Friendly-HI comments on Reasons for being rational - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Swimmer963 01 July 2011 03:28PM

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Comment author: Friendly-HI 25 June 2011 10:54:14PM *  10 points [-]

You're the negative mirror image of myself.

I'm very lucky to live in this day and age. If I was born any sooner, (or in some other place) I'd probably be killed by some aggravated superstitious mob or the officials - that is if I was indeed stupid enough to talk as I please. Contrariety and a need to oppose run incredibly deep within me.

I am majorly disgusted by religion and have real trouble to sit through a church service. I'm just counting down the minutes while mentally cringing at virtually every single stupid thing the pathetically deluded pastor drivels from the pulpit, until at last the primitive medieval circus grinds to a halt and I feel like can finally take a deep breath of sanity once I left the building.

I despise human hypocrisy intensely and am somewhat nauseated every time I detect it in others and myself. But ultimately, I believe at the very bottom of my behavior lies a simple mixture of genetic components and what I picked up from my father (who was also somewhat of a rebel in the former Soviet Union, but without any real opportunity to vent). Maybe it runs even deeper than that and I'm just the human archetype of the "male rogue" that can be encountered in many species - not dominant or agreeable enough to gain the status of an alpha male, but way too pretentious and certainly not submissive enough to suck up to anyone or cut back on my directness. I'm not quite as disagreeable as Dr. House fortunately, but he could serve as an exaggerated caricature of myself if I felt miserable and took any pleasure in cynicism.

In many ways I wish I were more like you, it would certainly make my life and enduring (some) human company so much easier. People only want to hear what they like to hear and I almost can't help myself but to provoke and startle, if given the opportunity.

At any rate you got nothing to apologize for. If anything, your attitude is much better suited than mine, if your goal is to make other people think more rational. I'm sure you can spin things in such a way, that will enable you to much more easily and effectively convert people into rationalists, than any confrontational hardliner could hope to accomplish in comparison. As long as you don't allow yourself (or others) to sucker you out of your rational frame of mind, your "skill" of hyper-agreeableness is much more of an asset than you seem to realize. Agreeableness indeed seems to be a rather rare social skill around these parts of the internet and the overall rationalist community.

We need more people like you around, especially for PR-purposes.

Addendum: By the way, I may have to clarify that my disgust with religiosity doesn't extend to the people themselves. Often my attitude may get misinterpreted as me somehow despising religious people, which is not the case at all. I suppose an intuitive explanation of how I feel about religion would be to imagine that you're the parent of a "disconnected" Scientologist. You can hate every single bit of the meme with every fiber in your body but still love the person "infected". I suspect many rationalists feel similarly. Religion is a grim reflection of just about anything that's terribly wrong with human cognition and morality - and instead of being actively opposed and ironed out, our society indulges in superstition and dresses it up with nice colors and hats and even let's it run the show. It just utterly crushes my spirit when I hear something like "representatives of the church attend a meeting with politics and industry to discuss the future of nuclear energy" - as if a pastor or bishop actually knows anything about anything. (Let alone something about morality and ethics).

Comment author: Swimmer963 26 June 2011 02:12:51AM 10 points [-]

People only want to hear what they like to hear and I almost can't help myself but to provoke and startle, if given the opportunity.

I've known people like that. From what I've seen, for many people it's a game to make social interaction more interesting. I play it very poorly (for example, I almost never get sarcasm unless it's pointed out to me, and even if I do, I'm usually too lazy to come up with something sarcastic to say in return, so I just ignore it, which is awfully boring for the person being sarcastic.) Is this why you do this?

I'm sure you can spin things in such a way, that will enable you to much more easily and effectively convert people into rationalists, than any confrontational hardliner could hope to accomplish in comparison.

I am very good at engaging in dialogue with just about anybody and presenting my points in such a way that it's natural for them to agree. I think the most important component is making it obvious to people that "I don't dislike you because you disagree with me; if anything, I like the fact that we disagree, because maybe I can learn something new from you." Even confrontational people usually respond well to that kind of attitude, and it's a win-win situation because I get to engage in the discussion that I want.

"representatives of the church attend a meeting with politics and industry to discuss the future of nuclear energy" - as if a pastor or bishop actually knows anything about anything. (Let alone something about morality and ethics).

I disagree. After spending some very formative years of my adolescence singing in the church choir, I've found that the ministers do seem to...well, maybe know more about morality isn't the right phrase, but they've thought about it more. A large percentage of the population never thinks about morality. Some because they just live their life without really questioning anything (like at least 50% of my fellow pool staff), some because they base their values off selfishness and don't want to have to change it. The Church morality has its flaws, for example the implicit biblical attitudes towards sex before marriage, women, homosexuality, etc. But in the Anglican church anyway, and even in the more conservative Pentecostal church, I know hardly any actual Christians who believe that someone is inherently bad for being homosexual. There are a lot of "good" memes in the Christian morality complex, ideas of being radically generous and loving your enemies. I have seen some incredible acts of generosity in the Pentecostal church especially.

