Rationality Quotes June 2012

4 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 02 June 2012 05:14PM

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  • Do not quote yourself
  • Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB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 (413)

Comment author: [deleted] 26 June 2012 09:10:46PM 1 point [-]

On lost purposes:

The therapy changed my life. It feels as if I added a new sense to my palate of senses. I feel as if I was color blind for many years and at last I can see every color. Now that I’ve learned to recognize my pain, I can do something about it. I am so much happier today than I ever was before. While my friends may not have consciously recognized the big change in me, they have stopped calling me clueless and now often come to me for advice.

Did this solve my problem of tiredness? When Ella Friedman told me that I was no longer depressed, I still felt tired. I started investigating it further. It turns out that the depression was a result of the tiredness, not the other way around. It seems that I have a sleeping disorder and an iron problem.

-- Tanya Khovanova

Comment author: David_Gerard 25 June 2012 10:29:56AM 7 points [-]

It is better to build a seismograph than to worship the volcano.

-- Terry Pratchett (on Nation)

Comment author: GLaDOS 23 June 2012 01:34:50PM *  8 points [-]

In the past I have made an analogy between science and the Roman Catholic Church, despite the discomfort of some readers. I go back to that now. The Catholic Church of the years during which Erasmus flourished was quite corrupt. It is upon this fertile ground that the printing press added some combustible fuel. But despite his influence upon them Erasmus could never be convinced by the Reformers to leave the Church. Why? Erasmus was a critic of the Church, but he also perceived in it a superior product to what Protestantism had on offer. At any given moment science is rather like the Catholic Church, riddled with falsehood. But it is the best we have, and we should attempt to work within its institutional framework, rather tearing it apart limb from limb. That was Erasmus’ position. He may have been a critic, but ultimately he thought the institution could be genuinely reformed. The struggle never ends, but we can’t see any returns if we give up immediately.

--Razib Khan, The Erasmus Path in Science

Comment author: David_Gerard 23 June 2012 01:21:11PM 8 points [-]

The biggest threat to an artist is neither piracy nor obscurity. It's dicking around on the internet.

-- James L. Sutter

Comment author: arundelo 22 June 2012 03:38:27PM 4 points [-]

If we find out tomorrow that the universe is made of jello, all we will have learned about morality is that it, like everything else, is ultimately jello-dependent.

-- Will Wilkinson

Comment author: [deleted] 20 June 2012 02:36:24AM 0 points [-]

I love truth. It's such a wonderful thing. It makes you sane, helps you make better, more effective decisions and it irks all the right people. -Aaron Clarey aka "Captain Capitalism"

Comment author: Alicorn 19 June 2012 06:46:23PM *  6 points [-]

"But say an assembled force of divine beings had teamed up and got everybody to evacuate the coasts.”

“Yeah, say they did,” I said. “Where’s the downside?”

“Maybe there isn’t one,” Steff said. “But if they’re doing that, what about all the people who died from fires or plagues or war or basic stupidity at the same time?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the gods should just a more pro-active stance on that stuff anyway.”

“Okay, but… where does it stop?”

“Maybe it stops when everybody’s safe!” I said...

(I read it for the worldbuilding...)

Comment author: taelor 21 June 2012 11:41:11PM -2 points [-]

(I read it for the worldbuilding...)

That is the exact same justification, to the word, that I give for reading it.

Comment author: Alicorn 22 June 2012 12:53:58AM -2 points [-]

It's a good reason!

Comment author: Multiheaded 17 June 2012 06:34:31AM *  -1 points [-]

Buy pizza, pay with snakes.

  • Advice Dog
Comment author: Desrtopa 23 June 2012 02:36:52PM 2 points [-]

I'm curious as to the algorithm that flagged this as a rationality quote.

Comment author: Multiheaded 23 June 2012 02:47:04PM *  2 points [-]

Well, mostly it was just me having... uhm... an episode, but the idea of getting something you want by giving away something you'd like to get rid of - and being on the lookout for an opportunity to do so - is indeed quite rational. It's just that there are few such excellent opportunities in daily life, and the "getting rid" part often has delayed costs that come back to you later. Like the delivery guy calling the police.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 16 June 2012 09:57:19PM 7 points [-]

Indeed the authority of those who profess to teach is often a positive hindrance to those who desire to learn; they cease to employ their own judgement, and take what they perceive to be the verdict of their chosen master as settling the question. In fact I am not disposed to approve the practice traditionally ascribed to the Pythagoreans, who, when questioned as to the grounds of any assertion that they advanced in debate, are said to have been accustomed to reply 'He himself said so', 'he himself' being Pythagoras. So potent was an opinion already decided, making authority prevail unsupported by reason.

Cicero, De Natura Deorum

Comment author: thespymachine 15 June 2012 08:27:57PM -1 points [-]

"I must die. But must I die bawling?"

  • Epictetus
Comment author: GESBoulder 14 June 2012 06:33:21PM 4 points [-]

Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 14 June 2012 01:52:02PM 2 points [-]

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

--Marie Curie

Comment author: Bakkot 24 June 2012 12:11:51AM 9 points [-]

Given that she died from overexposure to radiation, I'm not sure how seriously I can take this.

Comment author: Desrtopa 24 June 2012 03:23:34AM 2 points [-]

Well, now people who are in the know can avoid fear by knowing to avoid doing the stuff that she did. It's mostly the people who believe that radiation is dangerously little understood to whom it seems scary.

Of course, I'd have to say the quote is still incorrect. If I understand that I'm a prisoner of war who's going to be tortured to make my superiors want to ransom me more, I'm damn well going to be afraid.

But I still find "Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less" awfully uplifting.

Comment author: gwern 24 June 2012 03:10:51AM 3 points [-]

So the science gets done, and you make a neat quote, for the people who are still alive.

Comment author: CaveJohnson 13 June 2012 03:00:40PM 17 points [-]

In general, nothing is more difficult than not pretending to understand.

--Nicolás Gómez Dávila, source

Comment author: MinibearRex 15 June 2012 05:34:54AM 6 points [-]

I liked the quote, once I figured out how all the negatives interacted with each other.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 June 2012 04:01:34PM -1 points [-]

Too true.

Comment author: Nornagest 13 June 2012 03:36:21AM *  0 points [-]

There is no evidence to show that man is created and accoutered to serve as God's vice-regent upon the earth. There is no reason to believe that he is naturally good and kind and brave and wise, or ever was. On the contrary, there is much to show that he is a beast, that has taken a strange turning in the jungle and blundered rather aimlessly into a mental world in which he is certainly not at home. [...]

That is his beauty and his significance: that out of the primordial forces of sex and survival he has forged reason and science, and spun the gossamer splendor of art and love. [...]

