Rationality quotes January 2012

9 Post author: Thomas 01 January 2012 10:28AM

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

  • Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately.  (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments.  If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
  • Do not quote yourself.
  • Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
  • No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Comments (462)

Comment author: lukeprog 12 January 2013 06:50:23PM 2 points [-]

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

George Orwell

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 29 January 2012 11:41:14AM 8 points [-]

A stoic sage is one who turns fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.

Nasim Taleb

Comment author: Patrick 26 January 2012 12:49:42PM 3 points [-]

It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.

-- Deng Xioaping

Comment author: RobinZ 26 January 2012 09:01:31PM 1 point [-]

Duplicate, but I like your translation better.

Comment author: CharlieSheen 25 January 2012 11:55:12PM *  16 points [-]

It’s not a good idea for members of the faith-based community like Hitchens to proclaim things like: Science proves we’re all genetically equal, so therefore you shouldn’t be beastly toward people of other races. The obvious flaw in this strategy is that eventually people will figure out that you are lying about what the science of genetics says, and therefore, by your own logic, that discredits the perfectly valid second half of your assertion.

--Steve Sailer

Comment author: Booty4Bayes 25 January 2012 11:58:14PM 7 points [-]

Good chop, bro.

Comment author: lukeprog 25 January 2012 10:26:25PM 10 points [-]

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Bertrand Russell

Comment author: [deleted] 25 January 2012 07:09:11AM 6 points [-]

Being right in the sense of being correct is not sufficient to win. Political technology determines political success. Learn how to organize and how to communicate. Most political technology is philosophically neutral. You owe it to your philosophy to study how to win.

Morton Blackwell

Comment author: Nornagest 25 January 2012 07:14:24AM *  2 points [-]

I might have upvoted the first sentence of this -- it's accurate, at least, if a little unproductive -- but out of context the rest is difficult to parse and might imply some seriously problematic attitudes. I take it political technology means something along the lines of "rhetoric"?

Comment author: [deleted] 25 January 2012 10:28:48AM *  0 points [-]

I might have upvoted the first sentence of this -- it's accurate, at least, if a little unproductive The rest of the quote is the productive portion.

-- but out of context the rest is difficult to parse and might imply some seriously problematic attitudes.

Sure, it probably does, on the part of Blackwell. He is something of a fairly mindless conservative, not much of a libertarian, and he supports central bankers. But this part of his philosophy is worthy. He believes that if you're in a fight for your life, you should fight hard. ...Similar to Penn Jillette's advocacy of evangelism, even evangelism that he personally disagrees with. If the stakes are high, then even those on the wrong side of the stakes should value their position enough to fight for it, or change their opinion.

I take it political technology means something along the lines of "rhetoric"?

Not necessarily so. Rhetoric is far from the only means of shifting a vote. It is one tool, there are many, many others. In fact, almost any vote can be shifted, given enough effort. Enough effort can be directed at nonvoters to mobilize them, etc...

So, if you're trying to do something important (such as end slavery, release the victimless crime offenders from prison, etc...) you should learn how to win elections, since that's easier than engaging in violence commensurate with the level of importance attached to the issue.

At some point, vital issues of life or death decay to violence (Civil War), if there is no political solution forthcoming. ---The victimized eventually refuse to stay victimized, or worse, the victimizers refuse to settle with too little victimization. (And then you have the Hutus outlawing Tutsi firearm possession, and hacking them apart with machetes.)

Comment author: JJXW 23 January 2012 09:35:16PM *  0 points [-]

(after laying out the proportions of all the elements that make up the the human body)

Young Walter: I don't know. Just...doesn't it seem like...something's missing?

Young Gretchen: What about the soul?

Young Walter: The soul? There's nothing but chemistry here.

Breaking Bad, Season One Episode Three

Comment author: Patrick 23 January 2012 05:11:30PM *  10 points [-]

Ninety per cent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.

Terry Pratchett

Comment author: [deleted] 23 January 2012 08:39:58AM -1 points [-]

My dear Adso, we must not allow ourselves to be influenced by irrational rumors of the Antichrist, hmm? Let us instead exercise our brains and try to solve this tantalizing conundrum.

-- William of Baskerville, Played by Sean Connery, Name of the Rose (1986)

Comment author: FiftyTwo 23 January 2012 05:02:25AM -1 points [-]

Reverend Theo: Wow, you really do think you've become a God.

Petey: I'm just trying to do what I think a god would do if he were in my position.

Schlock Mercenary MONDAY JULY 31, 2006

Comment author: CaveJohnson 22 January 2012 07:06:14PM 3 points [-]

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.

--Alfred Korzybski

Comment author: fburnaby 23 January 2012 01:41:18PM 1 point [-]

It seems most common to mix those two modes as convenient.

Comment author: CharlieSheen 20 January 2012 09:58:54AM 2 points [-]

Nemo iudex in causa sua.

A latin proverb, and I think part of Roman law, it means no-one should be a judge in their own cause.

Comment author: CaveJohnson 19 January 2012 10:59:42PM *  11 points [-]

We should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful.

--Aristotle

Comment author: CaveJohnson 19 January 2012 10:59:04PM 7 points [-]

Men ... are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody's friend, especially when some one is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause—the wickedness of human nature.

--Aristotle

Comment author: tut 19 January 2012 07:31:23PM 6 points [-]

What we perceive today as elegant, natural selection created as simply as gravity creates a river. The water will flow downhill, every other parameter is free.

John Hawks

Comment author: [deleted] 19 January 2012 06:05:29PM 8 points [-]

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

--William F. Buckley

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 19 January 2012 07:40:41AM *  9 points [-]

Part of the reason atheism looks the way it does now, and is so lacking in warm fuzzies like "Love and Completeness are Your Spiritual Right," is because it is a refuge for people who think warm fuzzies are bullshit.

-- Dave Gottlieb

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2012 03:14:11PM *  -1 points [-]

But warm fuzzies are bullshit.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 February 2012 03:38:33PM 2 points [-]

Why?

Comment author: [deleted] 03 February 2012 03:12:35PM *  1 point [-]

I haven't once in my life made a good decision based on feel good thinking. Naturally I may be an outlier but overall models of the world that "feel good" are generally wrong models. I value having a accurate map even if it isn't useful (yes having a wrong map can be instrumentally valuable, and a positive outlook actually often is).

