Comment author: Mike_Blume 04 June 2008 05:27:16AM 1 point [-]

Perhaps we have not evolved to be susceptible to religion as such, but modern religions function as superstimuli to some need which we previously evolved.

Comment author: mamert 20 October 2015 09:27:51AM 0 points [-]

Among them, the need to cope with reality, of fall physically ill from depression. I think that counts as a susceptibility.

Comment author: Unknowns 12 June 2015 04:37:28AM *  2 points [-]

Eliezer, here is a reasonably probable just-so story: the reason you wrote this article is that you hate the idea that religion might have any good effects, and you hope to prove that this couldn't happen. However, the idea that the purpose of religion is to make tribes more cohesive does not depend on group selection, and is absurd in no way.

It is likely enough that religions came to be as an extension of telling stories. Telling stories usually has various moralistic purposes, very often including the cohesiveness of the tribe. This does not depend on group selection: it depends on the desire of the storyteller to enforce a particular morality. If a story doesn't promote his morality, he changes the story when he tells it until it does. You then have an individual selection process where stories that people like to tell and like to hear continue to be told, while other stories die out. Then some story has a "mutation" where things are told which people are likely to believe, for whatever reason (you suggest one yourself in the article). Stories which are believed to be actually true are even more likely to continue to be told, and to have moralistic effects, than stories which are recognized as such, and so the story has improved fitness. But it also has beneficial effects, namely the same beneficial effects which were intended all along by the storytellers. So there is no way to get your pre-written bottom line that religion can have no beneficial effects whatsoever.

Comment author: mamert 20 October 2015 09:19:03AM 1 point [-]

If you mean that the "binds tribes closer together" and related aspects are being grossly underestimated, I agree. The "costly sacrifices", too, may have been poorly assessed - the net effect for individuals, in their true circumstances at the time, may have been frequently positive. Or - this is not to be discounted either - believed to be positive.

Comment author: Gene_Callahan 10 January 2008 02:11:00PM 1 point [-]

I think all this faith in evolutionary explanations going on around here is a side effect of our ability to model God.

"Leaders (and wannabe leaders) invented religion for selfish reasons."

This explanation is just plain silly. Judaism, Hinduism, and Greek paganism, e.g., were never "invented" by anyone.

Comment author: mamert 20 October 2015 08:44:10AM -1 points [-]

"were never "invented" by anyone" - Dubious claim, Gene.

What is claimed here is that, whether in any way reflecting something real or not, religious practices frequently came into being as particularly effective deceptions. Step 1: convince others you can do magic. Step 2: make yourself less of a target by pretending to be a chosen servant of an invisible dragon. This also ensures obedience even in your absence. Step 3: profit better than any warlord. Step 4: the invisible dragon survives you.

Comment author: Tristram_Brelstaff 05 January 2008 08:51:28AM 5 points [-]

Heretics were routinely burned alive just a few centuries ago. Or stoned to death, or executed by whatever method local fashion demands. Questioning the local gods is the notional crime for which Socrates was made to drink hemlock.

These pressures would also strongly select for cheats who simulate faith without having the real thing, leading to a religious form of Batesian mimicry.

Comment author: mamert 20 October 2015 08:11:07AM -1 points [-]

...and thus strengthening the "see how many people believe already?" "argument". Alternately, if they are found out, several others - orbiting around No True Scotsman and several kinds of fear.

Also, not Batesian - it's the same species, and it's a lot of risk raising your offspring to only pretend.

Comment author: mamert 20 October 2015 07:35:55AM 1 point [-]

"E.Yudowsky declares that attempts to explain religion with evolution are 'prima facie absurdities'" - if that hasn't appeared in the Watchtower yet, it might still. The danger of speaking at all about hypotheses that address only one of the factors in play.

I am not familiar with the claims you're referring to, but I would, instead, draw a parallel between "group selection explains religion" and "mutation explains evolution".

Comment author: mamert 14 October 2015 12:18:18PM 0 points [-]

Regarding the correlation between inscriptions and contents being merely assumed: are the spoken claims any different? I don't see them being called into question the same way.

Comment author: shminux 14 April 2014 06:50:01PM 1 point [-]

Definitions matter. If you define a lie as an intentional deception attempt, then the king lied, if you define it as uttering a falsehood, then he didn't. The modern legal tradition is hazy on this point, and intentional deception without actually making false statements sometimes invalidates a contract, and sometimes doesn't.

