V_V comments on Outside the Laboratory - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (336)
That's just decision making under uncertainty. I was talking about proper gambling, such as buying lottery tickets. My point is that you need some high-level ("System 2") processing to associate the action of buying a ticket to the scenario of winning vast riches, since these are not the sort of things that existed in the ancestral environment.
But if you understand probability, then your System 2 should not make that association.
Given army1987's comment I suppose it is possible to get that association from social conditioning before you understand probability.
On further reflection I think I overstated my claim. I do speculate/daydream about fictional scenarios, and I find it rewarding (I used to that more often as a child, but I still do it).
Therefore I suppose it is possible to counterfactually pretend to having won the lottery using suspension of disbelief in the same way as when enjoing or creatiing a work of fiction. But in this case, you don't actually need to buy a ticket, you can just pretend to have bought one!
Yes.
Habit created by social conditioning looks like a plausible answer.
You either are using "System 2" with a narrower meaning than standard or are making a factually incorrect assumption. (There were no cars in the ancestral environment, and some people have driven cars while sleepwalking.)
Once you learn how to drive a car, you can do it using only System 1, but you need System 2 to learn it.
I still have no idea what your point was. "proper junk food" didn't exist in the ancestral environment; "proper pornography" did not exist in the ancestral environment either. So what?
Do you need System 2 processing to associate an erotic story with sexual release? To associate the words "Coca Cola" with a nice sweet taste?
Well when you were a child, did you play with toys, for example toy trucks ? And was the play more enjoyable if it were a somewhat realistic toy truck as opposed to, say, a block of wood?
It's not very plausible to me. For example, if it were credibly announced that all of the winning tickets for a particular drawing had already been sold, I doubt that occasional lottery players would buy tickets for that drawing.