private_messaging comments on Where to Intervene in a Human? - Less Wrong

33 Post author: lukeprog 03 July 2012 06:31AM

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Comment author: private_messaging 03 July 2012 05:38:40PM *  4 points [-]

It's not based on self observation of some kind or simple fundamental rule underlying all behaviour (the all part is an obvious strawman brought in by RichardKennaway) . However, the conditioning does affect any behaviour, as far as experiments show.

If you are unable to see the difference between 'gravity affects every massive object' and 'gravitation is a fundamental rule explaining all the universe', then nothing can help you.

Comment author: moridinamael 03 July 2012 06:10:00PM *  0 points [-]

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm merely pointing out that humans fall too much in love with their pet idea de jour.

Actually not entirely sure why I'm being downvoted, perhaps my comment came off as snarky.

edit: after rereading it, it looks like I was attacking you, when really I was just expressing frustration at an entirely different group of people who write books attempting to convince other people that they have the One True Secret of Life.

Comment author: private_messaging 03 July 2012 06:21:32PM 0 points [-]

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm merely pointing out that humans fall too much in love with their pet idea de jour.

I agree. BTW, I can't downvote anyone.

I'm not trying to explain something with conditioning and just conditioning alone though; all I am saying is that we should expect self deception to get reinforced as it results in internal reward (and avoidance of self deception easily results in punishment). Regarding the voting, I also was down to -7 on this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ai9/how_do_you_notice_when_youre_rationalizing/5y3w so I do not care a whole lot.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 03 July 2012 11:01:29PM 0 points [-]

Why did you change usernames?

Comment author: private_messaging 03 July 2012 11:49:36PM *  0 points [-]

Well, I wanted to leave for it being generally a waste of time; still, not everyone here is stupid (non stupid list includes Yvain, Wei_Dai, Will Newsome even though he's nuts, a few others). The relevant question is why I don't just delete this account.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 04 July 2012 01:11:18AM 0 points [-]

But why did you stop posting under the other name?