Also warm fuzzies are one of the easiest way to manipulate someone. When someone tries to shower me with them I nearly indistinctly try to counterbalance them. Hm, now that I think of it that pattern matches to being a cynic.

Comment author: MinibearRex 08 February 2012 03:35:28AM 1 point [-]

I haven't once in my life made a good decision based on feel good thinking.

I would have expected things to go your way every now and then simply by chance.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 February 2012 05:42:48PM *  1 point [-]

But... feeling good for non-bullshit reasons is desirable, no?

(I do the counterbalancing thing too, but with the aim of editing praise so that it falls where I truly deserve it.)

Comment author: [deleted] 03 February 2012 06:46:22PM 0 points [-]

But... feeling good for non-bullshit reasons is desirable, no?

Sure.

Comment author: atorm 30 January 2012 08:57:44PM 0 points [-]

What about people who want to reject the claims of religion but still want warm fuzzies? Maybe atheism wouldn't get such a bad rap in the public eye if it felt more welcoming for people who want truths but also want the sense of community provided by religion.

Comment author: faul_sname 02 February 2012 12:30:45AM *  0 points [-]

Paganism? It seems like one of the more accepting groups, and you don't need to actually believe to celebrate/be in a community.

Comment author: atorm 02 February 2012 02:52:46PM 0 points [-]

Interesting idea, but identifying as pagan will probably raise as many eyebrows as atheism, if not more. I think it would be better if there was more "The universe isn't concerned about us, so it's our job to be concerned about each other" among the atheist community, or something else that sounds welcoming and friendly.

Comment author: JoachimSchipper 02 February 2012 03:51:38PM 2 points [-]

Humanism?

Comment author: BobDylan 19 January 2012 11:06:53PM 0 points [-]

So true, I totally think that way.

Comment author: J_Taylor 18 January 2012 11:01:21PM *  5 points [-]

If only the dead people who god did not save, could return and give their opinion of a god.

-Gene Ray, The Wisest Human

http://www.timecube.com/timecube2.html

Comment author: J_Taylor 18 January 2012 10:51:49PM *  3 points [-]

Thinking about thinking makes thinking thoughtful.

-Cleverbot

http://cleverbot.com/cleverness

Comment author: CaveJohnson 18 January 2012 07:36:34PM 15 points [-]

Most people are theists not because they were "reasoned into" believing in God, but because they applied Occam's razor at too early an age. Their simplest explanation for the reason that their parents, not to mention everyone else in the world, believed in God, was that God actually existed. The same could be said for, say, Australia.

--Mencius Moldbug

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:06:32PM 7 points [-]

Please remember sources; this is from "How I Stopped Believing in Democracy", 31 January 2008.

Comment author: CaveJohnson 18 January 2012 08:18:45PM *  5 points [-]

Is it conventional to add sources when it is an on-line? Sorry didn't know that was expected, since it wasn't in the posting rule set. Will remember to add sources in the future.

BTW gwern sometimes your attention to detail is as unnerving as it is helpful and impressive.

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:37:52PM 0 points [-]

Is it conventional to add sources when it is an on-line source?

I thought it was, but then, I may be interested only because it makes it easier in the future to track down citations if there is a title and URL (and because if I click on a URL, it goes into my archive bot).

BTW gwern sometimes your attention to detail is as unnerving as it is helpful and impressive.

It's just time-wasting... Heck, I time-waste on my time-wasting, I'm supposed to be adding citations on how people are biased against spaced repetition even when their scores are better with SR to my respective article.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 January 2012 07:16:40PM 7 points [-]

No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.

--Deng Xiaoping

Comment author: [deleted] 18 January 2012 02:49:02AM *  1 point [-]

Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.

-- David Hume

Comment author: [deleted] 18 January 2012 03:03:27AM 1 point [-]

If he didn't use the word "merely," this would be an even more amazing rationality quote than it already is.

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:08:42PM 0 points [-]

I don't think it's very good either way. It's just a flat statement - presumably it was the thesis or conclusion to some long chain of arguments proving it. But as a quote? It is not very memorable, or witty, or a novel argument or any of the usual criteria I judge our quotes on.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 January 2012 08:12:06PM *  0 points [-]

Agreed, it's not particularly insightful, but I liked it because it's an easy-to-understand and memorable example of the Mind Projection Fallacy.

Comment author: [deleted] 17 January 2012 04:32:55PM *  8 points [-]

I am often wrong. My prejudices are innumerable, and often idiotic.

--H.L. Mencken

Comment author: Spectral_Dragon 15 January 2012 09:17:30PM 1 point [-]

"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool." -- Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander from the book "Wizard's first rule" by Terry Goodkind.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 16 January 2012 01:46:46AM 0 points [-]

I'm a little confused by why people are downvoting the quote. That the book has other problems is not a reason to downvote a genuinely accurate and succinct quote.

Comment author: David_Gerard 16 January 2012 12:34:08AM 3 points [-]

This is a useful quote when one remembers to apply it to oneself. "You know how transparently full of shit everyone else is? Guess how stupid you are yourself."

Comment author: [deleted] 15 January 2012 11:51:07PM 3 points [-]

In case this gives anyone the false impression that the Sword of Truth series is good, let me advise you: it isn't. What starts out as a decent premise devolves into the most convoluted argument for Objectivism since Rand herself.

Comment author: TimS 16 January 2012 01:26:42AM 2 points [-]

I didn't notice the Objectivism, since the S&M and scat play drove me away first. The first book was enjoyable.

Comment author: wedrifid 16 January 2012 12:33:08AM 0 points [-]

In case this gives anyone the false impression that the Sword of Truth series is good, let me advise you: it isn't. What starts out as a decent premise devolves into the most convoluted argument for Objectivism since Rand herself.

I'd have to confirm that. It started out decent but I tired of the series a few books in.

Comment author: Spectral_Dragon 16 January 2012 09:15:57PM 0 points [-]

At least the first book, is written nicely and tells a good traditional story as long as you don't go any deeper into the meanings of it all, though it gets worse as the series goes on. I find the last book hilarious as the main character defeats the communists by first beating them in a game of American football. All in all, it's actually decent, if a bit... Grim at times, if you only want a fantasy novel.

It could certainly be better, and a little less transparent, but it has some good, useable quotes.

