When an LW contributor is in need of an example of something that (1) is plainly, uncontroversially (here on LW, at least) very wrong but (2) an otherwise reasonable person might get lured into believing by dint of inadequate epistemic hygiene, there seems to be only one example that everyone reaches for: belief in God. (Of course there are different sorts of god-belief, but I don't think that makes it count as more than one example.) Eliezer is particularly fond of this trope, but he's not alone.
How odd that there should be exactly one example. How convenient that there is one at all! How strange that there isn't more than one!
In the population at large (even the smarter parts of it) god-belief is sufficiently widespread that using it as a canonical example of irrationality would run the risk of annoying enough of your audience to be counterproductive. Not here, apparently. Perhaps we-here-on-LW are just better reasoners than everyone else ... but then, again, isn't it strange that there aren't a bunch of other popular beliefs that we've all seen through? In the realm of politics or economics, for instance, surely there ought to be some.
Also: it doesn't seem to me that I'm that a much better thinker than I was a few years ago when (alas) I was a theist; nor does it seem to me that everyone on LW is substantially better at thinking than I am; which makes it hard for me to believe that there's a certain level of rationality that almost everyone here has attained, and that makes theism vanishingly rare.
I offer the following uncomfortable conjecture: We all want to find (and advertise) things that our superior rationality has freed us from, or kept us free from. (Because the idea that Rationality Just Isn't That Great is disagreeable when one has invested time and/or effort and/or identity in rationality, and because we want to look impressive.) We observe our own atheism, and that everyone else here seems to be an atheist too, and not unnaturally we conclude that we've found such a thing. But in fact (I conjecture) LW is so full of atheists not only because atheism is more rational than theism (note for the avoidance of doubt: yes, I agree that atheism is more rational than theism, at least for people in our epistemic situation) but also because
- the readership of LW (and, earlier, of OB) is drawn disproportionately from communities that have long been atheistic (and not just because their members are supremely rational);
- theism has been used so often (here, and earlier on OB) as a canonical example of Wrongness that any theists who might have participated have either deconverted or gone away;
- any theists who remain are keeping quiet about it because they don't want to get jumped on.
Does any of this matter? I think it might, because
- it would be a shame to fool ourselves into thinking that rationality (or x-rationality) is more powerful than it really is;
- we may be scaring away people who (despite their obstinate clinging to irrational superstitions, etc., etc., etc) would be valuable here. As Eliezer has pointed out a few times, Robert Aumann is an Orthodox Jew; whatever mental contortions he may have to go through to maintain that, it seems fairly clear that if he turned up at LW wanting to contribute we would be ill-advised to drive him away. I bet he isn't the only person who manages to remain religious despite knowing a thing or two about rationality;
- we may be annoying and upsetting some readers, which is a (minor) pity in itself;
- perhaps there are other equally good (or better) Awful Examples that we aren't availing ourselves of because the habit of using god-belief for that purpose has become so ingrained.
So. Is theism really a uniquely awful example? If so, then surely there must be insights aplenty to be had from seeing what makes it so unique. If not, though ... Anyone got any other examples of things just about everyone here has seen the folly of, even though they're widespread among otherwise-smart people? And, if not, what shall we do about it?
For what it's worth, I've recently started reading this site and am an Orthodox Jew. I have no particular plans to stop reading the site for the time being, because it's often rather interesting.
It may be worth considering that while rationalists may feel they don't need religion, almost all religious people would acknowledge the need for rationality of some kind. If rationality is about achieving your goals as effectively as possible (as some here think), then does it suddenly not work if your goals are "obey the Bible"? No -- your actions will be different from someone with different goals (utilitarianism, etc.), but most of the thought-process is the same.
Suppose you have an extremely high prior probability for God sending doubters to Hell, for whatever reason. Presumably the utility of going to Hell is very, very low. Then, as a rational Bayesian, you should avoid any evidence that would tend to cause you to doubt God, shouldn't you? I certainly don't know much of Bayesian probability, but I can't see any flaw in that logic.
The question seems rather similar to that of Omega. The winners are those who can convince themselves, by any means, that a particular belief is right. In that sense, God could be said to reward irrationality, just like Omega. The only real difference is that in Omega's case, nobody doubts the fact that Omega exists and is doing the judging in the first place. I don't think that's essential to the nature of the problem, although it makes it harder for most rationalists to dismiss.
Of course, "rationalism" as used on this site often implies acceptance of empiricism, Occam's razor, falsifiability, and things like that, not just pure Bayesian logic with arbitrary priors. But of course, I almost completely accept all those things, and am tolerant of those who accept them more thoroughly than I. It should therefore not be very surprising that I'd see value in this site, along with other religious people with similar attitudes (however few there may be).
I do think that at least being polite toward religion (which doesn't always happen here) is more likely to advance the goals of this site than otherwise. It doesn't help anyone's goals to drive people away before you can deconvert them; and even if you can't deconvert them, you still gain by helping them think more logically (by your definitions) in other areas.
This is a preference over rituals of cognition, choosing not just decisions, but the algorithms with which you arrive at those decisions. It is usually assumed that only the decisions matter, not the thought process. If you did live in such a world, I agree, you should avoid... (read more)