[SEQ RERUN] Mere Messiahs

MinibearRex

Today's post, Mere Messiahs was originally published on 02 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

John Perry, an extropian and a transhumanist, died when the north tower of the World Trade Center fell. He knew he was risking his existence to save other people, and he had hope that he might be able to avoid death, but he still helped them. This takes far more courage than someone who dies, expecting to be rewarded in an afterlife for their virtue.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Superhero Bias, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Mere Messiahs was originally published on 02 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

John Perry, an extropian and a transhumanist, died when the north tower of the World Trade Center fell. He knew he was risking his existence to save other people, and he had hope that he might be able to avoid death, but he still helped them. This takes far more courage than someone who dies, expecting to be rewarded in an afterlife for their virtue.

You could genuinely believe it, and be willing to make predictions or even bets based on your belief, but that doesn't mean you've internalized it.

I agree that there's a distinction here, though it strikes me as one of degree rather than kind.

I would say the same thing about the two dragon-claiming, garage-owning neighbors... in both cases, their minds fail to associate representations of the dragon in their garage with various other representations that would constrain their behavior in various ways. Whether we call that "belief in belief" or "failure to internalize" or "not thinking it through" or "being confused" or "not noticing the implications"... (read more)

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