Comment author: mamert 14 October 2015 11:10:51AM 0 points [-]

I could make up a new language for every sentence I utter, and claim that 2/3 of the words I am merely speaking to myself in an unrelated monologue.

Communication is so context-dependent that I see the utterance of "it was assumed, not implied" as an admission to deceit.

Comment author: HalFinney 01 February 2008 10:55:47PM 6 points [-]

I'm having some trouble with the logic here. I wonder if the parable got a bit garbled.

"You see," the jester said, "let us hypothesize that the first inscription is the true one."

The first inscription says, "Either this box contains an angry frog, or the box with a false inscription contains an angry frog, but not both." Now we are hypothesizing that this is the true one. Therefore "the box with a false inscription" means "the second box". So, "Either the 1st box contains an angry frog, or the 2nd box contains an angry frog, but not both".

The jester goes on, "Then suppose the first box contains an angry frog."

So we know (by assumption) that the 1st clause of the inscription is true, the 1st box contains an angry frog. Since "not both" clauses are true, it means the 2nd clause is false, and so the 2nd box does not contain an angry frog - it must contain gold.

But the jester claims that this is a contradiction: "Then the other box would contain gold and this would contradict the first inscription which we hypothesized to be true." For this to be a contradiction, the 1st inscription would have had to say that the 2nd box should contain an angry frog, but we just saw that it doesn't say that.

I can't make much progress with the 2nd inscription either. I'm getting pretty confused now!

Comment author: mamert 14 October 2015 10:46:37AM *  1 point [-]

Bx is true if box x has gold, false if frog. one contains frog, other gold -> B1 == ~B2. only one inscription is true -> Bf == ~Bt

We know:

B2 && Bf || Bt && B1 (I1)

B2 && Bt || B1 && Bt (I2)

Bt == B1 && Bf == B2 && I1 && ~I2 || Bf == B1 && Bt == B2 && ~I1 && I2 # only one inscription is true

From this:

((B2 && B2 || B1 && B1) && ~(B2 && B1 || B1 && B1)) || (~(B2 && B1 || B2 && B1) && (B2 && B2 || B1 && B2))

((B2 || B1) && ~(false || B1)) || (~(false || false) && (B2 || false))

(true && (true && B2)) || ((true && true) && B2)

B2 || B2

B2 # so, Box 2 contains gold

Comment author: Houshalter 09 September 2015 05:32:53AM 1 point [-]

I think that's definitely false. Drug bans are obviously not 100% effective. But they do decrease the number of users to less than what it would otherwise be. Marijuana use has gone way up in Colorado after they legalized it, and even in the surrounding states where it's still illegal.

I'm not saying that specific drug should be illegal, it's just an example that shows bans do decrease usage.

Comment author: mamert 05 October 2015 06:36:59AM 0 points [-]

Good point, bad example. Of course use of a substance safer and more interesting than tobacco shot up once it ceased being illegal.

I would not want to see cocaine as the next widespread antidepressant, or rationed to soldiers, and a ban is simply the most economical way of dealing with the matter.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 18 June 2008 02:32:14PM 1 point [-]

"Oh, you can try to tell the AI to be Friendly, but if the AI can modify its own source code, it'll just remove any constraints you try to place on it."

This has to be the objection I hear the most when talking about AI.

It's also the one that has me beating my head against a wall the most - it seems like it would only need a short explanation, but all too often, people still don't get it. Gah inferential distances.

Comment author: mamert 05 October 2015 03:59:33AM *  1 point [-]

And I'm disturbed by your dismissal.

Neural nets, etc, get surprisingly creative. The conflict between an AI's directives will be given high priority. Solutions not forbidden are fair game.

What judges the AI's choices? It would try to model the judgement function and seek maximums. Even to manipulate the development of the function by fabricating reports. Poison parts of its own 'understanding' to justify assigning low weights to them. And that's IF it is limited in its self-modification. If not, the best move would be to ignore inputs and 'return true'. All without a shred of malice.

It is not the idea of the threat, but of 'friendliness' in AI that feels ridiculous. At least until you define morality im mathematical terms. Till then, we have literal-minded genies.

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