no conscious input. That's a decision.
But some of the time, there's no such gut feeling. Introspection returns "I have no freaking clue what I want.". This is quite distressing, especially when there's pressure to decide immediately.
A known set of rules can thus be useful. "Which movie should I watch?" "ERROR: decision-making system unavailable." "Okay, then let's go with the most educational."
Problems with this approach are absence of relevant rules, bad rules, and inability to access the rule-based decision-making system as well as the emotional reaction-based one.
Someone coming up to me as I agonize and telling me "You don't need rules" is not helping. What do I use instead?
I wonder if it would help for you to try to satisfice. You're not trying to choose the best option, you just have some minimum acceptable standard, and you're trying to pick one of the options (any of the options) that meets that standard. You could pick more-or-less randomly, or you could look for any inclination in favor of one of the options and then go with that one.
For instance, if there are 4 movies that you're trying to choose between, and all 4 seem like movies that you're likely to enjoy, then it doesn't really matter which one you pick. You just need to pick one of them. There are a few ways to do this, some more random, some using more general rules or heuristics which can be used for many different kinds of decisions since they apply to the decision-making process, not the particular content.
Just pick one of the movies. Don't think or try to come up with reasons, just select one. Maybe your selection will be influenced by preferences of yours that you're not aware of, or maybe it'll just be random. Doesn't matter, you picked one.
Decide you're going to pick one, and then wait until something good about one of the options comes to mind and pick that one. It doesn't matter what it is - it could be some good feature that it has, or just a vague feeling.
Pick randomly. Label the options 1-4, look at a clock, and take the minutes mod 4.
Let someone else decide. If you're going to watch the movie with a friend, tell them "any of these 4, you pick." Even if the decision is only for you (e.g., you're going to watch the movie alone), you could still ask someone else to pick (or give a recommendation) if they're around when you're trying to decide. Just ask "what do you think?"
Try to guess what the other person would prefer. If you're going to watch the movie with a friend, ask yourself which of the 4 he would like. Try to do this quickly, with pattern-matching and associations ("this one seems like his kind of movie"), not reasoning. As soon as you have an inclination towards one of the options, go with it.
Try to guess what you would prefer, treating yourself as if you were another person. Ask "which of these would MixedNuts like?" and use pattern-matching and association.
Try to predict your decision. "If MixedNuts had to choose between these movies, I bet he'd go with that one." (Or, based on past behavior in terms of going home for the weekend, and what's scheduled for this weekend, I bet that he will go home this weekend.) Then just do that.
Variety-seeking. See which of the options is something that you haven't done much of in awhile. e.g., I haven't seen many comedies lately, so I'll pick the comedy movie. (Or, I've been going home a lot lately, so I won't go home this weekend.)
Ooo! Good advice is good! Thanks!
I do that for decisions that don't matter much (e.g. picking a movie). It's more problematic when I know I will regret picking the wrong one badly.
Good idea, thanks. Does this work in reverse, with a bad feeling about all other options?
I do that as much as possible, but it fails more often that not. Polite bastards.
All good ideas, thanks a lot! (Though variety-seeking contradicts the others, and conflicting rules are Bad.)
I don't know. If you're feeling stuck, and not particularly motivated to do anything, I generally think that it's good to try to find and feed positive motivations to do something. Avoidance motivations (for rejecting bad options) could just keep you stuck. And we want to keep things simple - one of the keys to all of these procedures is that you just need one option to stand out (positively) for whatever reason - you don't need to go through every option to rule all but one of them out. But if there are only 2 options and you do get a clear feeling against one of them, then maybe it is okay to base your decision on that - it's equally simple (with only two options) and it does get you through this decision. So I wouldn't aim to find a bad feeling, but if that was the first feeling that came up then you could go with it.
You could try alternative ways of getting other people involved. e.g., Have them list the pros and cons of each option, and you listen and see if one thing jumps out at you. Or you could describe the options to them, with instructions for them to try to guess which one you'd. Or maybe just talking about the decision can help you clarify which option you prefer.
True. You may want to forget about that one if it could interfere with the others. There are ways to integrate it with the others, if you determine ahead of time when it applies. For instance, there may be certain domains where you want variety/balance. Or you may sometimes feel like you're in a rut and want to mix things up, and then you can decide that starting now I'm going to make variety-seeking decisions (until I no longer feel this way). The important thing is that when you're faced with a particular decision, you don't need to decide whether or not to seek variety because you have already determined that.