Comment author: gwern 15 January 2012 11:40:29PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: taelor 15 January 2012 11:24:01AM *  7 points [-]

And now my labor is over. I have had my lecture. I have no sense of fatherhood. If my genetic and personal histories had been different, I should come into possession of a different lecture. If I deserve any credit at all, it is simply for having served as a place where certain processes could take place. I shall interpret your polite applause in that light.

--B.F. Skinner

Comment author: [deleted] 15 January 2012 08:44:11AM 10 points [-]

Each age would do better if it studied its own faults and endeavoured to mend them instead of comparing itself with others to its own advantage.

--James Anthony Froude

Comment author: CharlieSheen 14 January 2012 09:18:22AM *  10 points [-]

We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.

-Winston Churchill

Comment author: gwern 14 January 2012 05:52:50PM 3 points [-]

The rest of the story is interesting; from http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/quotations

—House of Commons (meeting in the House of Lords), 28 October 1943. The old House was rebuilt in 1950 in its old form, remaining insufficient to seat all its members. Churchill was against "giving each member a desk to sit at and a lid to bang" because, he explained, the House would be mostly empty most of the time; whereas, at critical votes and moments, it would fill beyond capacity, with members spilling out into the aisles, in his view a suitable "sense of crowd and urgency."

An apt comparison would be Napoleon's reconstruction of Paris with broad straight streets, I think. (Code is Law.)

Comment author: satt 14 January 2012 02:48:17PM 1 point [-]

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." — Goethe

Comment author: Eneasz 13 January 2012 07:34:57PM 5 points [-]

He lifted a hand, his index finger pointing upward. "How many fingers am I holding up?" I paused for a moment, which was more consideration than the question seemed to warrant. "At least one," I said. "Probably no more than six"

-Kvothe, The Name of the Wind

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 11 January 2012 05:18:07PM 8 points [-]

The problem with "electability" is that it requires voters to set aside their own feelings on the basis of what they think other people will think in a general election months in the future. The problem with this is that people are generally bad at predicting what other people will think and feel and are lousy at predicting the future. As a result, voters in primaries who focus on electability either vote based on regurgitated popular wisdom of the moment, or on an assumption that other people won't respond to the same things that they respond to in a candidate. Neither is a particularly good predictor. However, since it is impossible to rerun the election after the fact with the other candidate, it is not something easily disproved.

osewalrus

Comment author: imbatman 11 January 2012 03:19:36PM 4 points [-]

"A man's gotta know his limitations." - Dirty Harry

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 11 January 2012 03:28:28AM *  8 points [-]

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.

C.S. Lewis, Introduction to a translation of, Athanasius: On the Incarnation

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:11:13PM 8 points [-]

If I may continue it:

...Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united-united with each other and against earlier and later ages-by a great mass of common assumptions….None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books."

From http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/athanasius/incarnation/incarnation.p.htm

Comment author: Desrtopa 17 January 2012 05:15:32PM 1 point [-]

Not likely to be much help if the new outlook is built upon the old in such a way that the mistakes of the old outlook are addressed by the new, but the mistakes of the new were not raised to the point of being able to be addressed within the old.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 17 January 2012 06:28:21PM 4 points [-]

True, on the other hand, I suspect people around here tend to massively overestimate how often that happens.

Comment author: Bugmaster 11 January 2012 04:08:31AM 1 point [-]

Or, you know, some new books with a fresh outlook. Just saying.

Comment author: MixedNuts 11 January 2012 02:21:12PM 5 points [-]

Not written yet.

Comment author: imbatman 10 January 2012 11:21:33PM 11 points [-]

"A Confucian has stolen my hairbrush! Down with Confucianism!"

-GK Chesterton (on ad hominems)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 10 January 2012 09:33:38PM *  13 points [-]

In short, they made unrealistic demands on reality and reality did not oblige them.

Cory Doctorow talking about DRM, but I think there are some wider applications.

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:13:09PM *  3 points [-]

Reminiscent of one of my favorite Bruce Schneier quotes.

Comment author: HonoreDB 10 January 2012 07:48:23PM *  22 points [-]

...some people requested that I be prohibited from studying. One time they achieved it through a very holy and simple mother superior who believed that studying would get me in trouble with the Inquisition and ordered me not to do it. I obeyed her for the three months that she was in office in as far as I did not touch a book, but as far as absolutely not studying, this was not in my power. [...] Even the people I spoke to, and what they said to me, gave rise to thousands of reflections. What was the source of all the variety of personality and talent I found among them, since they were all one species? [...] Sometimes I would pace in front of the fireplace in one of our large dormitories and notice that, though the lines of two sides were parallel and its ceiling level, to our vision it appears as though the lines are inclined toward each other and the ceiling is lower in the distance than it is nearby. From this it can be inferred that the lines of our vision run straight, but not parallel, to form the figure of a pyramid. And I wondered if that was the reason that the ancients questioned whether the earth was a sphere or not. Because although it seemed so, their vision might have deceived them, showing concave shapes where there were none. [...] Once I saw two girls playing with a top, and hardly had I seen the movement and the shape when I began, in my insane way, to consider the easy movement of the spherical shape and how long the momentum, once established, remained independent of its original cause, the distant hand of the girl. Not content with this I had flour brought and sprinkled on the floor in order to discover whether the spinning top would describe perfect circles or not. It turned out that they were not perfect circles but spirals that lost their circular shape to the degree that the top lost momentum.

Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, 1691 (tr. Pamela Kirk Rappaport)

Comment author: Vaniver 09 January 2012 11:11:58PM 2 points [-]

But, above all, it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care; well considering that though goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.

John Philips, 1781

Comment author: lukeprog 09 January 2012 08:42:23PM 2 points [-]

Nominal essences are all the essences that science needs, and some are better than others, because they capture more regularity in nature.

Dan Dennett

To explain: a "nominal essence" is just an abstract idea that humans have decided to use to pick out a particular type of thing. This is contrasted with a more Aristotelean view of essence.

Comment author: TimS 09 January 2012 09:20:16PM 0 points [-]

Because I'm curious:

Is Dennett's position intended to be a response to the theory of scientific incommesurability, or some other aspect of philosophy of science?

Comment author: lukeprog 09 January 2012 10:15:16PM *  0 points [-]

His quote is about conceptual analysis and intuition's role in philosophy in general, and about where to draw the boundary.