If we wish identity with a greater power, let us seek a union with ourself -- our total self raised to its highest potential of wisdom, knowledge, and experience. If we wish to unite with the universe, let us court the whole of nature, all experience, all truth, the wonder and the terror, the splendor and the pity and the pain of the awesome cosmos itself.

Jack Parsons

Comment author: stcredzero 15 June 2012 06:24:29PM *  1 point [-]

I think this quote is like a paraphrase of, "a sense that something more is possible." Imagine if someone invented a drug that gave chimpanzees the highest human levels of rationality at random intervals, for a total of about a half hour per day. They'd be pretty much like humans, only physically stronger.

EDIT: Downvoted? My comment is negative about humans, but it's hopeful. Human nature is pretty squalid, but there is plenty of opportunity for improvement. (Imagine if we could get the median human to the point where they're operating with clarity twice as much as they are now. Or for that matter, imagine myself.)

Comment author: Pavitra 13 June 2012 02:20:58AM 21 points [-]

Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is. What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you. And it does, actually; it does. Go look outside. You can’t tell me that we are done making the world.

Tycho

Comment author: witzvo 12 June 2012 06:06:46PM *  5 points [-]

There was a time in my life when I couldn't get anything done. ...

Perfectionism, which was always a friend, turned into my worst enemy. ...

I've heard that "perfect is the enemy of good enough" many times, but the repressed artist in me refused to accept this as truth. ...

Eventually I lucked out. By accident (or was it an accident?) I stumbled on the fascinating Book of Tea which led me to the concept of Wabi-sabi - the Japanese art of imperfect beauty. ...

Looking at Wabi-sabi objects was a breath of fresh air. Inability to achieve any lasting perfection is not fought, but embraced via lack of symmetry, respect for blemishes, and unsanitized simplicity. Imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness is incorporated directly into the design - a simple idea that cuts the disease of perfectionism at its core. ...

Real artists ship.

Slava Akhmechet see also Enso and the rest

Comment author: beoShaffer 12 June 2012 02:29:40AM 0 points [-]

When you choose technology, you have to ignore what other people are doing, and consider only what will work the best. -Paul Graham

Comment author: robertskmiles 15 June 2012 03:22:25PM 3 points [-]

Unless your technology will be required to interact with the technology other people are using, which is most of the time. "What will work best" often depends heavily on "what other people are doing".

Comment author: shokwave 15 June 2012 03:33:02PM 3 points [-]

No, at that point you still only consider what will work the best. It's a nitpick, but "what will work the best when others do this" is a different question to "what are the other people doing".

Comment author: robertskmiles 15 June 2012 04:11:11PM *  3 points [-]

Absolutely. What I mean is that they are incompatible. In the common case, it's impossible to simultaneously "consider what will work best" and "ignore what other people are doing". Figuring out what will work best requires paying attention to what other people are doing.

Comment author: soreff 14 June 2012 06:54:45PM 2 points [-]

One of the things that other people do is to build standard parts. If one has an unlimited budget, one can ignore them, and build everything in a project from optimized custom parts. This is rare.

Comment author: wedrifid 12 June 2012 02:58:19AM 3 points [-]

When you choose technology, you have to ignore what other people are doing, and consider only what will work the best. -Paul Graham

I find myself doing the latter via reference to the former.

Comment author: Alicorn 11 June 2012 07:09:59PM 27 points [-]

Do you ever get the feeling that God has a plan?

And you're the only one who can stop it?

Comment author: roland 11 June 2012 01:13:55AM *  6 points [-]

Common sense is not so common. -- Voltaire

Comment author: Pavitra 12 June 2012 02:01:25AM *  3 points [-]

Shhh. My common sense is tingling.

Deadpool

Comment author: gwern 09 June 2012 04:31:48PM 10 points [-]

I favor any skepsis to which I may reply: 'Let us try it!' But I no longer wish to hear anything of all those things and questions that do not permit any experiment.

--Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science #51

Comment author: Gastogh 09 June 2012 04:15:59PM *  -1 points [-]

Whatever doubt or doctrinal Atheism you and your friends may have, don't fall into moral atheism.

-Charles Kingsley

Comment author: Ben_Welchner 09 June 2012 04:33:29PM 0 points [-]

Explain?

Comment author: Gastogh 10 June 2012 07:18:02PM 1 point [-]

It paraphrases the bottom line of the metaethics sequence - or what I took to be the bottom line of those posts, anyway. Namely, that one can have values and a naturalistic worldview at the same time.

Comment author: VKS 10 June 2012 07:34:49PM *  3 points [-]

So, having values is moral theism? The choice of words seems suspect.

Comment author: Gastogh 10 June 2012 09:29:08PM 0 points [-]

I'd say "moral atheism" is being used as an idiomatic expression; a set of more than one word with a meaning that's gestalt to its individual components. One of the synonyms for "atheism" is "godlessness", so by analogy "moral atheism" would just mean "morality-lessness".

Comment author: VKS 10 June 2012 11:17:33PM *  5 points [-]

We have a word for "morality-lessness", and it is amorality, which coincidentally works more naturally in your analogy: If morality is analogous to theism, then a-morality is analogous to a-theism.

I hope you understand my trouble with the use of an idiom that implicitly equates morality with theism. (Well, amorality with atheism, which is more the problem.)

(sorry about all the edits, this was written horribly.)

Comment author: TimS 08 June 2012 07:40:40PM -1 points [-]

What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

Judge Learned Hand

Comment author: Mass_Driver 15 June 2012 03:10:51AM 7 points [-]

I like Judge Learned Hand, but I think this particular quote is just Deep Wisdom. Living in a pleasant society requires both good laws and good people. There is very little substantive content in LH's oratory. He could just as easily have made the opposite point:

What does it mean to strive for fairness or impartiality? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon virtue, upon self-discipline, and upon honor. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Justice is simply a matter of fair play; when the rules are made to be broken, no amount of personal virtue can keep a man from temptation, and when the rules are honestly followed by one's peers, no special virtue is needed to join them.

Comment author: Gust 11 June 2012 04:44:42AM 1 point [-]

I like the quote, but I don't see how it relates to rationality.

Comment author: TimS 11 June 2012 11:18:52AM *  1 point [-]

There are people in the real world who think that having a good enough decision-making process for making moral decisions (like deciding the right result in litigation) ensures a morally upright decision.

Up to this point, decision-making procedures have always been implemented by humans, so the quality of the decision-making process is not enough to ensure that a morally upright decision will be made. The better guarantee of morally upright decision-making is morally upright decision-makers.