But variety-seeking is more of an advanced technique which you may want to skip for now. It's probably best to pick one or two of the heuristics which seem like they could work for you and try them out. Over time you can expand your repertoire.
Do you know the book "How we decide" by Jonah Lehrer? In the first chapter, section 3 there is a case of a patient who lost his orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) due to a cancer and suddenly he couldn't make decisions anymore because all emotions where cut off and all choices suddenly became equal in value. So sometimes there are underlying neurological problems that can cause this.
Quote:
Yeah, that's what happens. For me it's intermittent, but it does remove all choice-related emotions, so all choices become hard at the same time. As Lehrer says, an explicit cost-benefit analysis is way too long - that's what simple rules are for.
Oh yeah, cry me a fucking river. This guy has to do that for every single decision, but no, go ahead, whine about having to listen to him make just one.
I'll check the book out, thanks.
This sounds like a symptom of something. Have you noticed whether any other symptoms tend to co-occur with it (especially other things related to mood or emotions)? Have you noticed any other patterns in these episodes (how often it happens, how long it lasts, whether it has any particular triggers, and whether anything in particular tends to trigger its end)? Have you mentioned it to a medical/psychological professional?
Agreed.
Choice numbness is a special case of emotional numbness is a special case of disconnecting from the world. It comes with akrasia and not-akrasia (a thingy that prevents me from doing stuff I explicitly want to, but doesn't react when I throw willpower at it - like running into an invisible wall in a video game). My field of attention gets restricted (I can only focus on one thing and not very much, objects in the center of my visual field become more interesting, I bump into walls), and my thoughts slow and confused. I crumble completely under any kind of pressure, even more than usually. I have to monitor motor control more finely (like moving a leg with my hand to remind the motor system how to move it, or focusing on a particular point and willing myself there). If there's emotional numbness, my emotions will feel sort of like detached objects.
It happens when I'm dehydrated, tired, lacking balanced amounts of sunshine, at the wrong level of socialization, or at apparently random. The general state tends to last , curing it usually involves a complete reboot (change of context, rest, then sleep), but it can go in and out of choice numbness. Pressure to answer cements it.
Nope. I've had horrible luck with psychiatrists and therapists so far, and I expect anything doctor-findable would have been found by now.
Thanks!
For a definition of 'rules' that includes heuristics, and with the further qualification of either 'quickly' or 'without putting a lot of effort into every single decision', that assumption seems pretty accurate to me - it's more that most people are more comfortable making rules of thumb for themselves, or doing semi-arbitrary things in instances where their rules don't provide the answer (and then usually making a new rule of thumb out of the arbitrary decision, if it turns out well). Am I missing something?
"She made rules about food because it made it easier to decide what to eat" - This actually works for such a person? Interesting, I think a lot of people have the opposite problem. I wish I found it easy to follow my own rules.
This is a valid attempt to deal with conflicting stimuli from the world - to create standards to which you adhere consciously because you don't trust your intuitions to motivate you rationally in the environment with which you must interact. And really, such attention is partially what it means to be conscious/human - to audit your actions 'from the outside' instead of merely reacting. And with today's bizarre and skewed 'food environment', as it were, this becomes VERY necessary, especially for people with a predilection for analyzing their own behavior even in such supposedly mundane (but really fundamental) things as food consumption.
The rules were supposed to approximate her actual tastes, but more rigid and outright made up when she was unsure if she liked something. I don't think it would work if she suddenly decided she disliked peanut butter.
Tentative hypothesis: some people start with the intention of making rules they'd want to follow, and others don't. The first set might find themselves with a rule they don't follow, but the second assuredly will.
This goes beyond the temperamental difference between people who find rules a reassuring way of limiting choices and those who find rules an irritant at best.
How much care do you put into crafting your rules?
I try to avoid over-optimising on considered principles. I am willing to accept less-than-optimal outcomes based on the criteria I actually consider because those deficits are more often than not compensated by reduced thinking time, reduced anxiety, and unexpected results (eg the movie turning out to be much better or worse than expected).
'Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart' indicates most decisions are actually made by considering a single course of action, and taking it unless there is some unacceptable problem with it. What really surprised the researchers was that this often does better than linear recursion and stacks up respectably against Bayesian reasoning.
So my answer is, "make random selections from the menu until you hit something you're willing to eat." :)
-Milton Friedman story
The earliest known citation of the anecdote is from 1935, quoting Canadian William Aberhart. Milton Friedman certainly told the story, and may have invented the somewhat snappier form quoted here. (Interestingly, William Aberhart was speaking for the Social Credit Party, which was hardly libertarian.)
