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Ezekiel comments on Rationality Quotes April 2012 - Less Wrong
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Knowing about evolution is pretty cool, but I'd be a lot more satisfied if I could believe that we were created as the pinnacle of design by a super-awesome Thing that had a specific plan in mind (and that my nation - and, come to that, tribe -was even more pinnacle than everyone else).
...and if it turned out that believing that particular falsehood didn't have consequences that left you less satisfied.
Okay, hypothetical: Dying human. They believed in God their entire life and have lived as basically decent according to their own ethics, and therefore think they're going to be blissing out for the rest of infinity. They will believe this for the next couple of minutes, and then stop existing.
Would you, given the opportunity, dispel their illusion?
Depends on what I expected the result of doing so to be.
If I expected the result to be that they are more unhappy than they otherwise would be for the rest of their lives with no other compensating benefit (which is certainly the conclusion your hypothetical encourages), then no I wouldn't.
If I expected the result to be either that they are happier than they otherwise would be for the rest of their lives, or that there is some other compensating benefit to them knowing what will actually happen, then yes I would.
Why do you ask?
Because this is (to my mind) an example of a situation where the facts aren't friendly and the truth is harmful - thus (hopefully) justifying my objection to the original quote.
OK. Thanks for clarifying.
Yes, the whole statement has an implicit "In the real world" premise.
I'd be happy if I had a magic wand that could violate the second law of thermodynamics, but in the real world . . .
I wasn't clear. Believing that would make me happy even if it wasn't true. There's no reason to assume reality would be nice enough to only hand us facts that we find satisfying.
If you happen to have a brain that finds the process of learning more satisfying than any possible falsehood, then that's great... But I don't think many people have that advantage.
You sound pretty confident that, if you believed that we were created as the pinnacle of design by a super-awesome Thing that had a specific plan in mind, and that your nation/tribe was even more pinnacle than everyone else, you would be happier than you are now.
Can you clarify your reasons for believing that? I mean, I grew up with a lot of people who believe that, and as a class they didn't seem noticeably happier than the people who didn't, so I'm inclined to doubt it. But I'm convinceable.
You got me, since during the time I did believe that I was a lot less happy than I am now, because that falsehood was part of a whole set of falsehoods which led to annoying obligations. But I do distinctly remember being satisfied with knowing the ultimate goal of the universe and my place in it, and how realising the truth made me feel unsatisfied.
The statement "the truth is never an unsatisfying thing" seems to be affect-heuristic reasoning: going from "truth is useful" to "truth is good" to "truth always feels good to know".
Sure. To the extent that you're simply arguing that the initial quote overreaches, I'm not disagreeing with you. But you seemed to be making more positive claims about the value of ignorance.
There's a substantial minority in the community that dislikes the Litany of Gendlin, so you have plenty of company here.
But even granting the premise that believing true things conflicts with being happy, believing true things has been useful for achieving every other type of goal. So it seems like you are endorsing trading off achievement of other goals in order to maximize happiness. Without challenging your decision to adopt particular terminal values, I am unsure if your chosen tradeoff is sustainable.
I'm not endorsing that, for exactly the reason you said: knowing stuff, on average, will let you achieve your goals. The original quote, though, stated that the truth is "never unsatisfying", which seemed to me to be a false statement.