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arundelo comments on Open Thread: September 2011 - LessWrong
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You might be reading SarahC as saying that teaching a competent adult to change his or her habits of thought is not possible (if you're not, ignore this comment), but I think she's saying that it's not worthwhile.
If it is not worthwhile for competent adults to learn something as basic as "how to change their mind" then I would have to agree with the conclusion that we are doomed.
Er why, exactly? Most competent adults in history have not known how to change their mind? The worlds has improved because of those who do. It seems to me that the key variable in teaching rationality is whether the student is willing. Most people just don't care that much about the truth of their far-beliefs. But occasional people do and those are the people you can teach. Thats why everyone here is a truth fetishist.
What we need is more pro-truth propaganda so that in the next generation the pool of potential rationalists is larger.
The emphasis here is on worthwhile: the idea that changing your mind, and knowing how to, has a tangible benefit, and one that is (generally, on average) worth the effort it takes to learn. If there's no particular benefit to changing your mind, then either (a) you have already selected the best outcome or (b) your choices are irrelevant.
If this is the best possible world, then I feel okay calling us doomed; it's a pretty lousy world.
As to irrelevancy, well, to think that I'd live the same life regardless of whether "Will you marry me?" is met with yes or no? That is not a world I want. The idea that given a set of choices, the outcome remains the same across them is just a terrifying nihilistic idea to me.
The claim isn't that it isn't worthwhile to learn rationalism, period. The claim is that for lots of people, it isn't worthwhile.
The claim is that, for lots of people, the net gain from changing their mind is so minimal as to not be worth the time spent studying. This implies strongly that, for lots of people, they have either (a) already made the best choice or (b) are not faced with any meaningful choices.
(a) implies that either lots of people are completely incapable of good decisions or are the Chosen Of God, their every selection Divinely Inspired from amongst the best of all possible worlds. Which goes back to this being a pretty lousy world.
(b) flies in the face of all the major decisions people normally make (marriage, buying a house, having children, etc.), and suggests that, statistically, a lot of the "important decisions" in my own life are probably meaningless unless I am the Chosen Of Bayes, specially exempt from the nihilism that blights the mundane masses.
For some people there may be the class (c) that the cost of learning rationality is much, much higher than normal. If your focus is on this group, that's a whole different conversation about why I think this is really rare :)
Just to begin with, the above is a terrible way to structure an inductive argument about something as variable has human behavior. Obviously few people are "completely incapable of good decisions or are the Chosen Of God" and no important decisions in life are "meaningless". It is, however, the case that most decisions don't matter all that much and that, when they do, people usual do a pretty good job without special training.
But the real issue that you're missing is opportunity cost. Lots of people don't know how to read or do arithmetic. Lots of people can't manage personal finances. Lots of people need more training to get a better job. Lots of people suffer from addiction. Lots of people don't have significant chunks of free time. Lots of people have children to raise. Almost everyone could benefit from learning something but many people either do not have the time or would benefit far more from learning a particular skill or trade rather than Bayesian math and how to identify cognitive biases.
I'm not disagreeing with this at all. But given the option of teaching someone nothing or teaching them this? I think it's a net gain for them to learn how to change their mind. And I think most people have room in their life to pretty easily be casually taught a simple skill like this, or at least the basics. I've been teaching it as part of casual conversations with my roommate just because I enjoy talking about it.
But that isn't the question.
I think it is a net gain for a person to learn the arguments of Christian apologetics, that doesn't mean it is worthwhile for everyone to learn the arguments of Christian apologetics. Time is a limited resource.
I've taught aspects of rationality to lots of people because I like talking about it too. But my friends and family have learned it as a side effect of doing something they would be doing anyway, having interesting conversations with me. Some of them are interested in things like cognitive biases and learn on their own. But we don't yet have anything here that makes dramatic differences in people's lives such that it is important they spend precious resources on learning it.
ETA: That was a bit brisk of me. I think we just have different definitions of "worthwhile". :-)
If something's being worthwhile or not is a major consideration in whether or not we are doomed, doesn't that make it worthwhile? OTOH, if you mean "If we are the same amount of doomed whether or not people learn to change their minds, then we are very doomed," you are right.
I think that concisely summarizes the point I was trying to make. Thank you! :)