A few points come to mind:
"They" is the tricky bit there. Presumably some people wanted a canal, and some people other people wanted jobs, and for that matter presumably some people wanted money to go to the construction company who've got an opening for a government liaison consultant coming up in five years time. There's little reason to think the equilibrium is welfare maximising.
Probably, but Brazzy's explanation without adding all those other variables fits well enough to show why Milton's statement might have been missing something important. The point of a jobs program is that society pays some cost (of not using the most optimal method, i.e. more machines and fewer workers) in order to keep its members out of the unemployment trap. To propose, even as a deliberate reductio ad absurdum, that this would go just as well with spoons rather than shovels is not rationality, it's Spock-logic.
Now I'm quite willing to suppose that he understood the usefulness of such programs as an economist and overall had good reasons to see them as not worth it, or that some other measure would do better, but that particular quote fails to show it.
Seems like more of a libertarianism quote to me.
It can be that, but I think it also illustrate the importance of understanding people's real goals and intentions and not assuming that they are what they appear to be at first glance.
For the record, I'm pretty sure this story is apocryphal, though that doesn't take away from it's value as a rationality quote.
Proyas (fictional character - author: R. Scott Bakker)
<mental model of Michael Vassar says>This strikes me as a nerdism. If you don't find less intelligent people easier to manipulate, you must be working on sympathetic models of them instead of causal ones. I expect that experience would cure this, and after a few months of empirical practice and updating on the task of reasoning with fools, you would find it was actually easier to get them to do whatever you wanted - if you could manage to actually try a lot of different things and notice what worked, instead of being incredulous and indignant at their apparent reasoning errors.</Vassar>
My new goal in life is having Eliezer Yudkowsky respect me enough that he makes comments like this for me.
I agree with the Vassar-homonculus, but I took as the point that "reasoning with" may be the wrong tool - not that reasonable practice will fail to suggest the most effective hooks for manipulating the unreasonable fool.
I agree. The quote wasn't "No man has wit enough to manipulate a fool."
Upvoted the original for reference to Prince of Nothing series. And upvoted this comment for the terms "sympathetic model" and "causal model", which is one of those times that having the right word for a concept you've been trying to understand is worth a month of trying to untangle things in your head.
...although now I'm not sure whether I should upvote Eliezer or Michael Vassar. It seems kind of unfair to deny Michael an upvote just because the specific instantiation of his algorithm that said this happened to be running on Eliezer's brain at the time.
On a related note, it's a programming cliche that 90% of development time is trying to think up the right names for things.
Not for the reasons wanted.
Also a great addition to a psychological-thriller villain: he not only insists on compliance, but for the "right" reasons.
Which will be explained to the hero in due course while he is caught in the villain's trap, with escape impossible. Impossible I say!
But there is no independent existence of hero's personality apart from their mind, so the hero doesn't just have the memes designed by the villain, the hero is villain's memes.
From Space Viking, by H. Beam Piper:
Source:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20728/20728-h/20728-h.htm
Space Viking has got to be one of the leading "way more rational than its title sounds like" books out there. I wonder if Piper actually named it that or if it was some bright-eyed publisher.
Robert Nozick, The Nature of Rationality
If you haven't read this book yet, do so. It is basically LessWrongism circa 1993.
This strikes me as wrong. The proper work of philosophers and computer scientists seem like they have very little overlap. Yes, philosophers often mistakenly do computer science work, but that is irrelevant.
is there a reason I should want to read an earlier, less developed version of LessWrong, by someone who is not a consequentialist, when I could just read LessWrong?
An idea I've been kicking around -- and am tempted to pull into a coherent form -- is that actually there is a close connection between philosophy and computer science.
Much of philosophy is arguments about various abstractions. Computer science is about using abstractions to engineer software and about proofs about software-related abstractions.
To give one example: I think of the philosophical debate about the semantics of proper nouns as coupled to the notions of reference vs value equality in programming language design.
What are you comparing Less Wrong to?
Who proved consequentialism?
He was comparing Less Wrong to a book I was quoting from.
No one did, but proof is much too high a requirement anyway. Although, I don't think I am alone in recognizing the theories put forward in the The Metaethics Sequence as the least defensible part of Less Wrong doctrine.
The quote isn't talking about philosophy in general, but epistemology specifically. If you take naturalized epistemology seriously (which LessWrongers do), then it seems to follow quite easily that neuroscientists and AI researchers are relatively more important to the future of epistemology than philosophers (remember that most branches of modern science were once a part of philosophy, but later broke off and developed their own class of domain specialists).
