Caledonian2 comments on Angry Atoms - Less Wrong

30 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 March 2008 12:28AM

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Comment author: Caledonian2 01 April 2008 12:04:16AM 0 points [-]

We don't have any conscious insight into how our small intestines function, or what's going on in our cellular machinery. That does not constitute evidence that nothing is happening there. There are far more things that we have no conscious awareness of and yet still occur than processes we're aware of. Almost infinitely more, in fact.

Even the most introductory and rudimentary college psychology course presents plenty of examples of ways in which our perceptions fail us, and our minds are riddled with illogical biases that we can overcome only with significant effort. Why in the world would you trust your intuition when simple, basic logic contradicts it?

People cling to the idea that there's something inherently special about living things, and humans in particular. I suspect this is a side effect of our minds developing two general categorization systems to handle things: one for things that obey simple kinematic principles, like thrown rocks, and one for things that can move unpredictably, like deer and people and dragonflies.