Comment author: HonoreDB 09 January 2012 08:25:39PM -2 points [-]

I can’t be interested in form for form’s sake. Form is like mathematics: a model which might be applied to various sets of data. Form is seductive: form can be perfect. But there’s no justification for form (in the experiments and investigations) unless its used to expose content which has meaning. The result of an experiment is the meaningful content. Information is content. Content is fictional. Content is messy, like the universe it's unfinished and furthermore it becomes obsolete so quickly when multiplied by time. Form is reduplicable, content is not reduplicable. Fiction has meaning but only in a given instant of time. Lee Lozano

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 10 January 2012 10:11:09AM 4 points [-]

It's clear to infer what he's getting at, but this reminds me of nothing quite so much as Timecube.

Comment author: HonoreDB 10 January 2012 05:53:05PM 0 points [-]

I think it would come across as less crazy if it didn't use the word "fiction." But then it probably wouldn't have gotten into MoMA.

Comment author: Alicorn 09 January 2012 06:04:02PM 12 points [-]

If some persons died, and others did not die, death would indeed be a terrible affliction.

--Jean de la Bruyère

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:14:30PM 0 points [-]

But we all die, so that makes death alright?

Comment author: Vaniver 18 January 2012 08:17:08PM 0 points [-]

That is one source of acceptance of death.

Comment author: Karmakaiser 09 January 2012 04:33:02PM *  12 points [-]

"A “lie-to-children” is a statement which is false, but which nevertheless leads the child’s mind towards a more accurate explanation, one that the child will only be able to appreciate if it has been primed with the lie." "Yes, you needed to understand that” they are told, “so that now we can tell you why it isn’t exactly true." It is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie".”

--(The Science of Discworld, Ebury Press edition, quotes from pp 41-42)

Comment author: cousin_it 09 January 2012 04:32:27PM *  18 points [-]

Chu-p’ing Man studied the art of killing dragons under Crippled Yi. It cost him all the thousand pieces of gold he had in his house, and after three years he'd mastered the art, but there was no one who could use his services. - Chuang Tzu

So he decided to teach others the art of kiling dragons. - René Thom

Comment author: [deleted] 08 January 2012 05:03:52PM 16 points [-]

... if anyone thinks they can get an accurate picture of anyplace on the planet by reading news reports, they're sadly mistaken.

--Bruce Schneier

Comment author: Grognor 08 January 2012 10:04:25AM 4 points [-]

What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way, — nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good and bad.

-William James

Comment author: Anubhav 08 January 2012 05:16:29AM 13 points [-]

Imagine willpower doesn't exist. That's step 1 to a better future.

Second slide of this powerpoint by Stanford's Persuasive Tech Lab.

Comment author: Alicorn 06 January 2012 09:19:01PM 12 points [-]

"This has been a good day... I haven't done a single thing that was stupid..."

"Have you done anything that was smart?"

--Peanuts (Nov. 23, 1981) by Charles Schulz

Comment author: GLaDOS 06 January 2012 09:42:21AM 18 points [-]

In questions of this appalling magnitude, I find the best way to "overcome bias" is often to find perspectives which seem to make each answer obvious. Once we recognize that both A and B are obviously true, and A is inconsistent with B, we are in the right mindset for actual thought.

--Mencius Moldbug

Comment author: Manfred 19 January 2012 07:37:43PM 0 points [-]

This sounds like bad advice. In Moldbug's application of it, for example, making things "obvious" corresponds to making bad arguments - arguments that, in some alternate reality, possibly made of straw, would correspond to some possibly straw person who found the argument very obvious. And then you say "well, obvious argument #1 is awful, so by process of elimination let's go with obvious argument #2! Q.E.D."

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:18:45PM 2 points [-]

Remember sources please; "How Dawkins got pwned (part 7)", 8 November 2007

Comment author: GLaDOS 19 January 2012 07:02:35PM 0 points [-]

You have a thing for Moldbug too, don't you? ^_^

Comment author: Alejandro1 06 January 2012 12:36:20AM 8 points [-]

As an experimental psychologist I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.

Steven Pinker, Words and Rules

Comment author: MixedNuts 07 January 2012 10:28:05AM 7 points [-]

Invertible fact alert: I can't tell if Pinker means that as (mostly) a good or a bad thing!

Comment author: gwern 18 January 2012 08:22:49PM 6 points [-]

I take it as ha ha only serious. Pinker knows that people are generally appallingly inaccurate and believe untruthful things, and that psychology is right to throw out every other belief and only depend on what it has rigorously verified; but he also knows the rigorous verification has been done on weird subjects and so psychology has thrown out a lot of correct beliefs as well. Accepting this tension is the mark of an educated man, as Aristotle says.

Comment author: nshepperd 07 January 2012 11:17:43AM 5 points [-]

Given the history of psychology as a field, I'd assume he's praising the merits of experimental evidence.

Comment author: [deleted] 05 January 2012 05:54:26PM *  0 points [-]

Learning proceeds for all in this way--through that which is less knowable by nature to that which is more knowable; and just as in conduct our task is to start from what is good for each and make what is without qualification good for each, so it is our task to start from what is more knowable to oneself and make what is knowable by nature knowable to oneself.

-Aristotle, Metaphysics

Comment author: [deleted] 05 January 2012 05:42:47PM 3 points [-]

Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena grow more and more able to formulate, as the foundations of their theories, principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development: while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations.

-Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 January 2012 04:30:08AM 4 points [-]

Never work against Mother Nature. You only succeed when you're working with her. --Cesar Milan, quoting his grandfather in Cesar's Way, a book about rehabilitating dogs

Comment author: [deleted] 05 January 2012 03:51:50AM *  14 points [-]

A critical analysis of the present global constellation -- one which offers no clear solution, no "practical" advice on what to do, and provides no light at the end of the tunnel, since one is well aware that this light might belong to a train crashing towards us -- usually meets with reproach: "Do you mean we should do nothing? Just sit and wait?" One should gather the courage to answer: "YES, precisely that!" There are situations when the only truly "practical" thing to do is to resist the temptation to engage immediately and to "wait and see" by means of a patient, critical analysis.