Comment author: VKS 08 June 2012 11:13:33AM *  19 points [-]

I am reminded of a commentary on logic puzzles of a certain kind; it was perhaps in a letter to Martin Gardner, reprinted in one of his books. The puzzles are those about getting about on an island where each native either always tells the truth or always lies. You reach a fork in the road, for example, and a native is standing there, and you want to learn from him, with one question, which way leads to the village. The “correct” question is “If I asked you if the left way led to the village, would you say yes?” But why should the native’s concept of lying conform to our own logical ideas? If the native is a liar, it means he wants to fool you, and your logical trickery will not work. The best you can do is say something like “Did you hear they are giving away free beer in the village today?” and see which way the native runs. You follow him, even if he says something like “Ugh, I hate beer!” since then he probably really is lying.

  • Alexandre Borovik, quoting an unidentified colleague, paraphrasing another unidentified source, possibly Martin Gardner quoting a letter he got.
Comment author: Fyrius 18 June 2012 11:23:20AM *  5 points [-]

It seems to make the same point as the Parable of the Dagger.

(I.e.: logic games are fun and all, but don't expect things to work that way in the real world. Or: it's valuable to know the difference between intelligent thinking and smart-assery.)

Comment author: witzvo 08 June 2012 06:19:10AM *  1 point [-]

Here, we report that colonization by gut microbiota impacts mammalian brain development and subsequent adult behavior. Using measures of motor activity and anxiety-like behavior, we demonstrate that germ free (GF) mice display increased motor activity and reduced anxiety, compared with specific pathogen free (SPF) mice with a normal gut micro- biota. ... Hence, our results suggest that the microbial colonization process initiates signaling mechanisms that affect neuronal circuits involved in motor control and anxiety behavior.

--Hejitz et.al.

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 08 June 2012 07:58:58AM 2 points [-]

What's the significance of this?

Comment author: witzvo 08 June 2012 08:06:31AM *  1 point [-]

Intestinal bacteria have an effect on the nervous system: they affect how we think and how we feel and how our mind develops. This is pretty recent science written by scientists about the function of our mind (or murine minds, at least). That makes it an interesting rationality quote, in my opinion.

Comment author: Swimmer963 08 June 2012 01:46:15PM 1 point [-]

Really? If true, then that is fascinating... Can you link to any of the recent research, though?

Comment author: witzvo 09 June 2012 02:45:47AM *  2 points [-]

EDIT: by popular demand. I'll be moving this to a discussion instead.

EDIT: the discussion thread is here

As in the attribution, I'm quoting from: Hejitz et.al.: Normal gut microbiota modulates brain development and behavior, 2011.

Here is a review paper.

See also the current special section of science magazine, or google scholar.

Here's the abstract from The Relationship Between Intestinal Microbiota and the Central Nervous System in Normal Gastrointestinal Function and Disease00346-1/abstract):

Although many people are aware of the communication that occurs between the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and the central nervous system, fewer know about the ability of the central nervous system to influence the microbiota or of the microbiota's influence on the brain and behavior. Within the GI tract, the microbiota have a mutually beneficial relationship with their host that maintains normal mucosal immune function, epithelial barrier integrity, motility, and nutrient absorption. Disruption of this relationship alters GI function and disease susceptibility. Animal studies suggest that perturbations of behavior, such as stress, can change the composition of the microbiota; these changes are associated with increased vulnerability to inflammatory stimuli in the GI tract. The mechanisms that underlie these alterations are likely to involve stress-induced changes in GI physiology that alter the habitat of enteric bacteria. Furthermore, experimental perturbation of the microbiota can alter behavior, and the behavior of germ-free mice differs from that of colonized mice. Gaining a better understanding of the relationship between behavior and the microbiota could provide insight into the pathogenesis of functional and inflammatory bowel disorders.

Here are results from an RCT on humans with chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is complex illness of unknown etiology. Among the broad range of symptoms, many patients report disturbances in the emotional realm, the most frequent of which is anxiety. Research shows that patients with CFS and other so-called functional somatic disorders have alterations in the intestinal microbial flora. Emerging studies have suggested that pathogenic and non-pathogenic gut bacteria might influence mood-related symptoms and even behavior in animals and humans. In this pilot study, 39 CFS patients were randomized to receive either 24 billion colony forming units of Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota (LcS) or a placebo daily for two months. Patients provided stool samples and completed the Beck Depression and Beck Anxiety Inventories before and after the intervention. We found a significant rise in both Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria in those taking the LcS, and there was also a significant decrease in anxiety symptoms among those taking the probiotic vs controls (p = 0.01). These results lend further support to the presence of a gut-brain interface, one that may be mediated by microbes that reside or pass through the intestinal tract.

Comment author: Nornagest 08 June 2012 09:04:25AM 8 points [-]

It's interesting, all right, but I think it would likely be better received as a standalone Discussion post (ideally with some more context and expansion). The rationality quotes threads tend to be more for quotes directly about rationality or bias than quotes indirectly contributing to our potential understanding of the same.

Comment author: CuSithBell 08 June 2012 01:05:57PM 1 point [-]

I think it could make a pretty interesting Discussion post, and would pair well with some discussion of how becoming a cyborg supposedly makes you less empathic.

Comment author: witzvo 09 June 2012 02:47:35AM 1 point [-]

Serious question: is the cyborg part a joke? I can't tell around here.

Comment author: CuSithBell 09 June 2012 03:55:38AM 3 points [-]

Fair question! I phrased it a little flippantly, but it was a sincere sentiment - I've heard somewhere or other that receiving a prosthetic limb results in a decrease in empathy, something to do with becoming detached from the physical world, and this ties in intriguingly with the scifi trope about cyborging being dehumanizing.

Comment author: Vaniver 07 June 2012 10:55:44PM 10 points [-]

One reason why research is so important is precisely that it can surprise you and tell you that your subjective convictions are wrong. If research always found what we expected, there wouldn't be much point in doing research.

--Eugene Gendlin

Comment author: Oligopsony 06 June 2012 07:06:56PM *  28 points [-]

So, let's say some bros of mine and I have some hand-signals for, you know, bro stuff. And one of the signals means, "Oh, shit. Here comes that girl! You know. That girl. She's coming." That signal has a particular context. Eventually, one of my bros gets tired of sloppy use of the signal, and sets about laying out specifically what situations make a girl that girl. If I used the signal in a close-but-not-quite context, he'd handle it and then pull me aside and say, "I know she and I had that thing that one time, but we never... well, it wasn't quite THAT. You know? So that signal, it freaked me out, because I thought it had to be someone else. Make sure you're using it properly, okay?" And I'd be like, "Bro. Got it."