There's also a sample bias in the kind of people who become ministers, especially Anglican ministers (this branch of Christianity is already extremely liberal; they do gay marriages and everything.) They tend to be fairly intellectual, i.e. introspective and likely to meditate on moral principles, and they tend to already like people and want to help them. And they spend years studying the material. Thus, compared to Joe Smith who works at the movie theater, I think most pastors do know more about morality and ethics. Of course, someone who's put in the same amount of time thinking about it but isn't limited to agreeing with a book written two thousand years ago is still more likely to be right, but I don't know that many people like that firsthand.

Comment author: Friendly-HI 26 June 2011 02:52:29PM *  2 points [-]

Is this why you do this?

Partially perhaps, but it's hardly the main reason. Language nearly always carries with it a frequency that conveys social status and a lot of talk and argument isn't much more than a renegotiation or affirmation of the social contract between people. So quite a lot of the actual content of any given typical conversation you're likely to hear is quite braindead and only superficially appears to be civilized. That kind of smalltalk is boring if it's transparent to you, and controversy spices things up for sure - so yes, there may be something to it...

But I think the ultimate reason for being provocative is because "the truth" simply is quite provoking and startling by itself, given the typical nonrational worldviews people hold. If people were rational by nature and roughly on the same page as most lesswrongers, I certainly wouldn't feel like making an effort to provoke or piss people off just for the sake of disagreement. I simply care a lot about the truth and I care comparatively less about what people think (in general and also about me), so I'm often not terribly concerned about sounding agreeable. Sometimes I make an effort if I find it important to actually convince someone, but naturally I just feel like censoring my opinions as little as necessary. (Which is not to say that my approach is in any way all that commendable, it just simple feels natural to me - it's in a way my mental pathway of least resistance and conscious effort.)

I'm not doing it all the time of course, I can be quite agreeable when I happen to feel like it - but overall it's just not my regular state of being.

"...as if a pastor or bishop actually knows anything about anything. (Let alone something about morality and ethics)."

I disagree.

You can't be serious, how dare you trample on my beliefs and hurt my feelings like that? ;)

...well, maybe know more about morality isn't the right phrase, but they've [theologans] thought about it more.

Sure, and conspiracy theorists think a lot about 9/11 as well. The amount of thought people spend on any conceivable subject is at best very dimly (and usually not at all) correlated with the quality/truthfulness of their conclusions, if the "mental algorithm" by which they structure their thoughts is semi-worthless by virtue of being irrational (aka. out of step with reality).

Trying to think about morality without the concept that morality must exclusively relate to the neurological makeup of conscious brains is damn close to a waste of time. It's like trying to wrap your head around biology without the concept of evolution - it cannot be done. You may learn certain things nonetheless, but whatever model you come up with - it will be a completely confused mess. Whatever theology may come up with on the subject of morality is at best right by accident and frequently enough it's positively primitive, wrong and harmful - either way it's a complete waste of time and thought given the rational alternatives (neurology,psychology) we can employ to discover true concepts about morality.

What religion has to say about morality is in the same category as what science and philosophy had to say about life and biology before Darwin and Wallace came along - which in retrospect amounts pretty much to "next to nothing of interest".

So are all those Anglican priests nice and moral people? Sure, whatever. But do they have any real competence whatsoever to make decisions about moral issues (let alone things like nuclear power)? Hell no.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 27 June 2011 02:18:02AM *  13 points [-]

Trying to think about morality without the concept that morality must exclusively relate to the neurological makeup of conscious brains is damn close to a waste of time.

That's like saying that the job of a sports coach is a waste of time because he is clueless about physics. If it were impossible to gain useful insights and intuitions about the world without reducing everything to first principles, nothing would ever get done. On the contrary, in the overwhelming majority of cases where humans successfully grapple with the real world, from the most basic everyday actions to the most complex technological achievements, it's done using models and intuitions that are, as the saying goes, wrong but useful.

So, if you're looking for concrete answers to the basic questions of how to live, it's a bad idea to discard wisdom from the past just because it's based on models of the world to which we now have fundamentally more accurate ones. A model that captures fundamental reality more closely doesn't automatically translate to superior practical insight. Otherwise people who want to learn to play tennis would be hiring physicists to teach them.

Comment author: loup-vaillant 27 June 2011 01:48:14PM *  0 points [-]

Friendly-HI didn't want to suggest that you actually have to perform the reduction to be any good. Just that you keep in mind that there's nothing fundamentally irreducible there. I was about to add more details but Friendly-HI already did.

Comment author: Friendly-HI 27 June 2011 02:41:11PM *  0 points [-]

^ what he said

Comment author: Alicorn 26 June 2011 06:07:28PM 3 points [-]

You can quote a paragraph by preceding it with > (or multiple angle brackets to nest quotes deeper).

Comment author: Friendly-HI 26 June 2011 08:48:36PM 0 points [-]

thx. Old habits die hard.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 26 June 2011 03:50:12PM 3 points [-]

Trying to think about morality without the concept that morality must exclusively relate to the neurological makeup of conscious brains is damn close to a waste of time.