Slavoj Žižek, Violence, emphasis added. Admittedly not the most clear elucidation of the subject of how urgency (fabricated or otherwise) should affect ethical deliberation, but see also his essay "Jack Bauer and the Ethics of Urgency" -- if you're into that sort of thing.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 05 January 2012 02:40:57AM 6 points [-]

We made our oath to Vavilov
We'd not betray the solanum
The acres of asteraceae
To our own pangs of starvation

"When The War Came", by The Decemberists

(from memory, will fix any errors later)

Comment author: David_Gerard 05 January 2012 08:50:56AM 18 points [-]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov

"While developing his theory on the centres of origin of cultivated plants, Vavilov organized a series of botanical-agronomic expeditions, collected seeds from every corner of the globe, and created in Leningrad the world's largest collection of plant seeds. This seedbank was diligently preserved even throughout the 28-month Siege of Leningrad, despite starvation; one of Nikolai's assistants starved to death surrounded by edible seeds."

Comment author: Will_Newsome 05 January 2012 11:59:11AM 3 points [-]

Thank you kind sir.

Comment author: fortyeridania 05 January 2012 02:58:29AM 5 points [-]

Can you elucidate the connection to rationality?

Comment author: katydee 06 January 2012 06:00:17AM 15 points [-]

A few Google searches resolved this question for me, and proved very interesting besides. Vavilov was a Soviet botanist focused on the cultivation of efficient seeds to mitigate hunger. In World War Two, Vavilov's Leningrad seedbank came under siege by the Nazis, who apparently wanted to steal/destroy the seeds. Considering the supplies vital to Russia's long-term survival, several of the scientists swore oaths to protect the seedbank against German forces, starving foragers, and rats.

They succeeded in doing so. The scientist-guards were so loyal that many of them died of starvation despite being in a facility full of edible seeds, as well as potatoes, corn, rice, and wheat. The seedbank endured the siege and was replenished after the city was liberated.

Vavilov himself did not live to see the victory of his researchers, as he had been sent to a camp thanks to his disapproval of the scientific fraud of Lysenkoism and died (ironically, of malnutrition) before the war ended.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 06 January 2012 06:21:41AM 3 points [-]
Comment author: fortyeridania 06 January 2012 06:13:14AM 0 points [-]

That is awesome. Thanks.

Comment author: khafra 05 January 2012 06:02:20PM *  2 points [-]

At first glance, it looks like a clear case of Bayesians vs. Barbarians to me.

Comment author: wedrifid 05 January 2012 09:15:20AM *  0 points [-]

Can you elucidate the connection to rationality?

Can? Of course. "Will?" Less likely.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2012 10:04:36PM 18 points [-]

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

Francis Bacon

Comment author: fortyeridania 05 January 2012 02:47:06AM 0 points [-]

Wow, I'm surprised this had not been posted before. Good catch.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 January 2012 04:28:04AM 1 point [-]

I was very surprised, too. I'd found a similar quote-- one that that I'll put in a top-level comment-- and checked for the Bacon quote.

Comment author: Arran_Stirton 04 January 2012 04:57:26AM *  6 points [-]

While this quote isn't directly about rationality, it reminds me a good deal of Tsuyoku Naritai!.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt, The Man in the Arena

(Edit: Just to clarify as some might misinterpret the posting of this to be a knock on rationality, the relevance of this quote is that what counts is trying to solve problem. While with hindsight it's easy to say how (to pick a mundane example) one might work out the area under a curve once you already know calculus, it's not so easy to do it without that knowledge.)

Comment author: Alejandro1 03 January 2012 11:56:30PM *  12 points [-]

Prompted by Maniakes', but sufficiently different to post separately:

It cannot have escaped philosophers' attention that our fellow academics in other fields--especially in the sciences--often have difficulty suppressing their incredulous amusement when such topics as Twin Earth, Swampman, and Blockheads are posed for apparently serious consideration. Are the scientists just being philistines, betraying their tin ears for the subtleties of philosophical investigation, or have the philosophers who indulge in these exercises lost their grip on reality?

These bizarre examples all attempt to prove one "conceptual" point or another by deliberately reducing something underappreciated to zero, so that What Really Counts can shine through. Blockheads hold peripheral behavior constant and reduce internal structural details (and--what comes to the same thing--intervening internal processes) close to zero, and provoke the intuition that then there would be no mind there; internal structure Really Counts. Manthra is more or less the mirror-image; it keeps internal processes constant and reduces control of peripheral behavior to zero, showing, presumably, that external behavior Really Doesn't Count. Swampman keeps both future peripheral dispositions and internal states constant and reduces "history" to zero. Twin Earth sets internal similarity to maximum, so that external context can be demonstrated to be responsible for whatever our intuitions tell us. Thus these thought experiments mimic empirical experiments in their design, attempting to isolate a crucial interaction between variables by holding other variables constant. In the past I have often noted that a problem with such experiments is that the dependent variable is "intuition"--they are intuition pumps--and the contribution of imagination in the generation of intuitions is harder to control than philosophers have usually acknowledged.

But there is also a deeper problem with them. It is child's play to dream up further such examples to "prove" further conceptual points. Suppose a cow gave birth to something that was atom-for-atom indiscernible from a shark. Would it be a shark? What is the truth-maker for sharkhood? If you posed that question to a biologist, the charitable reaction would be that you were making a labored attempt at a joke. Suppose an evil demon could make water turn solid at room temperature by smiling at it; would demon-water be ice? Too silly a hypothesis to deserve a response. All such intuition pumps depend on the distinction spelled out by McLaughlin and O'Leary-Hawthorne between "conceptual" and "reductive" answers to the big questions. What I hadn't sufficiently appreciated in my earlier forthright response to Jackson is that when one says that the truth-maker question requires a conceptual answer, one means an answer that holds not just in our world, or all nomologically possible worlds, but in all logically possible worlds. Smiling demons, cow-sharks, Blockheads, and Swampmen are all, some philosophers think, logically possible, even if they are not nomologically possible, and these philosophers think this is important. I do not. Why should the truth-maker question cast its net this wide? Because, I gather, otherwise its answer doesn't tell us about the essence of the topic in question. But who believes in real essences of this sort nowadays? Not I.

Daniel Dennett, "Get Real" (emphasis added).

