MixedNuts comments on Rationality Quotes August 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Alejandro1 03 August 2012 03:33PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 03 August 2012 09:30:14AM *  6 points [-]

Does that apply to that explanation as well?

Does it apply to explanations made in advance of the actions? For example, this evening (it is presently morning) I intend buying groceries on my way home from work, because there's stuff I need and this is a convenient opportunity to get it. When I do it, that will be the explanation.

In the quoted article, the explanation he presents as a paradigmatic example of his general thesis is the reflex of jumping away from rustles in the grass. He presents an evolutionary just-so story to explain it, but one which fails to explain why I do not jump away from rustles in the grass, although surely I have much the same evolutionary background as he. I am more likely to peer closer to see what small creature is scurrying around in there. But then, I have never lived anywhere that snakes are a danger. He has.

And yet this, and split-brain experiments, are the examples he cites to say that "often", we shouldn't listen to anyone's explanations of their behaviour.

If you were to have asked me why I had jumped, I would have replied that I thought I’d seen a snake. The reality, however, is that I jumped way before I was conscious of the snake.

I smell crypto-dualism. "I thought there was a snake" seems to me a perfectly good description of the event, even given that I jumped way before I was conscious of the snake. (He has "I thought I'd seen a snake", but this is a fictional example, and I can make up fiction as well as he can.)

The article references his book. Anyone read it? The excerpts I've skimmed on Amazon just consist of more evidence that we are brains: the Libet experiments, the perceived simultaneity of perceptions whose neural signals aren't, TMS experiments, and so on. There are some digressions into emergence, chaos, and quantum randomness. Then -- this is his innovation, highlighted in the publisher's blurb -- he sees responsibility as arising from social interaction. Maybe I'm missing something in the full text, but is he saying that someone alone really is just an automaton, and only in company can one really be a person?

I believe there are people like that, who only feel alive in company and feel diminished when alone. Is this is just an example of someone mistaking their idiosyncratic mental constitution for everybody's?

Comment author: MixedNuts 10 August 2012 08:07:42AM 2 points [-]

Did you in fact buy the groceries?

Comment author: RichardKennaway 10 August 2012 08:55:54AM 3 points [-]

I did.

There are many circumstances that might have prevented it; but none of them happened. There are many others that might have obstructed it; but I would have changed my actions to achieve the goal.

Goals of such a simple sort are almost invariably achieved.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 12 August 2012 10:39:48AM 3 points [-]

Three upvotes for demonstrating the basic competence to buy groceries?