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masters02 comments on Emotional tools for the beginner rationalist - Less Wrong
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I certainly had a huge emotional problem with being wrong. Three years ago when I was a Muslim, I had a considerably stronger attachment to my beliefs than to reality and truth. As far as I was concerned, my beliefs were the truth (haha) and I could never have distinguished between the two. In fact, everyone I knew was exactly the same, if not worse.
What helped me was having role models that showed me a completely different way of life (many hats off to Dawkins, Pinker, Buffett, Munger, Krauss, et al). I watched them for hours and hours in countless interviews, debates and discussions. Of course, youtube videos didn't make me feel judged, and I think that was important for me at that time. They all fascinated me, and as I observed them, I began modelling some of their thought processes and philosophies. Eventually, I felt an emotional attachment towards reality and felt smug whenever I could openly admit that I was wrong. Now, I would feel like an emotionally-fragile dumbass if I couldn't admit to being wrong and subsequently change my mind.
Ladies and gentlemen, I didn't know it would be so great on this side.
I'll echo this as a relative beginner. Being wrong still feels like a kick in the stomach - even more so when I'm wrong in front of someone else. I actually transitioned to the night shift recently, and being able to troubleshoot technical issues without my coworkers around has helped a lot. Unfortunately, while my technical skills are improving, I have no reason to confront my self-consciousness on a daily basis. So my collaboration skills are still poor.
Congratulations!
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you probably did care about the truth even years ago, but you assumed that the Muslim story does correspond to how things really are. Or am I wrong here? Did you already see the mismatch between belief and reality, and just told yourself "whatever; the belief is what matters"?
Why thank you.
You're correct. I did think that the Muslim story was the truth. There were times when I was forced to face a mismatch between my beliefs and reality (evolution is an obvious one), but as you can imagine, I was a pro at rationalising things away. And when rationalisations didn't suffice, I simply put it down to my ignorance and didn't bother pursuing it. And to consolidate all my irrational behaviour, I had enormous social proof that this was the right thing to do.
I should have made it clear that I had no respect whatsoever for 'evidence'. I laugh thinking about it now, but I would openly use/deny evidence whenever it was convenient for me. I would interpret and reinterpret the Quran so that it made sense to me. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
So what exactly was the thing that at the beginning made you watch Dawkins et al. on youtube? Was it something like "Oh, these people have weird (and obviously wrong) beliefs, but they seem so sure and talk about many things... let's watch how far they can get before they get hit with an evidence they can't process?"
Essentially, what motivated you to spend your time watching someone you believed was wrong?
Nice, sounds like you have a powerful story to share! Would you be willing to video yourself sharing your story, that might be something we could put up on the Intentional Insights website and Youtube channel to help other people who are struggling with the same dynamic. Email me at gleb@intentionalinsights.org to talk more about this.
I appreciate the opportunity, but I am very much a private person. Looks like an interesting website, I'll be checking it out.
Totally understand that, and thanks for the nice words about the website. It's our broader project of expanding rationality to a wide audience.