I was quoting Steven Pinker but my copy is an audio book so I can't give you the specific references to the study he mentions. A simple google search brings up plenty of references. (Google gives popularised summaries. Follow the links provided therein to find the actual research.)
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see where it says we're all automatically afraid of snakes. I have seen research that monkeys have an inbuilt ability to learn to fear snakes, but the mechanism has to be switched on via learning, and my understanding is that humans are the same way... unless you are arguing that individual variations in fear of snakes is purely determined by genetics.
[Edit to add: one of the first papers you linked to includes this quote: "For studies of captive primates, King did not find consistent evidence of snake fear." And the second page goes on to describe the very "they have to learn to fear snakes" research that I previously spoke of.]
Given that contradictory reports are so freely available and your confidence in the model your are asserting I would have expected you to have a somewhat more broad exposure to the relevant science.
I think perhaps we are miscommunicating: I do not deny that primate brains contain snake detectors. I do deny that said detectors are unaffected by learning: humans and monkeys can and do learn which snakes to fear, or not fear.
Skinner had a similar 'simple' theory. But he was wrong. Not wrong because the mechanisms he described weren't important parts of human psychology but wrong because he asserted them to the exclusion of all else.
We seem to be miscommunicating again. What mechanism is it that you think I am asserting "to the exclusion of all else"? The model I personally use contains several mechanisms, and the moral injunctions aspect I spoke of here is only one such mechanism. It is certainly not the only relevant mechanism in human behavior, even in the relatively narrow field of applicability where I use it.
People can be afraid of heights even if they didn't make a habit of falling off cliffs in their childhood.
I don't do classical phobia work, actually, so I wouldn't have a valid opinon on that one, one way or the other. ;-)
Nevertheless, I would not necessarily believe your report on how these anxieties came into being.
It's certainly true that, In order to reach scientific standards, I would need to find a way to double-blindly substitute a placebo version of childhood memories for the real thing in order to prove that it's the modification of the memory that makes it work. (I have occasionally tested single-blind placebo substitutions on other things, but not this, as I have no idea what I could substitute.)
Mainly, what I do to test alternative hypotheses regarding a change technique is to see what parts of it I can remove, without affecting the results. Whatever's left, I assume has some meaning. (Side note: most published descriptions of actually-working self-help techniques contain superfluous steps, that, when removed, tend to make each technique sound like a mere minor variation on one of a handful of major themes... which I expect to correspond to mechanisms in the brain.)
In the instant discussion of moral injunctions, examining the memory of the learning or imprint experience appears to be indispensable, and therefore I conclude (hypothesize, if you prefer) that these memories are an integral part of the process of formation of moral injunction-regulated behavior.
I have a strong bias for you PJ, in all but your tendency to be quite rigidly minded when it comes to forcing reality into your simple models.
FWIW, I do not claim universal applicability of my models outside their target domain. However, within that target domain, most discussions here tend to have only vaporous speculation weighing against many, many tests and observations. When someone proposes a speculative and more complex model than one I am already using, I want to see what their model can predict that mine cannot, or vice versa.
If you have a more parsimonious model for "belief in belief" than simple moral injunctions regarding spoken behavior, I'd love to see it. But since "belief in belief" cleanly falls out as a side effect of my model, I don't see a reason to go looking for a more complicated, special-purpose belief module, just because there could be one. Should I encounter a client who needs a belief-in-belief fixed, and find that my existing model can't fix it, then I will have reason to go looking for an updated model.
Now, when I do see a more parsimonious model here than one I'm already using, I adopt it wholeheartedly. For all that people seem to frame me as having brought PCT to Lesswrong.com, the reverse is actually true:
lesswrong is where I heard about PCT in the first place!
And I adopted it because it fit very neatly into my existing model... it was as though my model was a graph with lots of edges, but no nodes, and PCT gave me a paradigm for what I should expect "nodes" to look like. (And incorporating it into my model also subsequently allowed me to discover a new kind of "edge" that I hadn't spotted previously.)
So actually, I don't consider PCT to be a comprehensive model in itself either, because it lacks the "edges" that my own model contains!
Which makes it a bit frustrating any time anyone acts as though I 1) brought PCT to LW, and 2) think it's a cure-all or even a remotely complete model of human behavior... it's just better than its competitors, such as the aforementioned Skinnerian model you mentioned.
I allow myself to vocally reject the parts of your comments that I disagree with because that way I will not be dismissed as a fan boy when I speak in your defense.
Great. I would appreciate it, though, if you not use boo lights like "mommy issues" and "PCT" (which sadly, seems to have become one around these parts), especially when the first is a denigratory caricature and the second not even relevant. (Moral injunctions are an "edge" in my own model, not a "node" from PCT.)
I think perhaps we are miscommunicating: I do not deny that primate brains contain snake detectors. I do deny that said detectors are unaffected by learning: humans and monkeys can and do learn which snakes to fear, or not fear.