Another friend of mine, he recognizes the sorts of situations we use the signal in have a common thread, so he begins using the hand signal for other situations, any situation that has the potential for both danger and excitement. So if someone invites us to this real sketchy bar, he'll give me the signal - "This could be bad. But what if it's not?" And I'd respond, "I see what you did there."

Maybe you see where this is going. We're hanging out one day, and some guy suggests we crash some party. Bro #2 signals, and bro #1 freaks out, looking around. And then he's like, "OH FUCK I HAVE TO CALL HER." And #2 says, "No, dude, there's no one coming. I just meant, this is like one of those situations, you know?" And they're pissed at each other because they're using the same signal to mean different things. I'm not mad, because I generally know what they each mean, but I have more context than they do.

The same thing probably happens with analytics and Continentals.

Philosophy Bro

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 June 2012 12:51:19AM 0 points [-]

There's something deep here. Meanings aren't just in your head... but whose head are they in anyway?

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 07:56:40PM 1 point [-]

Upvoted for introducing me to one of the funniest blogs I've ever seen. The ironic writing style is brilliant:

Aw yeah, the is-ought problem. Shit's classic, bro

Comment author: AlexMennen 06 June 2012 04:31:12PM 15 points [-]

The present impossibility of giving a scientific explanation is no proof that there is no scientific explanation. The unexplained is not to be identified with the unexplainable, and the strange and extraordinary nature of a fact is not a justification for attributing it to powers above nature.

-The Catholic Encyclopedia

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 June 2012 12:51:50AM 4 points [-]

What makes that one most interesting is its source.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 14 June 2012 01:38:21AM 0 points [-]

Yes, an interesting question is how may readers will update their opinion of the Catholic church based on this.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 14 June 2012 09:01:01AM *  11 points [-]

I was not surprised by this, because I know many Catholics honestly try to be rational... of course only within the limits given by the Church.

They would have absolutely no problem with Bayesian updating; the only problem would be the Solomonoff prior. If you replace it by "the Catholic Church is always right" prior, you are free to update rationally on everything else and remain a good Catholic.

This is why Catholics don't have a problem to accept e.g. evolution, as long as someone can provide an explanation how evolution can be compatible with "the Catholic Church is always right". (A possible explanation could be e.g. that God created the first life forms; that evolution is a consequence of physical laws created by God, therefore any result of evolution is still indirectly created by God; and that humans are somehow an exception to this process, because even if their bodies are a result of evolution, they also have an immaterial soul created directly by God.)

Comment author: private_messaging 24 June 2012 03:51:30AM *  -1 points [-]

I don't believe theists would have any problem with Solomonoff prior. Some ten-state two-symbol machine with a blank tape can be a God for all we could ever know, and then it could create us within it's machine and do what ever it wants (and the souls could be just the indices it keeps on us).

You know who actually has problem with Solomonoff prior? People who understand it.

Comment author: [deleted] 24 June 2012 04:06:34AM 1 point [-]

Isn't this the wrong question? We'd want to know what proportion of ten-state two-symbol machines with blank tapes turned out to be gods.

In so far as that's what we want, Catholicism still falls to being a huge conjunction of propositions.

Comment author: faul_sname 22 September 2012 05:29:04AM 1 point [-]

We'd want to know what proportion of ten-state two-symbol machines with blank tapes turned out to be gods.

Do we? I would think we would want to know what proportion of universes are created by ten-state two-symbol machines that are gods as opposed to ten-state two-symbol machines that are not gods.

Comment author: [deleted] 22 September 2012 03:03:13PM *  0 points [-]

That was implied by "proportion".

Comment author: private_messaging 24 June 2012 04:29:06AM *  -2 points [-]

Isn't this the wrong question? We'd want to know what proportion of ten-state two-symbol machines with blank tapes turned out to be gods.

One short god will suffice if laws of physics require substantially larger program. And for all we know they do.

edit: Also, there's only what, 20^10 = about 10 trillion possible ten state two symbol machines? Maybe 9 old British billions after you eliminate non-universal machines. That's less than the data in physical constants we haven't derived.

Comment author: Alejandro1 13 June 2012 05:49:11PM 7 points [-]

I suspect that if the source was a less unexpected one, say Albert Einstein or Carl Sagan, the quote would seem obvious and uninteresting to LWers and its karma score would be less than half what it is.

Comment author: pnrjulius 30 June 2012 03:42:33AM 2 points [-]

This makes perfect sense in terms of Bayesian reasoning. Unexpected evidence is much more powerful evidence that your model is defective.

If your model of the world predicted that the Catholic Church would never say this, well... your model is wrong in at leas that respect.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 June 2012 06:32:18PM 0 points [-]

Well, I would have upvoted such a quote no matter who it was by.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:53:10PM 4 points [-]

There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is seeing something that isn't there.

Thomas Hardy

Comment author: MixedNuts 07 June 2012 02:35:51PM 3 points [-]

Pretty sure most people would pick hallucinations over blindness. Easier to correct for.

Comment author: [deleted] 07 June 2012 06:59:05PM *  0 points [-]

Well, I would, but “pretty sure most people” sounds like blatant generalizing from one example to me.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 07 June 2012 04:54:02PM 5 points [-]

Hallucinations are easier to correct for?
Hm.
So, I start out with an input channel whose average throughput rate is T1, and whose reliability is R1.
Case 1, I reduce that throughput to T2.
Case 2, I reduce the reliability to R2.

A lot seems to depend on T2/T1 and R2/R1.
From what I've gathered from talking to blind people, I'd estimate that T2/T1 in this case is ~.1. That is, sighted people have approximately an order of magnitude more input available to them than blind people. (This varies based on context, of course, but people have some control over their context in practice.)
Hallucinations vary. If I take as my example the week I was in the ICU after my stroke, I'd estimate that R2/R1 is ~.1. That is, any given input was about ten times more likely to not actually correlate to what another observer would see than it usually is.

Both of these estimates are, of course, pulled out of my ass. I mention them only to get some precision around the hypothetical, not as an assertion about what blindness and hallucination are like in the real world. If you prefer other estimates, that's fine.

Given those estimates... hm.
Both of them suck.
I think I would probably choose hallucination, in practice.
I think I would probably be better off choosing blindness.

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 June 2012 12:55:19AM 1 point [-]

False information is definitely more damaging than non-information, because in the best case scenario you ignore the false information. In less-than-best-case scenarios, you fail to ignore the false information and are actively misled.

Suppose there are 10 boxes, one of which contains cash.

If you could open the boxes and see which one had cash, you'd be in great shape. But if you can't, you obviously should prefer leaving all the boxes closed (blindness), rather than somehow seeing cash in box #7 even when it isn't there.