Comment author: David_Gerard 04 January 2012 02:36:28PM 2 points [-]

Bloody p-zombies. Argh. Yes.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 January 2012 12:13:56AM *  6 points [-]

"How would I explain the event of my left arm being replaced by a blue tentacle? The answer is that I wouldn't. It isn't going to happen."

Eliezer Yudkowsky

(Some discussions here, such as those involving such numbers as 3^^^3, give me the same feeling.)

Comment author: cousin_it 05 January 2012 12:03:22PM *  5 points [-]

I don't understand that quote. A good Bayesian should still pick the aposteriori most probable explanation for an improbable event, even if that explanation has very low prior probability before the event.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 January 2012 06:21:53AM 7 points [-]

I suspect the point is that it's not worthwhile to look for potential explanations for improbable events until they actually happen.

Comment author: APMason 15 January 2012 08:53:22PM 4 points [-]

I think it's more than that - he's saying that if you have a plausible explanation for an event, the event itself is plausible, explanations being models of the world. It's a warning against setting up excuses for why your model fails to predict the future in advance - you shouldn't expect your model to fail, so when it does you don't say, "Oh, here's how this extremely surprising event fits my model anyway." Instead, you say "damn, looks like I was wrong."

Comment author: APMason 15 January 2012 08:54:31PM 2 points [-]

I don't, however, think it's meant to be a warning against contrived thought experiments.

Comment author: WrongBot 04 January 2012 06:22:27PM *  2 points [-]

It's Yudkowsky. Sorry, pet peeve.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 January 2012 07:41:31PM 1 point [-]

Fixed.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2012 04:28:39PM 2 points [-]

Is Eliezer claiming that we aren't living in a simulation, claiming that if we are living in a simulation, it's extremely unlikely to generate wild anomalies, or claiming that anything other than those two is vanishingly unlikely?

Comment author: Arran_Stirton 04 January 2012 04:05:28AM 0 points [-]

Sorry to be so ignorant but what is 3^^^3? Google yielded no satisfactory results...

Comment author: MinibearRex 04 January 2012 04:22:00AM 4 points [-]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_arrow

TheOtherDave's other comment summed up what it means practically. Also, see http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torturevsdust_specks/.

Comment author: Arran_Stirton 04 January 2012 04:47:27AM 1 point [-]

Ah thank you, that clarifies things greatly! Up-voted for the technical explanation.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 January 2012 04:18:07AM 1 point [-]

A number so ridiculously big that 3^^^3 * X can be assumed to be bigger than Y for pretty much any values of X and Y.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 January 2012 12:32:02AM *  5 points [-]

Absolutely: I strongly recommend you not try to explain how 3^^^3 people might all get a dustspeck in their eye without anything else happening as a consequence, for example.

Comment author: scmbradley 03 January 2012 11:13:21PM *  -1 points [-]

it is clear that each party to this dispute – as to all that persist through long periods of time – is partly right and partly wrong

— Bertrand Russell History of Western Philosophy (from the introduction, again.)

Comment author: Manfred 04 January 2012 08:05:54PM 1 point [-]

Generalization'd.

Comment author: scmbradley 17 January 2012 05:05:27PM 0 points [-]

Sorry I'm new. I don't understand. What do you mean?

Comment author: Manfred 18 January 2012 12:31:28AM *  1 point [-]

Um, so the " 'd " suggests that something has been affected by a noun.

In this case, the statement "every disputant is partly right and partly wrong" is affected by generalization. In that it is, er, a false generalization.

Comment author: scmbradley 18 January 2012 03:25:37PM 0 points [-]

What do you mean "the statement is affected by a generalisation"? What does it mean for something to be "affected by a generalisation"? What does it mean for a statement to be "affected"?

The claim is a general one. Are general claims always false? I highly doubt that. That said, this generalisation might be false, but it seems like establishing that would require more than just pointing out that the claim is general.

Comment author: Manfred 18 January 2012 06:33:59PM 0 points [-]

Right. So calling it a "false generalization" needed two words.

Anyhow: Where does the sun go at night? How big is the earth? Is it harmful to market cigarettes to teenagers? Is Fermat's last theorem true? Can you square the circle? Will heathens burn in hell for all eternity?

Comment author: scmbradley 19 January 2012 11:10:55AM 0 points [-]

Er. What? You can call it a false generalisation all you like, that isn't in itself enough to convince me it is false. (It may well be false, that's not what's at stake here). You seem to be suggesting that merely by calling it a generalisation is enough to impugn its status.

And in homage to your unconvential arguing style, here are some non sequituurs: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Did Thomas Aquinas prefer red wine or white wine? Was Stalin lefthanded? What colour were Sherlock Holmes' eyes?

Comment author: Manfred 19 January 2012 11:56:27AM 1 point [-]

Suppose that I wanted to demonstrate conclusively that a generalization was false. I would have to provide one or more counterexamples. What sort of thing would be a counterexample to the claim "each party to all disputes that persist through long periods of time is partly right and partly wrong?" Well, it would have to be a dispute that persisted through long periods of time, but in which there was a party that was not partly right and partly wrong.

So in my above reply, I listed some disputes that persisted for long periods of time, but in which there was (or is) a party that was not partly right and partly wrong.

Comment author: scmbradley 19 January 2012 01:50:52PM 0 points [-]

Ah I see now. Glad we cleared that up.

Still, I think there's something to the idea that if there is a genuine debate about some claim that lasts a long time, then there might well be some truth on either side. So perhaps Russell was wrong to universally quantify over "debates" (as your counterexamples might show), but I think there is something to the claim.

Comment author: scmbradley 03 January 2012 11:12:02PM *  9 points [-]

Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales

— Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (from the introduction)

Comment author: Maniakes 03 January 2012 08:24:54PM 12 points [-]

I replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, "I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? [...] As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"

-- Milton Friedman

Comment author: Document 10 January 2012 03:18:36AM 0 points [-]

What would you think of someone who said, "I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"?

That since their preference harms nobody (apart from unadopted cats) and the utility function is not up for grabs, I have no grounds to criticize them?

Comment author: Maniakes 10 January 2012 06:48:19AM 2 points [-]

The preference alone is mostly harmless. When the preference is combined with the misapprehension that the preference can be fulfilled, it may harm the person asserting the preference if it leads them to make a bad choice between a meowing cat, a barking dog, or delaying the purchase of a pet.