I agree on this note. I do not agree that Occam suggests that fear of snakes, spiders and heights is the sole result of learned associations. I also do not agree that aversion to fundamental belief switching is purely the result of learning from trauma.
As rationalists, we are obligated to criticize ourselves and question our beliefs . . . are we not?
Consider what happens to you, on a psychological level, if you begin by saying: “It is my duty to criticize my own beliefs.” Roger Zelazny once distinguished between “wanting to be an author” versus “wanting to write.” Mark Twain said: “A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and no one wants to read.” Criticizing yourself from a sense of duty leaves you wanting to have investigated, so that you’ll be able to say afterward that your faith is not blind. This is not the same as wanting to investigate.
This can lead to motivated stopping of your investigation. You consider an objection, then a counterargument to that objection, then you stop there. You repeat this with several objections, until you feel that you have done your duty to investigate, and then you stop there. You have achieved your underlying psychological objective: to get rid of the cognitive dissonance that would result from thinking of yourself as a rationalist, and yet knowing that you had not tried to criticize your belief. You might call it purchase of rationalist satisfaction—trying to create a "warm glow" of discharged duty.
Afterward, your stated probability level will be high enough to justify your keeping the plans and beliefs you started with, but not so high as to evoke incredulity from yourself or other rationalists.
When you’re really curious, you’ll gravitate to inquiries that seem most promising of producing shifts in belief, or inquiries that are least like the ones you’ve tried before. Afterward, your probability distribution likely should not look like it did when you started out—shifts should have occurred, whether up or down; and either direction is equally fine to you, if you’re genuinely curious.
Contrast this to the subconscious motive of keeping your inquiry on familiar ground, so that you can get your investigation over with quickly, so that you can have investigated, and restore the familiar balance on which your familiar old plans and beliefs are based.
As for what I think true curiosity should look like, and the power that it holds, I refer you to “A Fable of Science and Politics” in the first book of this series, Map and Territory. The fable showcases the reactions of different characters to an astonishing discovery, with each character’s response intended to illustrate different lessons. Ferris, the last character, embodies the power of innocent curiosity: which is lightness, and an eager reaching forth for evidence.
Ursula K. LeGuin wrote: “In innocence there is no strength against evil. But there is strength in it for good.”1 Innocent curiosity may turn innocently awry; and so the training of a rationalist, and its accompanying sophistication, must be dared as a danger if we want to become stronger. Nonetheless we can try to keep the lightness and the eager reaching of innocence.
As it is written in “The Twelve Virtues of Rationality”:
There just isn’t any good substitute for genuine curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. But you can’t produce curiosity just by willing it, any more than you can will your foot to feel warm when it feels cold. Sometimes, all we have is our mere solemn vows.
So what can you do with duty? For a start, we can try to take an interest in our dutiful investigations—keep a close eye out for sparks of genuine intrigue, or even genuine ignorance and a desire to resolve it. This goes right along with keeping a special eye out for possibilities that are painful, that you are flinching away from—it’s not all negative thinking.
It should also help to meditate on “Conservation of Expected Evidence.” For every new point of inquiry, for every piece of unseen evidence that you suddenly look at, the expected posterior probability should equal your prior probability. In the microprocess of inquiry, your belief should always be evenly poised to shift in either direction. Not every point may suffice to blow the issue wide open—to shift belief from 70% to 30% probability—but if your current belief is 70%, you should be as ready to drop it to 69% as raise it to 71%. You should not think that you know which direction it will go in (on average), because by the laws of probability theory, if you know your destination, you are already there. If you can investigate honestly, so that each new point really does have equal potential to shift belief upward or downward, this may help to keep you interested or even curious about the microprocess of inquiry.
If the argument you are considering is not new, then why is your attention going here? Is this where you would look if you were genuinely curious? Are you subconsciously criticizing your belief at its strong points, rather than its weak points? Are you rehearsing the evidence?
If you can manage not to rehearse already known support, and you can manage to drop down your belief by one tiny bite at a time from the new evidence, you may even be able to relinquish the belief entirely—to realize from which quarter the winds of evidence are blowing against you.
Another restorative for curiosity is what I have taken to calling the Litany of Tarski, which is really a meta-litany that specializes for each instance (this is only appropriate). For example, if I am tensely wondering whether a locked box contains a diamond, then rather than thinking about all the wonderful consequences if the box does contain a diamond, I can repeat the Litany of Tarski:
Then you should meditate upon the possibility that there is no diamond, and the subsequent advantage that will come to you if you believe there is no diamond, and the subsequent disadvantage if you believe there is a diamond. See also the Litany of Gendlin.
If you can find within yourself the slightest shred of true uncertainty, then guard it like a forester nursing a campfire. If you can make it blaze up into a flame of curiosity, it will make you light and eager, and give purpose to your questioning and direction to your skills.
1Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore (Saga Press, 2001).