I think the only reason people would be tempted to choose hallucination is that hallucinations in real life are usually relatively mild and often correctible, whereas blindness can be total and intractable with present technology. So given the choice between schizophrenia and blindness, I probably would choose schizophrenia, because schizophrenia is treatable.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 09 June 2012 01:21:48AM 1 point [-]

One reason I would be tempted to choose hallucination over blindness is that hallucinations feel like knowledge, and blindness feels like lack of knowledge, and I'm more comfortable with the feeling of knowledge than I am with the feeling of the lack of knowledge.

Comment author: katydee 07 June 2012 04:17:26PM 0 points [-]

Wrong input > no input? I'm not so sure.

Comment author: [deleted] 07 June 2012 07:02:53PM 2 points [-]

If the wrongness is so blatant that it's easy to tell which parts of the input are likely wrong and disregard them...

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 June 2012 12:58:48AM 1 point [-]

A fair point. But then you're no better off than with not having that part of the input at all.

Comment author: Ben_Welchner 07 June 2012 04:39:46PM 4 points [-]

Depends on if you're hallucinating everything or your vision has at least some bearing in the real world. I mean, I'd rather see spiders crawling on everything than be blind, since I could still see what they were crawling on.

Comment author: Kindly 07 June 2012 05:44:07PM 0 points [-]

Some things (for instance, eating) would definitely be more enjoyable while blind rather than while hallucinating spiders.

Comment author: [deleted] 07 June 2012 06:57:33PM 2 points [-]

Not 100% sure they would be for me: I'm not arachnophobic at all. (I would be willing to eat a spider for five dollars, if I was sure this couldn't cause be to get sick.)

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:48:55PM *  0 points [-]

Very few people see their own actions as truly evil.... It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not.

Laurell K. Hamilton

A quote I find useful when considering both rationalizing, and the differences of relative perspective.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 04:37:33PM 2 points [-]

Huh. Their victims decide, rather than everyone they affect deciding?
I don't think I agree.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 11:53:53PM *  2 points [-]

I can't see how but that both the victims, and everyone else they affect, deciding. That doesn't mean they'll all come to the same conclusion, of course.

I'm pretty sure that's where politics comes from, personally...

Edited to add: I do not mean to imply that if one group decides X, another Y, and a third Z, that it necessarily means that any of them are wrong.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:42:53PM -1 points [-]

Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.

William S. Burroughs

Comment author: shokwave 07 June 2012 07:48:22PM 1 point [-]

My immediate reaction was "No, my knowledge of what is going on starts out superficial and relative, but it sure doesn't stay that way". (I object to the "only").

Comment author: Grognor 06 June 2012 02:17:21PM 5 points [-]

The presupposition is that passing judgment on somebody’s “lifestyle” (for those who do not speak psychobabble, this means the English word behaviors) is an activity which is forbidden. It follows immediately that when the person says to you “Don’t be all judgmental” they are in fact passing judgment on your behavior. In other words, they are “being all judgmental.” It is, therefore, impossible not to pass judgment. I do not mean “impossible” in the colloquial sense of “unlikely”, but in the logical sense of “certainly cannot be no matter what.”

-William M. Briggs

Comment author: steven0461 08 June 2012 12:22:32AM 14 points [-]

I am a Norman. It is the immemorial custom of my people to conquer our neighbours, seize their land, suppress their culture, and impose our rule as aristocrats. By the principle of cultural relativity this way of life is no worse than any other.

Brett Evill

Comment author: roystgnr 08 June 2012 10:20:53PM 11 points [-]

The best similar cultural-relativity-based deduction I've read, as introduced by Wikipedia:

A story for which [Charles James] Napier is often noted involved Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. As first recounted by his brother William, he replied:

"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

Comment author: [deleted] 09 June 2012 08:02:35AM 0 points [-]

Let us all act according to national customs.

Why the national customs of Britain should apply in India? :-)

Comment author: taelor 09 June 2012 10:55:00AM 15 points [-]

Because Britain has a national custom saying that they do.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 07 June 2012 11:58:43PM -1 points [-]

It's possible that the strategy of only judging those who break the anti-judgment norm is the optimal one. Kind of like how most people only condone violence against those who break the anti-violence norm.

Comment author: steven0461 08 June 2012 12:36:38AM 8 points [-]

most people only condone violence against those who break the anti-violence norm

Most people condone violence for a lot more reasons than that.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 08 June 2012 07:32:32AM 1 point [-]

A good example would be using violence to prevent or punish theft.

Some people solve this by stretching the meaning of "violence" to include theft... but if one follows this path, the word becomes increasingly unrelated to its original meaning.

Generally, it seems like a good heuristics to define a set of "forbidden behavior", with the exception that some kinds of "forbidden behavior" are allowed as a response to someone else's "forbidden behavior". This can help reduce the amount of "forbidden behavior" in society.

The only problem is that the definition of the "forbidden behavior" is arbitrary. It reflects the values of some part of the society, but some people will disagree and suggest changes to the definition. The proponents of given definition will then come with rationalizations why their definition is correct and the other one is not.

I guess it's the same with "judgement". The proponents of non-judgement usually have a set of exceptions: behaviors so bad that it is allowed to judge them. (Being judgemental, that is judging things not belonging to this set of exceptions, is usually one of them.) They just don't want to admit that this set is arbitrary, based on their values.

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 June 2012 01:04:07AM 1 point [-]

I was with you until you said the choice of forbidden behaviors was arbitrary.

No, it's not arbitrary; indeed, it's remarkably consistent across societies. Societies differ on their approaches to law, but in almost every society, randomly assaulting strangers is not allowed. Societies differ on their ideas on sex, but in almost every society, parents are forbidden from having sex with their children. Societies differ on their systems of property, in almost every society, it's forbidden to grab food out of other people's hands.

There are obviously a lot of biological and cultural reasons for the rules people choose, and rule systems do differ, so we have to decide which to use (is gay sex allowed? is abortion legal? etc.). But they're clearly not arbitrary; even the most radically different societies agree on a lot of things.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 09 June 2012 03:44:34PM 2 points [-]

I don't have enough data about behaviors in different cultures, but I suspect they are rather different. (I wish I had better data, such as a big table with cultures in columns, behaviors in rows, and specific norms in the cells.)

Of course it depends on how many details do we specify about the behavior. The more generally we speak, the more similar results will we get. For example if I ask "is it OK to have sex with anyone anytime, or is it regulated by some rules?", then yes, probably everywhere it is regulated. The more specific questions will show more disagreement, such as "is it OK for a woman to marry a man from a lower social class?" or "is it OK if a king marries his own sister?" or "if someone is dissatisfied with their sexual partner, is it OK to find another one?" (this question may have different answers for men and women).

