Comment on Dissenting Views

Wed, 27 May 2009 17:52:02 GMT

It's an illustration of the principle that to proceed from the known to the unknown, one must travel by way of the very-likely-wrong, including that which from your current perspective may appear "more wrong" than where you started from.

You've really hedged your language here. Are we talking about beliefs, or "perspectives"? The two seem very different to me. Does anyone ever acquire a skill without trying new perspectives, unproven variations on existing "known-good" techniques? This is just exploration vs exploitation, which seems quite distinct from belief. I don't change betting strategies just because I'm in the middle of an experiment.

Why do you think this has anything to do with me?

Because it seems that you've had more experience with LW'ers rejecting your useful falsehoods than useful falsehoods in general, and I guessed this as the motive behind your original complaint. I could be mistaken. If I am, I'm curious as to which "terror" you're referring to. It seems fairly widely accepted here that a certain amount of self-deception is useful in the pickup domain, for example.

However, for all that the teachers of practical arts are often deluded in that latter way, they at least have the comfort of systematized winning.

Really? All self-described teachers of practical arts have the comfort of systematized winning? There are no snake-oil charlatans for whom things just "went well" and are now out to capitalize on it? How can we tell the difference?

To the extent that you find the teachings of these arts to be less than "true", and yet are unable to replicate the results of their masters, it is as irrational to insist that only the true can ever be useful, as it would be to assert that the useful must therefore be true. [...] The pursuit of truth for its own sake is an irrational passion, unless knowing truth is your ONLY form of winning.

I think the above exemplifies the mismatch between your philosophy and mine. Yes, it's incorrect to claim that only true beliefs are useful. But the stuff of true beliefs (reason, empiricism) are the only tools we have when trying to figure out what wins and what doesn't. To adopt a given useful-but-otherwise-arbitrary belief U, I first need a true belief T that U is useful. Your position seems to be that U trumps T because of its intrinsic usefulness. My position is that T trumps U because U is inaccessible without T. I don't see any other way to reliably arrive at U instead of ~U or V. I am reminded of the Library of Babel.

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