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Fleisch comments on The curse of identity - LessWrong
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This is either a very obvious rationalization, or you don't understand Kaj Sotalas point, or both.
The problem Kaj Sotala described is that people have lots of goals, and important ones too, simply as a strategic feature, and they are not deeply motivated to do something about them. This means that most of us who came together here because we think the world could really be better will with all likelihood not achieve much because we're not deeply motivated to do something about the big problems. Do you really think there's no problem at hand? Then that would mean you don't really care about the big problems.
I deny that having a goal as a "strategic feature" is incompatible with being sincerly and deeply motivated. That's my point.
More precisely : either one is consciously seeking gratitude, then he/she is cynical, but I think this is rarely the case. Either seeking gratitude is only one aspect of a goal that is sincerly pursued (which means that one wants to deserve that gatiude for real). Then there is no problem, the motivation is there.
Then you don't talk about the same thing as Kaj Sotala. He talks about all the cases where it seems to you that you are deeply motivated, but the goal turns out to be, or gets turned into nothing beyond strategic self-deception. Your point may be valid, but it is about something else than what his post is about.
I don't make a difference between having a goal and seeking gratitude for that goal, it's exactly the same for me. Something is important if it deserve a lot of gratitude, something is not if it does not. That's all. The "gratitude" part is intrinsic.
If you accept my view, Kaj Sotala's statement is a nonsense: it can't turn out to be strategic self-deception when we thought we were deeply motivated, we're seeking gratitude from the start (which is precisely what "being deeply motivated" means. If at one point we discover that we've been looking for gratitude all that time, then we don't discover that we've been fooling ourself, we're only beginning to understand the true nature of any goal.
Like Wei Dai said - the core problem (at least in my case) wasn't in the prestige-seeking by itself, it was in the cached and incorrect thoughts about what would lead to prestigious results, and the fact that those cached thoughts hijacked the reasoning process. If I had stopped to really think about whether the actions made any sense, I should have realized that such actions wouldn't lead to prestige, they would lead to screwing up (in the first and second example, at least). But instead I just went with the first cliché of prestige that my brain associated with this particular task.
If I had actually thought about it, I would have realized that there were better ways of both achieving the goal and getting prestige... but because my mind was so focused on the first cliché of prestige that came up, I didn't want to think about anything that would have suggested I couldn't do it. I subconsciously believed that if I didn't get prestige this way, I wouldn't get it in any other way either, so I pushed away any doubts about it.
Maybe I misunderstood a bit your point. I understood: - "I thought I wanted to work for a great cause but it turned out I only wanted to be the kind of person who work for a great cause"
Now I understand: - "I really wanted to work for a great cause, but it turned out all my actions were directed toward giving the impression, in the short-term, that I was"
In other words, you were talking about shortsightedness when I thought it was delusion?
Yes, I think you could put it that way.
Imagine that in the current discussion, we suddenly realize that we've been writing all that time not to find the truth, but to convince each other (which I think is actually the case). It would be one of those situations where someone like Kaj Sotala would say: "it seems you're deeply motivated in finding the truth, but you're only trying to make people think you have the truth (=convince them)". Then my point would be: unless you're cynical, convincing and finding the truth are exactly the same. If you're cynical, you just think short term and your truth won't last (people will soon realize you were wrong). If you're sincere, you think long term and your truth will last. I would even argue that the only proper definition of truth is: what convinces most people in the long run. Similarly, a proper definition of good (or "important to do") would be: what brings gratitude from most people in the long run.
I think that defocussing a bit and taking the outside view for a second might be clarifying, so let's not talk about what it is exactly that people do.
Kaj Sotala says that he has identified something which constitutes a major problem source, with exemplary problems a) - f), all very real problems like failing charities and people being unable to work from home. Then you come, and say "there is no problem here," that everything boils down to us just using the wrong definition of motivation (or something). But what's with the charities that can't find anyone to do their mucky jobs? What's with the people who could offer great service and/or reduce their working hours by working from home, if only they could get themselves to do it? Where does your argument solve these problems?
The reason I reacted to your post was not that I saw the exact flaw in your argument. The reason I answered is that I saw that your argument doesn't solve the problem at hand; in fact, it fails to even recognize it in the first place.
I think that you are probably overvaluing criticism. If so, you can increase the usefulness of your thoughts significantly if you stop yourself from paying much attention to flaws and try to identify the heart of the material first, and only apply criticism afterwards, and even then only if it's worth it.
Sorry, but I am only refining the statement I made from the start, which in my view is still perfectly relevant to the material. You don't agree with me, now let's not loose too much time on meta-discussions...
I understand your concern about the problems mentioned in the article, and your feeling that I don't address them. You're right, I don't: my feeling about these problems is that they occur in complex situations where lots of actors are involved, and i am not convinced at all that they result from a lack of motivation or a problem of unconscious motivation hijacking.
You think he would make the mistake of thinking there is only one motivation behind each human action?
Just to clarify: consider two competing theories T1 and T2 about what will happen to the Earth's surface after all people have died. You would argue that if T1 is extremely popular prior among living people prior to that time, and T2 is unpopular, then that's all we need to know to conclude that T1 is more true than T2. Further, if all other competing theories are even less popular than T2, then you would argue further that T1 is true and all other competing theories false. What actually happens to the Earth's surface is completely irrelevant to the truth of T1.
Have I understood you?
This is a bit caricatural. I made my statement as simple as possible for the sake of the argument, but I subscribe to the pragmatic theory of truth.