Also it will depend on the behavior; some behaviors would have obvious disadvantages, such as anyone randomly attacking anyone... though it may be considered OK if a person from a higher class randomly attacks a person from a lower class, or if the attacked person is a member of a different tribe.

I guess there is a lot of mindkilling and disinformation involved in this topic, because if someone is a proponent of a given social norm, it benefits them to claim (truly or falsely) that all societies have the same norm; and if someone is an opponent, it benefits them to claim (truly or falsely) that some other societies have it differently. Even this strategy may be different in different cultures: some cultures may prefer to signal that they have universal values, other cultures may prefer to signal that they are different (read: better) than their neighbors.

Comment author: pnrjulius 11 June 2012 01:30:26AM 3 points [-]

I'm sure that's right.

And my point wasn't to claim that there is no variation in moral values between societies; that's obviously untrue.

My main objection was to the word arbitrary; no, they're not arbitrary, they have causes in our culture and evolutionary history and some of these causes even rise to the level of justifications.

Comment author: TimS 11 June 2012 01:56:52AM *  0 points [-]

Who says that a society's moral values don't have causes? The issue is whether those causes are historically contingent (colloquailly, whether history could have happened in a way that different moral positions were adopted in a particular time and place).

Alternatively, can I suggest you taboo the word justification? The way I understand the term, saying moral positions are justified is contradicted by the proliferation of contradictory moral positions throughout time. (But I'm out of the mainstream in this community because I'm a moral anti-realist)

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 11 June 2012 02:28:05AM 2 points [-]

The way I understand the term, saying moral positions are justified is contradicted by the proliferation of contradictory moral positions throughout time.

Would you apply the same logic to physical propositions? Would you claim that, for example, saying that astronomical positions are justified is contradicted by the proliferation of contradictory astronomical positions throughout time?

Comment author: TimS 11 June 2012 02:34:56AM 0 points [-]
Comment author: DanielLC 07 June 2012 12:13:17AM *  2 points [-]

You can refrain from passing judgment yourself, but allow others to pass judgement.

For example, rocks are not judgmental.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 June 2012 11:23:05PM -1 points [-]

No, the only things that follows logically is that not being judgemental is something that you can't teach someone else directly without judging yourself.

The zen monk that sits in his monastery can be happy and accepting of everyone who visits him.

Explaining what it means to not passing judgment to someone who never experienced it is like telling a blind person about the colors of the rainbow. If you talk about something being blue they don't mean what you are talking about.

If you ask the zen monk to teach you how to be nonjudgmental he might tell you that he's got nothing to teach. He tell you that you can sit down when you want. Relax a bit.

After an hour you ask him impatiently: "Why can't you help me?" He answers: "I have nothing to teach to you."

Then you wait another two hours. He asks you: "Have you learnt something?" You say: "Yes". You go home a bit less judgmental than when you were at the beginning.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 04:44:04PM 1 point [-]

It doesn't follow, from the fact that passing judgment on someone else's act of passing judgment on people is itself an act of passing judgment on people, that it is impossible not to pass judgment on people.

I'm also not quite clear on whether "passing judgment on" is denotatively the same or different from "judging." (I understand the connotative differences.)

All that said, for my own part, I want to be judged. I want to be judged in certain ways and not in others, certainly, and the possibility of being judged in ways I reject can cause me unhappiness, and I might even say "don't judge me!" as shorthand for "don't apply the particular decision procedure you're applying to judgments of me!" or as a non-truth-preserving way of expressing "your judgment of me upsets me!", but if everyone I knew were to give up having judgments of me at all, or to give up expressing them, that would be a net loss for me.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 05:48:02PM 0 points [-]

The statement in the quote does not seem to follow, assuming that you have the choice of simply not saying anything. Passing judgement suggests that you actuallly have to let someone else know what you think. On the subject of the value of judgement, it is hard to understand why people are so averse to being judged. Whether someone is being kind or malicious by telling you what they honestly think of your actions it still gives you better information to make future choices.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 06:00:47PM 0 points [-]

Is it any harder to understand than why some people experience as a negative stimulus being told they have a fatal illness, or stepping on a scale and discovering they weigh more than they'd like, or being told that there are termites in their walls?

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 June 2012 01:00:29AM 2 points [-]

No harder, because it's the same phenomenon.

But it's a phenomenon that we as rationalists should resist. If I am dying, or fat, or living with termites, I want to know---after all, there may be something I can do about it.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 09 June 2012 01:19:35AM 0 points [-]

Absolutely agreed.

Comment author: Multiheaded 06 June 2012 07:55:28AM -1 points [-]

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

George Carlin

Comment author: shminux 05 June 2012 06:05:55PM *  14 points [-]

If you pay nothing for expert advise you will value it at epsilon more than nothing, if you pay five figures for it you will clear your schedule and implement recommendations within the day. In addition to this being one of consulting’s worst-kept secrets, it suggests persuasive reasons why you should probably extract a commitment out of software customers prior to giving them access for the software. Doing this will automatically make people value your software more

Patrick McKenzie, the guy who gets instrumental rationality on the gut level.

More from the same source:

I always thought I really hated getting email. It turns out that I was not a good reporter of my own actual behavior, which is something you’ll hear quite a bit if you follow psychological research. (For example, something like 75% of Americans will report they voted for President Obama, which disagrees quite a bit with the ballot box. They do this partially because they misremember their own behavior and partially because they like to been seen as the type of person who voted for the winner. 99% of geeks will report never having bought anything as a result of an email. They do this because they misremember their own behavior and partially because they believe that buying stuff from “spam” is something that people with AOL email addresses do, and hence admitting that they, too, can be marketed to will cause them to lose status. The AppSumo sumo would be a good deal skinnier if that were actually the case, but geeks were all people before they were geeks, and people are statistically speaking terrible at introspection.)

Comment author: [deleted] 05 June 2012 10:45:00PM 6 points [-]

They do this partially because they misremember their own behavior

FFS, how can people misremember who they voted for in an election with only two plausible candidates?

Comment author: Strange7 09 June 2012 01:46:10AM 2 points [-]

Wrong question. I'd say people who voted for the other guy remember, but aren't so eager to respond to surveys.

Comment author: MinibearRex 08 June 2012 06:16:36AM 7 points [-]

A large number of them may have not voted at all, but remember themselves doing so.

Comment author: kdorian 06 June 2012 02:58:00PM 5 points [-]

I suspect, with no data to back me up, that is those who were ambivalent when they stepped into the polling booth that genuinely misremember. Others know they voted for the other guy, but want to be seen as one of the 'winners'.