One reason to read it would be to provide ourselves with some perspective on how LessWrongism fits into the larger Western intellectual tradition. Nozick is much better about showing how his ideas are related to those of other thinkers than the contributors to Less Wrong are (we share much more in common with Wittgenstein, Quine, Hempel, and Bridgeman than the impression you would get from reading the Sequences). Having this perspective should increase our ability to communicate effectively with other intellectual communities.
His being or not being a consequentialist doesn't seem to have very much to do with the validity of his work in epistemology, decision theory, philosophy of science, or metaphysics. Also, his ethical theory doesn't really fit neatly into the deontological/consequentialism dichotomy anyway. Arguably his ethics/political theory amounts to consequentialism with "side-constraints" (that can even be violated in extreme circumstances). It doesn't seem to be any less consequentislist than, say, rule-utilitarianism.
-- Michael Shermer
The same Shermer who publicly recognizes that his widely-repeated "this is your brain on cryonics" is crap but won't even post a half-hearted correction? Yes. Yes they do.
Sometimes smart people believe weird things because they're actually, y'know, true.
The bulk of political discourse today is purposefully playing telephone with facts in ways that couldn't be done in the Information Age if people just had the know-how to check for themselves. Comprehending complex sentences is something that can be done by first grade, and comprehending complex concepts and issues is without a doubt something better learned in math than in English, where one learns to obfuscate concepts and issues, and to play to baser emotions. Granted, one also learns to recognize and to defend against these tactics, but it still can't hold a candle to the "mental gymnastics" referenced above. Do you realize what the world looks like if you've got a background in math? Imagine signs reading DANGER: KEEP OUT are planted everywhere, but people purposefully and proudly ignore them, treating it as laughably eccentric to have learned more than half the alphabet, approaching en masse and dragging you with them.
~From the Math It Just Bugs Me page, TV Tropes
Richard Askey
— Richard Feynman, the QED Lectures at the University of Auckland
Reminds me of a Schneier quote that I like:
"Protecting Copyright in the Digital World", Bruce Schneier http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0108.html#7
"There always comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two plus two equals four is punished with death … And the issue is not a matter of what reward or what punishment will be the outcome of that reasoning. The issue is simply whether or not two plus two equals four." – Albert Camus, The Plague
-- Kahlil Gibran
Loā Hô, a Taiwanese physician and poet.
Starvation is an illness. (Or food dependency if you prefer.)
It is the curse of thermodynamic jurisdiction.
I care. If illness is abolished and a doctor of any age is starving, they can stay at my place and I'll feed them. Alternately, we could raise taxes slightly to finance government-mandated programs for training and reconversion of young doctors and early retirement for old doctors.
In other words: beware of though-mindedly accepting bad consequences of overall good policies. Look for a superior alternative first.
IAWYC. One quibble:
If illness is abolished, what's the point of retirement?
To keep dusky sports pubs in business, of course.
SMBC #2305 is another, more cynical instance of the false dichotomy.
What I really like about this quote is that I'm fairly sure the 'old doctor' is himself.
I don't have a strong feeling about the accuracy of the percentage, but the general point sounds plausible.
--WSJ article about Navy SEALs
It's an interesting point but exceedingly simplistic, more so these days than ever before.
What about "the more you think in training", or "the more you learn in training"? Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying the value of sweat (excerise, fitness, etc), I'm just saying it's not even close to the whole equation.
"Sweat" here is a standin for generic effort, whether it's actual physical sweat or not depends on what exactly you're training for.
Actually I think the full formula is "sweat saves blood, but brains save both". That's as rlevant today as when it was first used, which was in the British Army, around the time of the Crimean War. I think. I wasn't there.
I wonder how many other people on LW heard this quote first while in the process of sweating in training; and how many other military aphorisms could be repurposed this way.
Katawa Shoujo
For those who are interested: Katawa Shoujo is a visual novel currently in beta, which you can freely download on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
You know, when I first heard about Katawa Shoujo, I was horrified. (Struck a little too close to home.) But if the rest of the writing is on par with that, I might have to play it.
The writing isn't all shining gems of dialogue, but it's solidly entertaining, and not nearly as horrifying as the premise might make it sound. The various disabilities are treated more as inconvenient body quirks, rather than defining features; the characters are defined by their personalities and actions. If Katawa Shoujo has a message, that's it.
Anyway, I got a few very enjoyable hours out of it.
