Rationality Quotes February 2013

arundelo

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted 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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted 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Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Does this mean something different than "Truth doesn't have a moral valence"?

My primary interpretation was "attaching yourself to arguments obstructs your ability to seek the truth." If you are interested in the truth, it does not matter if you or your interlocutor is wrong or right; it matters what the truth is.

Another interpretation is "is-thinking leads to accuracy, should-thinking leads to delusion."

A third interpretation is "moralistic thinking degrades morals." I don't consider that interpretation interesting enough to agree or disagree with it.

It doesn't seem to be clear whether Seng-Ts'an is talking about moral right and wrong, or the kind of "wrong" that is involved in "proving your opponent wrong" in debates. The first interpretation is just silly according to any philosophy that cares about ethics, but the second one does make a lot of sense.

0TimS13y

This is probably a more plausible reading of the quote, but I think it is false. If I don't believe I am right, or at least making an important point (such as playing devil's advocate), I'm doubtful that my comments are relevant or helpful in figuring out what is true. By contrast, your interpretation of the quote suggests that Professor Armstrong should be indifferent to whether particular x-risks that he has highlighted as "most dangerous" are actually the most dangerous x-risks. Anyway, your second suggested reading is essentially my suggested reading, and I agree that your third suggested reading is not a very interesting assertion.