I made my example extreme to make it easy for you to confirm or refute. But given your refutation, I honestly have no idea what you mean when you suggest that the only proper definition of truth is what convinces the most people in the long run. It sure sounds like you're saying that the truth about a system is a function of people's beliefs about that system rather than a function of the system itself.
Yes in a sense. The pragmatic conception of truth holds that we do not have access to an absolute truth, nor to any system as it is "in itself", but only to our beliefs and representations of systems. All we can do is test our beliefs and the accuracy of our representations.
Within that conception, a belief is true if "it works", that is, if it can be successfully confronted to other established belief systems and serve as a base for action with expectied result (e.g. scientific inquiry). Incidentally, there is no truth outside our beliefs, and truth is always temporary. A truth could be considered universal if it could convince everyone.
I'm entirely on board with endorsing beliefs that can successfully serve as a basis for action with expected results by calling them "true," and on board with the whole "we don't have access to absolutes" thing.
I am not on board with endorsing beliefs as "true" just because I can convince other people of them.
You seem to be talking about both things at once, which is why I'm confused.
Can you clarify what differences you see (if any) between "it works/it serves as a reliable basis for action" on the one hand, and "it can convince people" on the other, as applied to a belief, and why those differences matter (if they do)?
In my view, going from subjective truth to universal (inter-subjective) truth requires agreement between different people, that is, convincing others (or being convinced). I hold a belief because it is reliable for me. If it is reliable for others as well, then they'll probably agree with me. I will convince them.
"They fuck you up, count be wrong"
Kid in The Wire, Pragmatist Special Episode when asked how he could keep count of how many vials of crack were left in the stash but couldn't solve the word problem in his math homework.
Let me rephrase.
The assumption that there would exist pure gratitude-free goals is a myth: pursuing such goals would be absurd. (people who seem do perform gratitude-free actions are often religious people: they actually believe in divine gratitude).
Therefore social gratitude is an essential component of any goal and thus it is not correlated with lack of sincere motivation, nor does it "downgrade" the goal to something less important. It's just part of it.
See Fake Selfishness.
Seeking gratitude has nothing to do with selfishness., on the contrary. Something usually deserve gratitude if it benefits others. My position is very altruistic.
The error in reasoning is analogous.
I don't think so. Let me precise that my thoughts are to be understood from an ethical perspective: by "goal" I mean something that deserves to be done, in other words, "something good". I start from the assumption that having a goal supposes thinking that it's somehow something good (=something I should do), which is kind of tautologic.
Now I am only suggesting that a goal that does not deserve any gratitude can't be "good" from an ethical point of view.
Moreover, I am not proclaming I am purely seeking gratitude in all my actions.
We seem to be having a definitional problem. Perhaps if you taboo the word gratitude, then we might understand your position better.
Ok. I would replace "Being grateful for an action" by "recognizing that an action is important/beneficial". Pursuing a pure gratitude-free goal would mean: pursuing a goal that nobody think is beneficial or important to do (except you, because you do it), and supposedly nobody ever will. My claim is that such action is absurd from an ethical (universalist) perspective.
I don't understand what you mean by "absurd."
Bob tells you that he is going to climb a boring and uninteresting mountain because he randomly feels like it. There's nothing to see there that couldn't be seen elsewhere, and everyone else thinks that climbing that mountain is pointless. Omega verifies that Bob has no other motivation for climbing the mountain.
Would you say that Bob's desire to climb the mountain is (a) mentally defective (i.e. insane), (b) immoral, (c) impossible, (d) not relevant to your point, or (e) something else?
What do you mean by "randomly feels like it"? Maybe he wants some fresh air or something... Then it's a personal motivation, and my answer is (d) not relevant to ethic. The discussion in this article was not, I think, about casual goals like climbing a mountain, but about the goals in your life, the important things to do (maybe I should use the term "finalities" instead). It was a matter of ethic.
If Bob believes that climbing this mountain is good or important while he admits that his only motivation is "randomly feeling like it", then I call his belief absurd.
I'm afraid you are making a very strong statement with hardly any evidence to support it. You merely claim that people who pursue gratitude-free goals are often religious people (source?) and that such goals are a myth and absurd. (Why?) I for one, don't understand why such a goal would be necessarily absurd..
Also, I can imagine that even if I was the only person in the world, I would still pursue some goals.
It's absurd from an ethical point of view, as a finality. I was implicitely talking in the context of pursuing "important goals", that is, valued on an ethical basis. Abnegation at some level is an important part of most religious doctrines.
What prediction about the world can you make from these beliefs? What would be less - or more - surprising to you than to those with typical beliefs here?
Ethic is not about predicting perceptions but conducting actions.
Let me justify my position.
Gratitude-free actions are absurd from an ethical point of view, because we do not have access to any transcendant and absolute notion of "good". Consequently, we have no way to tell if an action is good if noone is grateful for it.
If you perform a gratitude-free action, either it's only good for you: then you're selfish, and that's far from the universal aim of ethics. Either you you believe in a transcendant notion of "good", together with a divine gratitude, which is a religious position.
Is the following a reasonable paraphrase of your position:
My view is very altruistic on the contrary : seeking gratitude is seeking to perform actions that benefits others or the whole society. Game theoretic considerations would justify being selfish, which does not deserve gratitude at all.
That doesn't follow. Degree of sincerity and degree of social gratitute may well be correlated. The fact that motivations are seldom pure doesn't change that. It just makes the relationship more grey.
I don't make a difference between seeking social gratitude and having a goal. In my view, sincere motivation is positively correlated with seeking social gratitude. You can make an analogy with markets if you want: social gratitude is money, motivation is work. If something is worth doing, it will deserve social gratitude. In my view, the author here appears to be complaining that we are working for money and not for free...