What are we to think when someone says with their lips that they desire truth, but by their other cognitive deeds choose comfortable illusions over reality (or comfortable cynicism over reality)?

Robin Hanson has labeled such individuals hypocrites.  In the traditional sense of the term, a hypocrite is a moral liar: someone who says a morality which they do not, themselves, believe.  On the other hand, we don't always live up to the goals we set for ourselves.  If I really believe that I ought to exercise at least 3 times per week, but I don't always do so, am I properly termed a "hypocrite"?  The term akrasia, meaning "weakness of will" or "failure of self-control", seems more appropriate.  Even if I tell all my friends that they ought to exercise 3 times per week, that doesn't necessarily make me a hypocrite.  It's good advice.  (Now, if I claimed to always exercise 3 times per week, knowing that this claim was false, that would be dishonest.)

Accusations of hypocrisy garner a lot more attention than accusations of akrasia - because hypocrisy is a deliberate transgression.  It is tempting to say "hypocrisy" when you really mean "akrasia", because you'll get more attention, but that can cause damage to innocent bystanders.  In akrasia, your transgression is your failure of will - it's fine that you advocate going to the gym more often, you just need to live up to the principle yourself.  In hypocrisy, the transgression is claiming to care: you have no right to publicly advocate the moral principle, because (the accuser says) you don't believe in it yourself.

Followup to: Making Beliefs Pay Rent (in Anticipated Experiences)

Carl Sagan once told a parable of a man who comes to us and claims: "There is a dragon in my garage." Fascinating! We reply that we wish to see this dragon—let us set out at once for the garage! "But wait," the claimant says to us, "it is an invisible dragon."

Now as Sagan points out, this doesn't make the hypothesis unfalsifiable. Perhaps we go to the claimant's garage, and although we see no dragon, we hear heavy breathing from no visible source; footprints mysteriously appear on the ground; and instruments show that something in the garage is consuming oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide.

But now suppose that we say to the claimant, "Okay, we'll visit the garage and see if we can hear heavy breathing," and the claimant quickly says no, it's an inaudible dragon. We propose to measure carbon dioxide in the air, and the claimant says the dragon does not breathe. We propose to toss a bag of flour into the air to see if it outlines an invisible dragon, and the claimant immediately says, "The dragon is permeable to flour."

Carl Sagan used this parable to illustrate the classic moral that poor hypotheses need to do fast footwork to avoid falsification. But I tell this parable to make a different point: The claimant must have an accurate model of the situation somewhere in his mind, because he can anticipate, in advance, exactly which experimental results he'll need to excuse.

I once attended a panel on the topic, "Are science and religion compatible?" One of the women on the panel, a pagan, held forth interminably upon how she believed that the Earth had been created when a giant primordial cow was born into the primordial abyss, who licked a primordial god into existence, whose descendants killed a primordial giant and used its corpse to create the Earth, etc. The tale was long, and detailed, and more absurd than the Earth being supported on the back of a giant turtle. And the speaker clearly knew enough science to know this.

I still find myself struggling for words to describe what I saw as this woman spoke. She spoke with... pride? Self-satisfaction? A deliberate flaunting of herself?

I have so far distinguished between belief as anticipation-controller, belief in belief, professing and cheering.  Of these, we might call anticipation-controlling beliefs "proper beliefs" and the other forms "improper belief".  A proper belief can be wrong or irrational, e.g., someone who genuinely anticipates that prayer will cure her sick baby, but the other forms are arguably "not belief at all".

Yet another form of improper belief is belief as group-identification—as a way of belonging.  Robin Hanson uses the excellent metaphor of wearing unusual clothing, a group uniform like a priest's vestments or a Jewish skullcap, and so I will call this "belief as attire".

In terms of humanly realistic psychology, the Muslims who flew planes into the World Trade Center undoubtedly saw themselves as heroes defending truth, justice, and the Islamic Way from hideous alien monsters a la the movie Independence Day.  Only a very inexperienced nerd, the sort of nerd who has no idea how non-nerds see the world, would say this out loud in an Alabama bar.  It is not an American thing to say.  The American thing to say is that the terrorists "hate our freedom" and that flying a plane into a building is a "cowardly act".  You cannot say the phrases "heroic self-sacrifice" and "suicide bomber" in the same sentence, even for the sake of accurately describing how the Enemy sees the world.   The very concept of the courage and altruism of a suicide bomber is Enemy attire—you can tell, because the Enemy talks about it.  The cowardice and sociopathy of a suicide bomber is American attire.  There are no quote marks you can use to talk about how the Enemy sees the world; it would be like dressing up as a Nazi for Halloween.