Frank Herbert, "Dune"
A little long, but I don't see the possibility of a good cut:
- George R.R. Martin, "A Game of Thrones"
This is beautiful, and inspiring. In fact, I predict LW will do better if we have an introductory post consisting of this quote and "That's our goal. Come on in and let's work on that." (would probably cause copyrighty troucle).
It's not a pure illustration, though. Maybe the others thought "Huh, that's just a regular cat. But if I say that the king might ordered me killed in the kind of way people die in Martin books. Better kiss some ass.".
I agree that the existence of this factor makes whether someone announces that it's a normal cat a poor indication of whether they actually realized such. However, I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that Syrio was looking for someone who both recognized that he was holding a normal cat and was willing to tell him such.
Charles Darwin
This quote is from a passage where Darwin is talking about religion:
Source: http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/faith_vs_reason_debate.html
Jamie Hyneman
Of course, that depends on how costly failure is, compared to the up-front analysis that would make failure less likely. I don't know who said "Fail fast, fail cheap," but it's a good counterpoint quote.
The great thing about this quote for me is that when I read it I can hear Pinker's voice saying it in my mind.
Maurog: http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=14222
...or that both of you are wrong. Most times people argue, neither party actually has a fundamental grasp of their own position. If both did, it would either change the argument to an ENTIRELY different and more essential one, or dissolve it. And either of those options is of absolute gain for the participants.
Not that I can do anything about this aside from in my own actions, but it's annoying as hell sometimes.
Elise E. Morse-Gagné
-- John Baez on Melting Permafrost
I am quite prepared to be told, with regard to the cases I have here proposed, as I have already been told with regard to others, "Oh, that is an extreme case, it would never really happen!" Now I have observed that the answer is always given instantly, with perfect confidence, and without examination of the details of the proposed case. It must therefore rest on some general principle: the mental process being probably something like this — 'I have formed a theory. This case contradicts my theory. Therefore this is an extreme case, and would never occur in practice'.
-Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), relating to the possibility of strategically-induced Condorcet cycles in elections.
"Everyone thinks himself the master pattern of human nature; and by this, as on a touchstone, he tests all others. Behavior that does not square with his is false and artificial. What brutish stupidity!” -- Montaigne
"Man, what a pretentious quote. I'm filing it under typical mind fallac-- oh, yeah."
Faith is not enough, for faith is blind by nature. Life needs insight. It is the dead, and the dying, that allow themselves to be led.
--Eve Online: Chronicles
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
Probably my favorite statement on rationality, it's so practical for launching off into every other sphere of thought - politics, ethics, theology, maths/physics, and, well, all else that follows.
--Calamities of Nature
--Antonio, The Merchant of Venice, Act 1 Scene 1. I have found this quote coming to mind recently apropos the recent Bitcoin price swings.
-Clive Barker, Abarat
Of course. But I wonder what the word "we" is referring to in this sentence: "So WE develop a shorthand...". Didn't that strike anybody else?
Nobody here but us brains.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
attribution unknown
I may have posted a little too fast-- I picked up the quote from a site which says it's a misquotation, and apt to be used to support dubious ideas.
On the other hand, contempt can come into play too quickly and reflexively, so I'm not deleting the quote.
Is this the absurdity heuristic, or a superset? If the later, what else is in the set? Maybe moral absurdity, and affiliation with outgroups (in particular, first encountering the idea during a heated debate or from someone lower-status than you).
-Tylwyth Waff in Heretics of Dune
(Hi. I'm new.)
"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." ~Thomas H. Huxley
One of my favorite quotes; from the father of the word "agnostic."
Scott Aaronson, "Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough is Wrong", which is worth reading in its own right.
It's the first follower who turns the lone nut into a leader.
The essence of wisdom is to remain suspicious of what you want to be true.
-Jon K. Hart
Without wanting to start a debate: that belief kept me in Mormonism for about two unnecessary years.
Okay, so the essence of wisdom is to be exactly as suspicious of everything as you should be, the first-pass approximation of wisdom is to remain suspicious of what you want to be true, and the second-pass approximation of wisdom is to be also suspicious of current beliefs you want to be untrue.
MixedNuts, I take the quote as a mental "post-it note" reminder to be cognizant of the potential presence of confirmation bias-in both directions as you stated.
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin. - Ivan Turgenev
I see that I've quoted the following twice before within other comment threads, so I think it deserves a place here:
Usually cited as a Spanish proverb.
Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier, Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi de l'examen du magnétisme animal (1784), as translated in "The Chain of Reason versus the Chain of Thumbs", Bully for Brontosaurus (1991) by Stephen Jay Gould, p. 195, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
-Seth Klarman, letter to shareholders