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All of Emanresu's Comments + Replies

Rational Humanist Music
Emanresu10

I wrote a rationalist song relatively recently. It's a pastiche of "Clear Mind" by Masaki Endoh, and shares the title. The melody is supposed to be mostly the same as the original song, but somewhat slower, and probably with different instruments. My version's lyrics are quite different though.

Here's the link to listen to the original song on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBcfTeVW61E&list=UUVLVBnJ37IQH1nZZHK2dOYA

The original song is an insert song that was in the anime Yugioh 5ds. It's in japanese, but there's an english translation... (read more)

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Serious Stories
Emanresu00

I just thought of another, larger and more unsettling problem. Although it's kind of hard for me to explain, but I'll try.

If the following statements are true:

  1. The only reason we need pain is to notify us of damage to ourselves or to things that matter to us.
  2. The only reason we need fear is to motivate us to avoid things that could cause damage to ourselves or things that matter to us.
  3. The only reason we need happiness or pleasure is so that we are motivated to seek out things that would help us or things that matter to us.
  4. The only reason we need beliefs
... (read more)
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0Elia_G
That may be the only reason we evolved happiness or pleasure, but we don't have to care about what evolution optimized for, when designing a utopia. We're allowed to value happiness for its own sake. See Adaptation-Executers, not Fitness-Maximizers. Worthwhile goals are finite, so it's true we might run out of goals someday, and from then on be bored. But it doesn't frighten me too much because: 1. We're not going to run out of goals as soon as we create an AI that can achieve them for us; we can always tell it to let us solve some things on our own, if it's more fun that way. 2. The space of worthwhile goals is still ridiculously big. To live a life where I accomplish literally everything I want to accomplish is good enough for me, even if that life can't be literally infinite.* Plus, I'm somewhat open to the idea of deleting memories/experience in order to experience the same thing again. 3. There's other fun things to do that don't involve achieving goals, and that aren't used up when you do them. *Actually, I am a little worried about a situation where the stronger and more competent I get, the quicker I run out of life to live... but I'm sure we'll work that out somehow. I guess technically the real goal is to be "close to perfection", as close as possible. We pretend that the goal is "perfection" for ease of communication, and because (as imperfect humans) we can sometimes trick ourselves into achieving more by setting our goals higher than what's really possible.
0[anonymous]
Dark Arts of Rationality
Emanresu00

So I should continue giving my very best effort to be completely honest with myself, and just hope I don't ever find myself in a catch-22 scenario like the one I just described before I'm ready. Admitting that lying to myself COULD be my best option in particular kinds of situations is not the same as actually being in such a situation and having to take that option. Whew! I was freaking out a bit, worrying that I would have to compartmentalize the information in your article in order to avoid using the techniques in it. Now I realize that was kind of silly of me.

Thanks for your help!

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Dark Arts of Rationality
Emanresu20

I don't think that the article is saying you should completely abandon terminal goals and truth-seeking altogether. It sounds to me like it's saying that while in the vast majority of situations it is better to seek truth and not change terminal goals, there are particular circumstances where it is the right thing to do. For instance, if you accidentally saw greater than 50% of the exam answers of a friend who got 100% on a short but important final exam, and you did not have the option of taking a different exam or delaying it or ever taking that exam aga... (read more)

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0So8res
From what you've told me, I strongly recommend not using any of the techniques I mentioned until you're much more confident in your mental control. It seems that we come from very different mental backgrounds (I was encouraged to be intellectually autonomous from a young age), so you should definitely take my suggestions with caution, as it's likely they won't work for people with your background. It sounds to me like you're in the early stages of taking control over your beliefs, and while it seems you're on the right track, it doesn't sound to me like my techniques would be helpful at this juncture.