You Can Face Reality
What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn't make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn't make it go away.
And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with.
Anything untrue isn't there to be lived.
People can stand what is true,
for they are already enduring it.
—Eugene Gendlin
(Hat tip to Stephen Omohundro.)
Part of the Letting Go subsequence of How To Actually Change Your Mind
Next post: "The Meditation on Curiosity"
Previous post: "The Proper Use of Doubt"
The Fallacy of Gray
Followup to: Tsuyoku Naritai, But There's Still A Chance Right?
The Sophisticate: "The world isn't black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It's all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else."
The Zetet: "Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view..."
—Marc Stiegler, David's Sling
I don't know if the Sophisticate's mistake has an official name, but I call it the Fallacy of Gray. We saw it manifested in yesterday's post—the one who believed that odds of two to the power of seven hundred and fifty millon to one, against, meant "there was still a chance". All probabilities, to him, were simply "uncertain" and that meant he was licensed to ignore them if he pleased.
"The Moon is made of green cheese" and "the Sun is made of mostly hydrogen and helium" are both uncertainties, but they are not the same uncertainty.
Everything is shades of gray, but there are shades of gray so light as to be very nearly white, and shades of gray so dark as to be very nearly black. Or even if not, we can still compare shades, and say "it is darker" or "it is lighter".
Belief in Self-Deception
Continuation of: No, Really, I've Deceived Myself
Followup to: Dark Side Epistemology
I spoke yesterday of my conversation with a nominally Orthodox Jewish woman who vigorously defended the assertion that she believed in God, while seeming not to actually believe in God at all.
While I was questioning her about the benefits that she thought came from believing in God, I introduced the Litany of Tarski—which is actually an infinite family of litanies, a specific example being:
If the sky is blue
I desire to believe "the sky is blue"
If the sky is not blue
I desire to believe "the sky is not blue".
"This is not my philosophy," she said to me.
"I didn't think it was," I replied to her. "I'm just asking—assuming that God does not exist, and this is known, then should you still believe in God?"
She hesitated. She seemed to really be trying to think about it, which surprised me.
"So it's a counterfactual question..." she said slowly.
I thought at the time that she was having difficulty allowing herself to visualize the world where God does not exist, because of her attachment to a God-containing world.
Now, however, I suspect she was having difficulty visualizing a contrast between the way the world would look if God existed or did not exist, because all her thoughts were about her belief in God, but her causal network modelling the world did not contain God as a node. So she could easily answer "How would the world look different if I didn't believe in God?", but not "How would the world look different if there was no God?"
She didn't answer that question, at the time. But she did produce a counterexample to the Litany of Tarski:
She said, "I believe that people are nicer than they really are."
Argument Screens Off Authority
Black Belt Bayesian (aka "steven") tries to explain the asymmetry between good arguments and good authority, but it doesn't seem to be resolving the comments on Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence, so let me take my own stab at it:
Scenario 1: Barry is a famous geologist. Charles is a fourteen-year-old juvenile delinquent with a long arrest record and occasional psychotic episodes. Barry flatly asserts to Arthur some counterintuitive statement about rocks, and Arthur judges it 90% probable. Then Charles makes an equally counterintuitive flat assertion about rocks, and Arthur judges it 10% probable. Clearly, Arthur is taking the speaker's authority into account in deciding whether to believe the speaker's assertions.
Scenario 2: David makes a counterintuitive statement about physics and gives Arthur a detailed explanation of the arguments, including references. Ernie makes an equally counterintuitive statement, but gives an unconvincing argument involving several leaps of faith. Both David and Ernie assert that this is the best explanation they can possibly give (to anyone, not just Arthur). Arthur assigns 90% probability to David's statement after hearing his explanation, but assigns a 10% probability to Ernie's statement.
It might seem like these two scenarios are roughly symmetrical: both involve taking into account useful evidence, whether strong versus weak authority, or strong versus weak argument.
LW Study Group Facebook Page
Update: There is now an online sign up to groups with workflowy, based on subject and current ability. You do not have to be signed up to Facebook to join a group, but do add an email address so that the group can contact you: https://workflowy.com/shared/cf1fd9ca-885f-c1b9-c2e8-e3a315f70138/
The recent Main article, searching for interest in LWers studying maths together, had many comments showing enthusiasm, but nothing really happened.