Once, when I was holding forth upon the Way, I remarked upon how most organized belief systems exist to flee from doubt.  A listener replied to me that the Jesuits must be immune from this criticism, because they practice organized doubt: their novices, he said, are told to doubt Christianity; doubt the existence of God; doubt if their calling is real; doubt that they are suitable for perpetual vows of chastity and poverty.  And I said:  Ah, but they're supposed to overcome these doubts, right?  He said:  No, they are to doubt that perhaps their doubts may grow and become stronger.

Googling failed to confirm or refute these allegations.  (If anyone in the audience can help, I'd be much obliged.)  But I find this scenario fascinating, worthy of discussion, regardless of whether it is true or false of Jesuits.  If the Jesuits practiced deliberate doubt, as described above, would they therefore be virtuous as rationalists?

At the Singularity Summit yesterday, several speakers alleged that we should "reach out" to artists and poets to encourage their participation in the Singularity dialogue.  So at the end of one such session, a woman went up to the audience microphone and said:

"I am an artist.  I want to participate.  What should I do?"

And there was a brief, frozen silence.

Followup to:  Semantic Stopsigns, We Don't Really Want Your Participation

At the Singularity Summit 2007, one of the speakers called for democratic, multinational development of AI.  So I stepped up to the microphone and asked:

Suppose that a group of democratic republics form a consortium to develop AI, and there's a lot of politicking during the process—some interest groups have unusually large influence, others get shafted—in other words, the result looks just like the products of modern democracies.  Alternatively, suppose a group of rebel nerds develops an AI in their basement, and instructs the AI to poll everyone in the world—dropping cellphones to anyone who doesn't have them—and do whatever the majority says.  Which of these do you think is more "democratic", and would you feel safe with either?

I wanted to find out whether he believed in the pragmatic adequacy of the democratic political process, or if he believed in the moral rightness of voting.  But the speaker replied:

The first scenario sounds like an editorial in Reason magazine, and the second sounds like a Hollywood movie plot.

Confused, I asked:

Then what kind of democratic process did you have in mind?

Yesterday, someone said that my writing reminded them of George Orwell's Politics and the English Language.  I was honored.  Especially since I'd already thought of today's topic.

If you really want an artist's perspective on rationality, then read Orwell; he is mandatory reading for rationalists as well as authors.  Orwell was not a scientist, but a writer; his tools were not numbers, but words; his adversary was not Nature, but human evil.  If you wish to imprison people for years without trial, you must think of some other way to say it than "I'm going to imprison Mr. Jennings for years without trial."  You must muddy the listener's thinking, prevent clear images from outraging conscience.  You say, "Unreliable elements were subjected to an alternative justice process."

Orwell was the outraged opponent of totalitarianism and the muddy thinking in which evil cloaks itself—which is how Orwell's writings on language ended up as classic rationalist documents on a level with Feynman, Sagan, or Dawkins.

Followup to:  Rationality and the English Language

George Orwell saw the descent of the civilized world into totalitarianism, the conversion or corruption of one country after another; the boot stamping on a human face, forever, and remember that it is forever.  You were born too late to remember a time when the rise of totalitarianism seemed unstoppable, when one country after another fell to secret police and the thunderous knock at midnight, while the professors of free universities hailed the Soviet Union's purges as progress.  It feels as alien to you as fiction; it is hard for you to take seriously.  Because, in your branch of time, the Berlin Wall fell.  And if Orwell's name is not carved into one of those stones, it should be.

Orwell saw the destiny of the human species, and he put forth a convulsive effort to wrench it off its path.  Orwell's weapon was clear writing.  Orwell knew that muddled language is muddled thinking; he knew that human evil and muddled thinking intertwine like conjugate strands of DNA:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification...

Followup to:  The Bottom Line, Rationalization

You are, by occupation, a campaign manager, and you've just been hired by Mortimer Q. Snodgrass, the Green candidate for Mayor of Hadleyburg.  As a campaign manager reading a blog on rationality, one question lies foremost on your mind:  "How can I construct an impeccable rational argument that Mortimer Q. Snodgrass is the best candidate for Mayor of Hadleyburg?"

Sorry.  It can't be done.

"What?" you cry.  "But what if I use only valid support to construct my structure of reason?  What if every fact I cite is true to the best of my knowledge, and relevant evidence under Bayes's Rule?"

Sorry.  It still can't be done.  You defeated yourself the instant you specified your argument's conclusion in advance.