If the preference order were (1. Barking Cat, 2. Barking Dog, 3. Meowing Cat, 4. No Pet), then the belief that a cat could be taught to bark could lead to the purchase/adoption of a meowing cat instead of the (preferred) barking dog.

Likewise, in the above preference order, or with 2 and 3 reversed, the belief in barking cats could also lead to the person delaying the selection of a pet due to the hope that a continued search would turn up a barking cat.

The problem is magnified, and more failure modes added, when we consider cases of group decision-making.

Comment author: dlthomas 10 January 2012 09:04:01PM 1 point [-]

"I would like to have a cat, provided it barked" states that U(barking cat) > U(no cat) > U(nonbarking* cat). Preferring a meowing cat to no cat is a contradiction of what was stated. The issue you raise can still be seen with U(barking cat) > U(barking dog) > U(no pet) > U(nonbarking cat), however - a belief in the attainability of the barking cat may cause someone to delay the purchase of a barking dog that would make them happier.

*In common usage, I expect that we should restrict it from "any nonbarking cat" to "ordinary cat", based on totally subjective intuitions. I would not be surprised by someone who said "I would like an X, provided it Y" for a seemingly unattainable Y, and would not have considered whether they would want an X that Z for some other seemingly unattainable Z. I think they just would have compared the unusual specimen to the typical specimen and concluded they want the former and don't want the latter. This is mostly immaterial here, I think.

Comment author: Maniakes 11 January 2012 08:37:18AM 2 points [-]

I stand corrected.

Comment author: Document 10 January 2012 07:58:38AM 0 points [-]

If the preference order were (1. Barking Cat, 2. Barking Dog, 3. Meowing Cat, 4. No Pet)

That's strictly ruled out by the wording in the quote. While people often miscommunicate their preferences, I don't see particular evidence of it there, or even that the hypothetical person is under a misapprehension.

To take it back to metaphor: the flip side of wishful thinking is the sour grapes fallacy, and while the quote doesn't explicitly commit it, without context it's close enough to put me moderately on guard.

Comment author: Maniakes 10 January 2012 08:53:04PM 2 points [-]

Here is the full article from which the quote was taken: http://www.johnlatour.com/barking_cats.htm

Comment author: gwern 03 January 2012 10:09:27PM 2 points [-]

cannot demand that cats bark or water burn

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong.

Comment author: Maniakes 03 January 2012 11:01:32PM 11 points [-]

There are valid quibbles and exceptions on both counts. Some breeds of cats make vocalizations that can reasonably be described as "barking", and water will burn if there are sufficient concentrations of either an oxidizer much stronger than oxygen (such as chlorine triflouride) or a reducing agent much stronger than hydrogen (such as elemental sodium).

In the general case, though, water will not burn under normal circumstances, and most cats are physiologically incapable of barking.

The point of the quote is that objects and systems do have innate qualities that shape and limit their behaviour, and that this effect is present in social systems studied by economists as well as in physical systems studied by chemists and biologists. In the original context (which I elided because politics is the mind killer, and because any particular application of the principle is subject to empirical debate as to its validity), Friedman was following up on an article about how political economy considerations incline regulatory agencies towards socially suboptimal decisions, addressing responses that assumed that the political economy pressures could easily be designed away by revising the agencies' structures.

Comment author: Manfred 03 January 2012 10:55:21PM 3 points [-]

pfsch. You can burn water if you add salt and radio waves. Or if you put it in an atmosphere containing a reactive fluorine compound. Etc etc etc.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 January 2012 10:25:44PM 7 points [-]
Comment author: gwern 03 January 2012 10:59:34PM 1 point [-]

I was actually thinking in terms of 'cats can deliberately meow in an annoying fashion (abstract) like human infants and this behaviors seems perfectly modifiable, so a transhumanist could have a decent reason for preferring cats to bark than meow; and this is really stupid anyway, since we can change cats easily - we certainly can demand cats bark - but we can't change physis easily and can't demand water burn'.

Comment author: khafra 03 January 2012 05:02:23AM 30 points [-]

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

-- H. L. Mencken, describing halo bias before it was named

Comment author: majus 13 January 2012 05:26:04PM 8 points [-]

I like the pithy description of halo bias. I don't like or agree with Mencken's non-nuanced view of idealists. it's sarcastically funny, like "a liberal is one who believes you can pick up a dog turd by the clean end", but being funny doesn't make it more true.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 17 January 2012 06:30:30PM 1 point [-]

The point is that idealists suffer from a halo bias around their chosen ideal.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 04 January 2012 01:08:40AM 4 points [-]

Do roses make for good soup? They make for good chocolate.

Comment author: scmbradley 17 January 2012 05:11:59PM 3 points [-]

I've had rosewater flavoured ice cream.

I bet cabbage ice cream does not taste as nice.

Comment author: Vaniver 04 January 2012 04:35:33AM 5 points [-]

Do roses make for good soup?

Rose water is used for flavoring, sometimes. Roses have essentially no nutritional value, though, and cabbages are widely held to taste better than they smell.

Comment author: lessdazed 02 January 2012 09:26:01PM 4 points [-]

A soldier should always seek the most desperate post that has to be filled.

--William Ransom Johnson Pegram

Comment author: Stabilizer 02 January 2012 05:58:19PM 30 points [-]

The road to wisdom? — Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.

--Piet Hein

Lesswrong!

Comment author: Raemon 05 January 2012 11:42:02PM 1 point [-]

This has been quoted by Yvain before, but not here.

Comment author: gwern 03 January 2012 06:42:04PM 1 point [-]

I was very surprised to see this was not a dupe; checking, the copy in my Mnemosyne was simply taken straight from a collection of his grooks. A missed opportunity.

Comment author: Dustin 05 January 2012 06:01:15PM 0 points [-]

Do you mean you have a deck for quotes? As I'm just getting into trying out spaced repetition and trying to come up with things to memorize, I'm wondering about your reasons for memorizing quotes (if that is indeed what you're doing). Do you have some sort of system of question/answer pairs that help you remember quotes that are applicable to certain situations? Or are you trying to memorize quote authors? Or what?

Comment author: gwern 05 January 2012 06:06:03PM 4 points [-]

I add quotes because it's a handy sort of quotes file (many people keep them) and because I like being able to reel off quotes or just have them handy in my memory for writing.

