pnrjulius comments on Semantic Stopsigns - Less Wrong

53 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 August 2007 07:29PM

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Comment author: pnrjulius 19 May 2012 05:31:39AM 1 point [-]

1) Because beliefs matter; a world where people are epistemically rational is, ceteris paribus, better than a world in which they are not.

2) Because you can't just shield off all your beliefs from the real world. You can try, and thereby make them almost not beliefs at all; but as long as they reside in your brain, they are moving neurotransmitters around in ways that they should not be moved. For example, consider how the idea of immortality affects the way people view existential risks: If you believe, or even suspect, that you might live forever in Heaven after you die, you'll be just a little bit less inclined to worry about that plague, that asteroid, that cascade of Von Neumann machines. Maybe not a lot less---but a little less, and that could make all the difference.