This seems mistaken, especially considering that we're just getting started on the neurology.

I'd say that trying to think about morality without careful observation of what changes people can make and how is a waste of time.

Comment author: conjectures 02 July 2011 07:09:33PM 2 points [-]

given the rational alternatives (neurology,psychology) we can employ to discover true concepts about morality.

I'm with you most of the way. On the rational alternatives though, I'm not sure what you suggest works in the way we might imagine.

Neurology and psychology can provide a factual/ontological description of how humans manifest morality. They don't give a description of what morality should be.

There's a deontological kernel to morality, it's about what we think people should do, not what they do do.

Psychology etc. can give great insights into choosing morals that go with the human grain. But those choices are primarily motivated by pragmatism rather than vitue. The virtue you've chosen is to be pragmatic...

Happy to be proven wrong here, but in terms of what virtues we place value on, I think there's going to be an element of arbitrariness in their choice.

Comment author: nshepperd 03 July 2011 06:37:51AM 1 point [-]

The question "what do we think people should do?" is a question about what we think. Thus the relevance of psychology. Note that this is different from "what should people do?" being itself about what we think. But if you want to find out "what should people do?" half the work is pretty much done for you if you can figure out where this "should" idea in your brain is coming from, and what it means.

Comment author: AShepard 26 June 2011 04:51:13PM 0 points [-]

I simply care a lot about the truth and I care comparatively less about what people think (in general and also about me), so I'm often not terribly concerned about sounding agreeable.

Can you clarify this statement? As phrased, it doesn't quite mesh with the rest of your self-description. If you truly did not care about what other people thought, it wouldn't bother you that they think untrue things. A more precise formulation would be that you assign little or no value to untrue beliefs. Furthermore, you assign very little value to any emotions that for the person are bound up in their holding that belief.

The untrue belief and the attached emotions are not the same thing, though they are obviously related. It does not follow from "untrue beliefs deserve little respect" that "emotions attached to untrue beliefs deserve little respect". The emotions are real after all.

Comment author: Friendly-HI 26 June 2011 09:11:31PM *  0 points [-]

If you truly did not care about what other people thought

vs.

I care comparatively less about what people think

You're right about the emotions part, but I'm certainly not bashing people as hard as Dr. House and I'm also not gonna take nice delusions of heaven away from poor old granny. Yes, of cause I too care about the emotions of people, depending on the person and the specific circumstances.

I'm also usually not the one to open up the conversation on the kind of topics we discuss here, but if people share their opinion I'll often throw my weight in and voice my unusual opinions without too much concern about tiptoeing around sensibilities of -say- the political, religious or the new age types.

Of cause I'm not claiming to be a total hardliner, deep within my brain there is such a thing as a calculation taking place about whether or not giving my real opinion to person X Y and Z will result in too much damage for me, others, or our relationship... it's just that I'm less inclined to be agreeable in comparison with others. I'm not claiming to be brain damaged after all, of cause I care as well to some (considerably less than average) extent about social repercussions.

Addendum: Agreeableness is also something that is known to rise with progressing age, so it's likely that I will become more agreeable over time, seeing how I'm still just 23. Another factor in agreeableness is impulsiveness, which thankfully diminishes with age - and I'm a fairly impulsive person. Agreeableness isn't just composed of "one thing", it's the result of several interactions.

Comment author: Swimmer963 26 June 2011 09:33:31PM 1 point [-]

Addendum: Agreeableness is also something that is known to rise with progressing age, so it's likely that I will become more agreeable over time, seeing how I'm still just 23. Another factor in agreeableness is impulsiveness, with also diminishes with age - and I'm a fairly impulsive person.

I'm 19, and I'm already one of the most agreeable and least impulsive people I know. I'm fucked...

Comment author: Friendly-HI 26 June 2011 09:43:04PM *  0 points [-]

Maybe you should consider a career in politics where having a spine is optional :P

EDIT: Wait, what am I saying... it's of cause not optional but actually prohibitively costly.

Comment author: Swimmer963 26 June 2011 11:13:06PM 4 points [-]

Maybe you should consider a career in politics.

No way! There's a possibility I wouldn't be able to keep everyone happy all the time! There's a possibility people would dislike me for policies I implemented! It would be WAY too stressful!

Comment author: loup-vaillant 27 June 2011 01:55:41PM 0 points [-]

of cause

Second time I catch this, so it may not be a mere typo. Did you mean "of course", in the sense of "obviously"?

Comment author: Friendly-HI 27 June 2011 02:34:40PM 2 points [-]

English is my 3rd language, so unfortunately it wasn't really just a typo. Now that you pointed it out of course the mistake is obvious to me.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 June 2011 12:50:42AM 5 points [-]

By the way, I may have to clarify that my disgust with religiosity doesn't extend to the people themselves.

For an ironically religious meme comparison "Love the sinner; hate the sin."