Comment author: alex_zag_al 08 June 2012 05:01:30PM 2 points [-]

Or the survey he's referring to is biased. Seems hard for it not to be... did they knock on doors all across the country? If it's based on mail or telephone responses, are people who voted for Obama more likely to respond to those?

Or, he's misquoting the survey. If you were testing the hypothesis that people misremember voting for the winner, wouldn't you sample a smaller area than the whole country, and then compare your results with the vote count from that area? Why would an experiment like that ever get a number meant to be compared with the whole country's votes?

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 07:49:42PM 3 points [-]

I suspect, with no data to back me up, that the latter class contains many more people than the former. (If I were that ambivalent, I wouldn't vote for either major candidate at random; I would either vote for a minor candidate, or not vote at all. But I guess not everybody is like me.)

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 04:35:41PM 7 points [-]

There are many U.S. elections I have voted in where there were two candidates for an office and I couldn't tell you which one I voted for. Admittedly, no cases involving Presidential candidates; I'm usually pretty sure who I'm voting for in those cases.

Comment author: gwern 05 June 2012 06:22:56PM 12 points [-]

If you pay nothing for expert advise you will value it at epsilon more than nothing, if you pay five figures for it you will clear your schedule and implement recommendations within the day.

Obviously I need to figure out how to start charging for my website!

Comment author: private_messaging 09 June 2012 08:56:49AM *  -2 points [-]

Probably won't work very well. If you can program, you can make some money writing some useful software. You can write an app to make it easier for people to perform double blind experiments on their medications for example. People in general only pay for something they directly use.

Comment author: alex_zag_al 08 June 2012 04:57:22PM 2 points [-]

I will sing the praises of git and vim, but I didn't pay any money for them. He says extract a commitment, not necessarily a monetary commitment; I read half a book before I started using git, and vim took a lot of practice. So you could use more specialized terminology or something like that. git and vim are both very well-spoken of, and I probably wouldn't have bothered to learn them if they weren't. But I also don't bother to spend money on things that don't have a good reputation, if I haven't had experience with them already. So, either way, requiring a commitment from the user turns away a lot of them.

(I've never read your website)

Comment author: Vaniver 07 June 2012 11:14:09PM 5 points [-]

I wonder if a donate button at the end of each article, tied with a question along the lines of "How valuable was the article you just read?", would be effective. (You could even set it up so that you can track the amount donated by article, and use that to guide future research- I'm not sure how effective that would be, since that depends on how many alternatives you have to pick from in considering new research topics.)

Comment author: gwern 08 June 2012 01:56:14AM *  2 points [-]

Well, I do have donation stuff setup; last week I moved the Paypal button from the very bottom, post footnotes (where the Bitcoin address remains), to the left sidebar, to see if that would help. (So far it hasn't.)

A rating widget is a good idea; I'm messing around with some but I'm not seeing any really good ones hosted by third-parties (static site, remember).

that depends on how many alternatives you have to pick from in considering new research topics.

I am completely undisciplined and I do this stuff as the whim takes me. A month ago I didn't expect to learn how to do meta-analyses and run a DNB meta-analysis and 2 weeks ago I wasn't expecting to do an iodine meta-analysis either; the day before Kiba hired me to write a Silk Road article, I wasn't expecting that either...

Comment author: pnrjulius 09 June 2012 01:06:43AM 0 points [-]

There's also a competition effect here. With thousands of free blogs, people don't want to pay for yours or mine. They'll just navigate to someone else's, even if it isn't quite as brilliantly insightful.

Comment author: gwern 09 June 2012 01:31:23AM 4 points [-]

Indeed, that's a problem. I like to think my content is pretty unique - no other site is as good a resource on dual n-back, no other site is as good a resource on modafinil, etc. - but that doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy old world.

Comment author: shminux 09 June 2012 03:48:15AM 1 point [-]

A way to make real money is to sell to businesses. Do you have any content or service a 100+ person company might want?

Comment author: gwern 09 June 2012 04:05:04AM 1 point [-]

Not that I've thought of so far.

Comment author: Username 25 June 2012 02:05:03PM -1 points [-]

Well, you have the ability to write articles of exceptionally high quality. They are concise, easy to read, very thoroughly researched, and always offer paths to learn more or elaborate on points of interest.

These sorts of reports are highly valuable to companies and I think you would be incredibly valuable as a knowledge consultant. Think Lisbeth Salander for technical subjects.

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 06:09:17PM 5 points [-]

I do value your research and writings. I was thinking about offering to buy you a laptop because it sounded like you had an old POS that was hampering said research and writings, but then I decided that would be too weird.

Comment author: gwern 06 June 2012 06:14:42PM *  1 point [-]

I did have a POS, but in July 2010 I finally bit the bullet and bought a new Dell Studio 17 laptop that has since worked well for me. (The hard drive died a few months ago and I had to replace it, almost simultaneously with my external backup drive dying, which was very stressful, but Dell doesn't make the hard drives, so I write that off as an isolated incident.)

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 06:51:11PM 5 points [-]

Ah, then I only need to buy you a 2-year backblaze subscription, that's far cheaper.

Comment author: gwern 06 June 2012 07:03:53PM 0 points [-]

Backblaze sounds great, but they don't have a Linux client.

Comment author: shminux 06 June 2012 07:30:25PM 1 point [-]

Crashplan does.

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 07:28:07PM 10 points [-]

tarsnap it is, then.

Comment author: gwern 06 June 2012 09:19:36PM 2 points [-]

Tarsnap is cool - I like Colin's blog and stuff like scrypt. (The latter was relevant to one of my crypto essays.)

Comment author: gwern 12 June 2012 12:13:34AM 6 points [-]

For the record: khafra actually did donate to me and wasn't just cheap signaling. Well done!

Comment author: wedrifid 12 June 2012 12:27:46AM 2 points [-]

Wow. Great stuff khafra. I hereby grant you some portion of the respect granted to gwern for his nootropics research!

Comment author: shminux 05 June 2012 07:54:37PM *  8 points [-]

I've had the impression that you've been selling yourself short for quite some time.

Maybe you can start by following Patrick's example and offering some of the choice data you collect and analyze to the people subscribing to your mailing list. You can also figure out who might be interested in the information you collect (a cool project in itself), and how much it would be worth to them.

Comment author: cmessinger 05 June 2012 05:22:24PM 4 points [-]

Margaret Fuller, intoxicated by Transcendentalism, said, "I accept the universe," and Thomas Carlyle, told of the remark, supposedly said, "Gad, she’d better."

