brazil84 comments on Rationality Quotes September 2011 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: dvasya 02 September 2011 07:38AM

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Comment author: sabre51 02 September 2011 01:36:08PM * 8 points [-]

I believe no discovery of fact, no matter how trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and no trumpeting of falsehood, no matter how virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious... I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech- alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent in living in an organized society... But the whole thing can be put very simply. I believe it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than be ignorant.

-HL Menken

Comment author: brazil84 03 September 2011 12:03:08AM 6 points [-]

From an evolutionary perspective, I would have to disagree. Believing that one's children are supremely cute; that one's spouse is one's soulmate; or even that an Almighty Being wants you to be fruitful and multiply -- these are all beliefs which are a bit shaky on rationalist grounds but which arguably increase the reproductive fitness in the individuals and groups who hold them.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky comment score below threshold [+] (21 children)

Comment author: wedrifid 03 September 2011 04:20:21PM * 11 points [-]

Barely, as an afterthought.

If you want to worry about hints of superstition look to the anthropomorphizing of TDT that is starting to crop up. This one was really scraping the bottom the barrel as far as dire yet predictable errors go.

Comment author: Incorrect 29 September 2011 11:34:20PM 7 points [-]

I understand why group selection is problematic: Individual selection trumps it.

However, when group and individual selective pressure coincide, the mutation could survive to the point where it exists in a group at which point the group will have better fitness because of the group selective pressure.

Is this incorrect?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 01:43:24PM * 4 points [-]

Don't reverse stupidity too much: http://necsi.edu/research/evoeco/spatialpatterns.html (actual quantitative papers can be found by those who are interested; NECSI has some pretty cool stuff).

Comment author: Jack 10 September 2011 01:48:16PM -2 points [-]

What is new here? It reads like the same old, wrong, group selection argument.

Comment author: Will_Newsome comment score below threshold [+] (9 children)

Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 September 2011 07:51:56PM 4 points [-]

Whatever you're trying to say, you aren't helping it by your presentation. I mean:

Bam, Greek symbols and Nature, can't argue with that.

Ordinarily that would be a rhetorical way of saying that you can and do argue with it (as do the authors of the paper that that was a response to), but you seem to be citing it in support of your previous comment. So, what is your actual point?

Comment author: lessdazed 10 September 2011 09:44:43PM 4 points [-]

Whatever you're trying to say, you aren't helping it by your presentation.

He knows, he's Bruceing with his presentation.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 11:15:23PM * 5 points [-]

Eh, sorta. (Voted up.) But I think the psychology is somewhat different. It's like, "I'm going to be explicit about what signalling games I am participating in so that when you have contempt for me when I explicitly engage in them I get to feel self-righteous for a few seconds because I know that you are being hypocritical". On the virtuous side, making things explicit is important for good accounting. Ideally I'd like to make it easier for me to be damned when I am truly unjustified. (I just wish there were wiser judges, better institutions than the ones I currently have access to.)

This comment exemplifies itself.

Comment author: lessdazed 10 September 2011 11:17:53PM * 1 point [-]

I see what you did there.

ETA: you didn't need to edit to add "This comment exemplifies itself."

continue this thread »

Comment author: Jack 10 September 2011 11:52:09PM 3 points [-]

After your edits: Do you have a problem with my question? It was clear and straightforward- I wanted to know what was new in the paper you linked. I was not trying to start some kind of status battle with you. I was not signaling anything. You indicated you had reason to believe previous findings on group selection were wrong- I asked you to explain the argument and you responded with what looks like rudeness and sarcasm. I don't know if you were intending to direct that rudeness and sarcasm at me or if you're just on a 48 hour Adderall binge. Either way, I suggest you take a nap.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 10 September 2011 11:58:40PM * 8 points [-]

It wasn't directed at you at all; my sincere apologies for not making that clear. I don't have a problem with your question. It was more like "ahhhh, despair, it would take me at least two minutes to think about how to paraphrase the relevant arguments, but I don't have energy to do that, but I do want to somehow signal that it's not just tired old group selection arguments because I don't want NECSI to have been done injustice by my unwillingness to explain their ideas, but if I do that kind of signalling then I'm participating in a game that is plausibly in the reference class of propping up decision policies that are suboptimal, so I'll just do it in a really weird way that is really discreditable so that I can get out of this double bind while still being able to say in retrospect that on some twisted level I at least tried to do the right thing." ETA: Well, the double negative version of that which involves lots of fear of bad things, not desire for good things. I am not virtuous and have nothing to be humble about.

This is what Eliezer's talking about in HP:MoR with:

And he told me then that by the time good and moral people were done tying themselves up in knots, what they usually did was nothing; or, if they did act, you could hardly tell them apart from the people called bad.

I wish Dumbledore were made a steel man so he could give good counterarguments here rather than letting Harry win outright.

Comment author: Jack 10 September 2011 01:58:19PM 2 points [-]

No need to dig up more sources- I just don't know what the "spatial patterns and shit" means.

Comment author: brazil84 03 September 2011 05:30:56PM 4 points [-]

I'm not sure I understand your point. By way of example, do you agree that generally speaking, ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that it's a good idea to have a lot of children and to pass this idea to their children?

And do you agree that the numbers of ultra-Orthodox Jews have increased dramatically over the last 100 years and are likely to continue increasing dramatically?

Comment author: MinibearRex 03 September 2011 05:38:59PM 1 point [-]

His complaint is from here:

and groups who hold them.

Group selection doesn't work. if you were to delete those two words, it would be fine, but if you start talking about increasing the reproductive fitness of a group as a whole, evolutionary biologists and other scientists will tend to dismiss what you say.

Comment author: brazil84 03 September 2011 05:47:45PM 4 points [-]

Group selection doesn't work.

Well what exactly is "group selection"? If a group of people has a particular belief; and as a result of that belief, the group increases dramatically in numbers, would it qualify as "group selection"?

Conversely, if a group of people has a particular belief; and as a result of that belief, the group decreases dramatically in numbers, would it qualify as "group selection"?

Comment author: Vaniver 03 September 2011 06:00:25PM 11 points [-]

It would not qualify. The ultra-Orthodox Jews example you give is of a set of individuals each pursuing their own fitness, and the set does well because each individual in the set does well. Group selection specifically refers to practices which make the group better off at individual cost. For example, if you had more daughters than sons, your group could grow faster- but any person in the group who defects and has more sons than daughters will reap massive benefits from doing so.

The moral of the story is, some people are oversensitive to "group" in the same sentence as "reproductive fitness." Try to avoid it.

Comment author: brazil84 03 September 2011 06:17:05PM 4 points [-]

It would not qualify.

Well in that case, I was not talking about group selection. I was referring to a set of individuals each of whose reproductive fitness would be enhanced by the beliefs shared by him and the other members of the set of individuals.

I think that in normal discussions, it's reasonable to refer to a set of individuals with shared beliefs as a "group." And if those beliefs generally enhance the reproduction of the individuals in that group, it's reasonable to state that the reproductive fitness in the group has been enhanced.

Try to avoid it.

I suppose, but I think it was pretty clear from the context what I meant when I said that certain beliefs "arguably increase the reproductive fitness in the individuals and groups who hold them." At a minimum, I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Comment author: Vaniver 03 September 2011 06:25:42PM 3 points [-]

At a minimum, I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I agree with you, as implied by my choice of "oversensitive" rather than "sensitive."

Comment author: brazil84 03 September 2011 07:47:53PM 2 points [-]

Thanks, and for what it's worth I do agree that group selection as you have defined it is vulnerable to defection by individuals.

brazil84 comments on Rationality Quotes September 2011 - Less Wrong

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