On an aside, I think that on LessWrong, we tend not to work together all that well. The wiki isn't kept bright and shiny, and most of the ideas we search for are in loose blog posts that often take a while to find. However, I think having a single place in which to work together on a specific topic, might encourage effect groups. Especially if it's in a place that you get fairly regular reminders from.
So, here's a Less Wrong Study Group Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/131607983690959/
Rixie suggested that we could split into smaller groups, based on age. I was thinking perhaps ability. Maybe even a group leader. However, before sitting and pondering this for eternity (just until we have a perfect structure), perhaps we should 'just try it'.
So, who exactly do I think should join the group?
Well, if you're interested in learning maths, and think that being surrounded by LWers might enhance your learning, this group is intended for you. If you're interested in learning maths, but you think that reading a textbook on your own is daunting, or you've tried and had difficulty previously, then this group is intended for you.
Also, if you're interested in learning other LessWrongy subjects (perhaps some cognitive science, or more economics-y stuffs) then this group could do that. If ten people join who want a basic idea economics, then they can work together. This isn't specificly maths, it's whatever we make it.
Personally, when I read a textbook, there's often a paragraph describing a key idea, and the author's words fly right over my head. I've often thought the best thing for me, would to have someone else who I could talk through that bit with. Maybe he or she would see it easily. Maybe I'd see something they wouldn't get.
I also wouldn't worry about level of prior knowledge. Mainly, because mine is zilch :)
So, what are you waiting for?
(No seriously. Just try it.)
Edit: It is true that anonymity is difficult to preserve on Facebook. I am entirely unfamiliar with google, and I certainly would have to make that regular effort to check it there too. If you do wish to join but have issues with public knowledge, please PM me, and I'll keep in contact with you through email (or other if you prefer). I will discuss with you there how to best take part in a study group.
Anybody want to join a Math Club?
I've found it's hard to teach myself math without an objective. If I don't have a specific question I'm trying to answer, my eyes just start to skip over equations, trying to get to the "good part". Pretty soon I've left the boring parts I know far behind. I've also skipped the less boring parts that i sorta know, and now I'm skipping forward even faster because I only understand half of what I'm reading. I wind up skimming the whole book, but not really absorbing much of it. I think I'd do better if I was planning on discussing what I'm reading with others.
So here's my idea: a math club. We pick a book, and we read it together. Every (week | two weeks | month) we read the next chapter in the book, and then we meet up and discuss it. Anything we can't figure out on our own, we discuss with the other members of the math club until we get it. The impending deadline of having to actually explain the material to other humans servs to focus and motive the reading.
Anybody interested?
Possible topics:
- Probability Theory.
- Lecture Notes on the Curry Howard Isomorphism
- Proof Theory: The First Step into Impredicativity
- The Geometry of Ordinary Variational Equations
- or anything else. math is fun!
EDIT: Benito made a facebook group so we can get organized and do this! see: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/h5y/lw_study_group_facebook_page/
Amazing Breakthrough Day: April 1st
So you're thinking, "April 1st... isn't that already supposed to be April Fool's Day?"
Yes—and that will provide the ideal cover for celebrating Amazing Breakthrough Day.
As I argued in "The Beauty of Settled Science", it is a major problem that media coverage of science focuses only on breaking news. Breaking news, in science, occurs at the furthest fringes of the scientific frontier, which means that the new discovery is often:
- Controversial
- Supported by only one experiment
- Way the heck more complicated than an ordinary mortal can handle, and requiring lots of prerequisite science to understand, which is why it wasn't solved three centuries ago
- Later shown to be wrong
People never get to see the solid stuff, let alone the understandable stuff, because it isn't breaking news.
On Amazing Breakthrough Day, I propose, journalists who really care about science can report—under the protective cover of April 1st—such important but neglected science stories as:
- BOATS EXPLAINED: Centuries-Old Problem Solved By Bathtub Nudist
- YOU SHALL NOT CROSS! Königsberg Tourists' Hopes Dashed
- ARE YOUR LUNGS ON FIRE? Link Between Respiration And Combustion Gains Acceptance Among Scientists
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