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 June 2012 05:04:45AM 3 points [-]

This depends on what is meant by "accept the universe". Does this mean that you're ready to deal with reality, or that you accept the way the universe currently is and aren't going to try to make it better?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 06 June 2012 05:02:38PM 1 point [-]

Given Carlyle's general attitude towards Fuller, I suspect what he meant was that it's a good thing for the universe that Fuller accepts it, for otherwise the results might be bad for the universe.

Comment author: cmessinger 05 June 2012 05:21:47PM 9 points [-]

Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought. -Matsuo Basho, poet (1644-1694)

Seems like a good way to think of the "seek to succeed, not to be rational" idea.

Comment author: Alejandro1 05 June 2012 03:26:47PM *  23 points [-]

When I was 11, I was fascinated with a flame and I didn't know what it was. I went to a teacher and said, "What's a flame? What's going on in there?" And she said "It's oxidation." And that's all she said. And I never heard that word before, so that was like, calling it by another name.

--Alan Alda, in an interview at The Colbert Report, telling the story that gave rise to The Flame Challenge. It has been mentioned on LW before, but I thought it was worth posting it here as a perfect illustration of a Teacher's Password.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 June 2012 12:20:04PM 3 points [-]

Understand that your system will resist change: Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience -- Admiral Rickover

found here

Comment author: Multiheaded 05 June 2012 07:19:37AM *  2 points [-]

The Western World has been brainwashed by Aristotle for the last 2,500 years. The unconscious, not quite articulate, belief of most Occidentals is that there is one map which adequately represents reality. By sheer good luck, every Occidental thinks he or she has the map that fits. Guerrilla ontology, to me, involves shaking up that certainty.

I use what in modern physics is called the "multi-model" approach, which is the idea that there is more than one model to cover a given set of facts. As I've said, novel writing involves learning to think like other people. My novels are written so as to force the reader to see things through different reality grids rather than through a single grid. It's important to abolish the unconscious dogmatism that makes people think their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world. My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything. If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind. It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.

That's what guerrilla ontology is — breaking down this one-model view and giving people a multi-model perspective.

Robert Anton Wilson, from an interview

Comment author: Snowyowl 24 June 2012 07:59:48PM 1 point [-]

I agree with Wilson's conclusions, though the quote is too short to tell if I reached this conclusion in the same way as he did.

Using several maps at once teaches you that your map can be wrong, and how to compare maps and find the best one. The more you use a map, the more you become attached to it, and the less inclined you are to experiment with other maps, or even to question whether your map is correct. This is all fine if your map is perfectly accurate, but in our flawed reality there is no such thing. And while there are no maps which state "This map is incorrect in all circumstances", there are many which state "This map is correct in all circumstances"; you risk the Happy Death Spiral if you use one of the latter. (I should hope most of your maps state "This map is probably correct in these specific areas, and it may make predictions in other areas but those are less likely to be correct".) Having several contradictory maps can be useful; it teaches you that no map is perfect.

Comment author: rocurley 13 June 2012 01:43:22AM *  5 points [-]

By sheer good luck, every Occidental thinks he or she has the map that fits.

This seems unfair. I have a map; it reperesents what I think the universe is like. Certainty it is not perfect, but if I thought a different one was better I would adopt it. There is a distinction between "this is correct" and "I don't know how to pick something more correct".

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 06 June 2012 06:59:10PM *  6 points [-]

It depends what kind of maps. Multiple consistent maps are clearly a good thing (like switching from geometry to coordinates and back). Multiple inconsistent ad-hoc maps can be good if you have a way to choose which one to use when.

Wilson doesn't say which he means, I think he's guilty of imprecision.

Comment author: hairyfigment 08 June 2012 01:19:36AM 2 points [-]

I think he means that people choose not to think about any map but their favorite one ("their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world"), to the point where they can't estimate the conditional probability P(E|a) of the evidence given not-A.

The link with Aristotle seems weak. But the problem obviously makes it harder to use "the logic of probability," as Korzybski called it, and Wilson well knew that Korzybski contrasted probability with classical "Aristotelian" logic. (Note that K wrote before the Bayesian school of thought really took off, so we should expect some imprecision and even wrong turns from him.)

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 07 June 2012 11:54:40PM 1 point [-]

Or you could always just average your inconsistent maps together, or choose the median value. Should work better than choosing a map at random.

Comment author: Snowyowl 24 June 2012 07:47:24PM 1 point [-]

Or accept that each map is relevant to a different area, and don't try to apply a map to a part of the territory that it wasn't designed for.

And if you frequently need to use areas of the territory which are covered by no maps or where several maps give contradictory results, get better maps.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 25 June 2012 06:12:16AM 1 point [-]

Basically, keep around a meta-map that keeps track of which maps are good models of which parts of the territory.

Comment author: Snowyowl 26 June 2012 07:32:50PM 1 point [-]

Yeah, that should work.

Comment author: bramflakes 05 June 2012 11:49:04PM *  2 points [-]

"Most people have a wrong map, therefore we should use multiple maps" doesn't follow. Reversed stupidity isn't intelligence, and in this case Aristotle appears to have been right all along.

If I'm out charting the oceans, I'd probably need to use multiple maps because the curvature of the Earth makes it difficult to accurately project it onto a single 2D surface, but I do that purely for the convenience of not having to navigate with a spherical map. I don't mistake my hodge-podge of inaccurate 2D maps for the reality of the 3D globe.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 June 2012 07:54:43PM *  2 points [-]

Isn't “convenience” also the reason not to use the territory itself as a map in the first place? You know, knowing quantum field theory and general relativity isn't going to give you many insights about (say) English grammar or evolutionary psychology.

Comment author: khafra 06 June 2012 06:13:43PM *  1 point [-]

If you're favoring hedgehogs over foxes, you're disagreeing with luminaries like Robin Hanson and billionaire investors like Charlie Munger. There is, in fact, far more than one globe--the one my parents had marked out the USSR, whereas ones sold today do not; and on the territory itself you won't see those lines and colorings at all.

Some recent quotes post here had something along the lines of "the only perfect map is a 1 to 1 correspondence with everything in the territory, and it's perfectly useless."

Comment author: Emile 06 June 2012 04:08:06PM 1 point [-]

Note that Google Maps can be described as "a hodge-podge of different maps"; a satellite map and a street map (and sometimes a 3D map if you use Google Earth), and using that hodge-podge is indeed more convenient than using one representation that tries to combine them all.

I know that you didn't mean hodge-podge in the same sense (you were talking of 3D-> 2D), but I think that Google Maps is a good illustration of how having different views of the same reality is useful.