So8res comments on Dark Arts of Rationality - Less Wrong

136 Post author: So8res 19 January 2014 02:47AM

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Comment author: Calvin 16 January 2014 02:35:13AM 0 points [-]

To summarize, belief in things that are not actually true, may have beneficial impact on your day to day life?

You don't really need require any level of rationality skills to arrive at that conclusion, but the writeup is quite interesting.

Just don't fall in the trap of thinking I am going to swallow this placebo and feel better, because I know that even though placebo does not work... crap. Let's start from the beginning....

Comment author: So8res 16 January 2014 02:46:50AM *  9 points [-]

The major points are:

  1. You can't judge the sanity of a strategy in a vacuum
  2. Your mind may allocate resources differently to "terminal" and "instrumental" goals; leverage this
  3. Certain false beliefs may improve productivity; consider cultivating them
  4. Use compartmentalization to mitigate the negative effects of (3)
  5. You already are a flawed system, expect that the optimal strategies will sometimes look weird
  6. Certain quirks that look like flaws (such as compartmentalization) can be leveraged to your advantage

The insane thing is that you can think "I am going to swallow this placebo and feel better, even though I know it's a placebo" and it still works. Like I said, brains are weird.

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