There's nothing fancy about them: the question is the quote, and the answer is all the sourcing and bibliographi information. I grade them based on whether I feel I could paraphrase them in a relevant context. ("Ah yes, good old Box's quote about how 'all models are wrong but some are useful'. Good to remember for statistical discussions. Mark that one a 4.")

Comment author: ahartell 06 January 2012 10:16:53PM 0 points [-]

Are the decks you personally use available anywhere?

Comment author: gwern 06 January 2012 10:52:17PM 2 points [-]
Comment author: ahartell 06 January 2012 11:41:17PM 0 points [-]

Thanks a bunch :)

Comment author: Stabilizer 02 January 2012 05:57:00PM 0 points [-]

The road to wisdom? — Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again but less and less and less.

--Piet Hein

Lesswrong!

Comment author: WrongBot 04 January 2012 06:24:58PM *  0 points [-]

You can edit your own comments, for future reference. There's an icon in the bottom right of the comment that looks like a pencil over some paper.

Edit: Wait, you crossed out this comment so you must already know that. I am confused!

Comment author: Stabilizer 05 January 2012 07:01:45AM 0 points [-]

I knew that it was possible to edit comments. It was just that it didn't occur to me at that particular point of time. I saw 'Retract' and thought it was my best bet.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 05 January 2012 02:01:01AM *  3 points [-]

Edit: Wait, you crossed out this comment so you must already know that. I am confused!

Getting crossed out is what happens to comments when they're retracted.

Comment author: WrongBot 05 January 2012 07:34:36AM 0 points [-]

Ah, thank you for clarifying.

Comment author: MixedNuts 02 January 2012 02:20:33PM 13 points [-]

The ultimate theological question is: ‘Where does the Sun go at night?’.

The answer that so many civilisations agreed for so long was: ‘The Sun is driven by one of the gods, and at night it goes under the Earth to fight a battle. There is at least some risk that the god will lose this battle, and so the Sun may not rise tomorrow’. It’s something the human race understood was a cast iron fact before they knew how to cast iron. It survived as the working model twenty-five times longer than the four hundred years we’ve understood the Earth goes around the Sun.

Lance Parkin, Above us only sky

This is less a rationality quote than a "yay science" quote, but I find that impressive beyond words. For millenia that was a huge and frightening question, and then we went and answered it, and now it's too trivial to point out. We found out where the sun goes at night. I want to carve a primer on cosmology in gold letters on a mountain, entitled something in all caps along the lines of "HERE IS THE GLORY OF HUMANKIND".

Comment author: tut 03 January 2012 06:29:45PM 2 points [-]

I want to carve a primer on cosmology in gold letters on a mountain

Do you mean cosmology or astronomy?

Comment author: MixedNuts 05 January 2012 02:40:59PM 5 points [-]

Both. Cosmological content: "stuff goes around other stuff"; astronomical content: "this applies to the stuff we sit on"; philosophical content: "finding this out proves we are awesome"; gastronomical content: "here's a recipe for cake to celebrate".

Comment author: RichardKennaway 03 January 2012 01:19:03PM *  8 points [-]

It survived as the working model twenty-five times longer than the four hundred years we’ve understood the Earth goes around the Sun.

Is it excessive nitpicking to point out that the daily disappearance and reappearance of the Sun has to do with the Earth's rotation on its axis, not its rotation about the Sun? (Probably not, as the first comment on Parkin's blog posting points out the same.)

Comment author: Will_Newsome 04 January 2012 01:12:43AM *  5 points [-]

Is it excessive nitpicking to note that not only did he misuse the word "ultimate", he used it to mean basically the opposite of what it actually means?

Comment author: Daru 10 January 2012 06:15:46AM 1 point [-]

No. Thank you for inspiring me to look up the word and learn its true meaning.

Comment author: fortyeridania 02 January 2012 12:04:37PM 10 points [-]

Songs can be Trojan horses, taking charged ideas and sneaking past the ego's defenses and into the open mind.

John Mayer, Esquire (the magazine, not the social/occupational title)

Comment author: fortyeridania 02 January 2012 12:03:22PM 14 points [-]

The truth is common property. You can't distinguish your group by doing things that are rational, and believing things that are true.

Paul Graham, Lies We Tell Kids

Comment author: wedrifid 02 January 2012 01:59:13PM 11 points [-]

The truth is common property. You can't distinguish your group by doing things that are rational, and believing things that are true.

It would seem that if no other humans are behaving rationality and your group is behaving rationally then even Sesame St could tell you which of these things is not the same.

Comment author: roystgnr 05 January 2012 08:19:01PM 3 points [-]

If no other groups of humans are behaving as rationally as yours is, then it's likely no other humans are capable of easily identifying that your group is the one with the high level of uniquely rational behavior. To the extent that other groups can identify rational behaviors of yours, they will have already adopted them and will not consider you unique for having adopted them too.

You can signal the uniqueness your group by believing and doing things that are both rational and unpopular, but to most outsiders this only signals uniqueness, not rationality, because the reason such things are unpopular is because most people don't find them to be obviously rational. And the outsiders are usually right: even though they're wrong in your particular actually-is-rational case, that's outnumbered by the other cases which, from the outside, all appear to be similar arational group-identifying behaviors and rationalizations thereof. E.g. at first glance there's not a huge difference between "I'm going to get frozen after I die", "I don't eat pork", "I avoid caffeine and hot drinks", etc.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 January 2012 06:26:56AM 2 points [-]

Depends on how immediate and/or dramatic the benefits of the rational behavior are.

Comment author: wedrifid 05 January 2012 08:32:05PM 2 points [-]

To the extent that other groups can identify rational behaviors of yours, they will have already adopted them and will not consider you unique for having adopted them too.

Not actually true. I'd like it to be!

Comment author: TheOtherDave 05 January 2012 09:04:03PM 0 points [-]

Damn skippy.

I'd even settle for the above being true of my group with respect to other groups.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 03 January 2012 08:57:42AM 2 points [-]

It would seem that if no other humans are behaving rationally

then you're probably insanely wrong.

Comment author: wedrifid 03 January 2012 09:11:54AM *  1 point [-]

then you're probably insanely wrong.

Why do you say that? That doesn't sound true. Humans are monkeys - I should be surprised if a group of monkeys acts perfectly rational. I suggest that any insanity that however insane I may be this issue is straightforward.