Epistemic rationality alone might be well enough for those of us who simply love truth (who love truthseeking, I mean; the truth itself is usually an abomination)
What motivation is there to seek out an abomination? I read the linked comment and I disagree strongly… The curious, persistent rationalist should find the truth seeking process rewarding, but shouldn’t it be rewarding because your working toward something wonderful? Worded another way—of what value is truth seeking if you hold the very object you seek in contempt?
If you take the strictly classical, rational view of the world than you lose the ability to say that truth is “beautiful”. Not a great loss, considering “beauty” is an ill-defined, subjective term—but if you continue to cut everything our of your life that has no rational value then you very quickly become a psuedo-vulcan.
Truth, at the highest level, has an irrational, indefinable quality. It’s this quality that makes it seductive, worthwhile, valuable, desirable. Truth is something you grok. Heinlein was a loony, but I do thank him for that word.
but some of my friends tell me there should be some sort of payoff for all this work of inference. And indeed, there should be: if you know how something works, you might be able to make it work better. Enter epistemic rationality, the art of doing better. We all want to better, and we all believe that we can do better...
I like to think that I seek truth. Others are here to “win” or “be better”. Maybe we’re all talking about the same thing. Maybe not.
This comment is a bit off-topic from the rest of the post, and quickly becoming dangerously Zen, but I would much appreciate it if somebody more knowledgeable on the subject could offer some disambiguation either here or in a separate post.
[S]houldn’t [truthseeking] be rewarding because you[’re] working toward something wonderful?
But if you expect the truth to be wonderful, then what do you do when you come across strong evidence for some horrifying hypothesis that makes you want to cry? And if there is no hypothesis that horrifies you, then you really must be a Vulcan …
[I]f you continue to cut everything our of your life that has no rational value then you very quickly become a psuedo-vulcan.
This is not how I understand the term rationality. I find it helpful to keep a strict type distinction: you cut everything untrue out of your beliefs, and fold everything beautiful into your utility function.
While I can imagine hypotheses that would horrify me if they turned out to be true, I cannot think of an actual case of encountering strong evidence for such a hypothesis. Even for the examples I can think of, if they were in fact true I believe I would prefer to know the truth than to continue to believe the comforting falsehood. Can you give an example of a horrifying hypothesis that you would prefer not to know the truth of even if it was in fact true?
Can you give an example of a horrifying hypothesis that you would prefer not to know the truth of even if it was in fact true?
No; like you, I want to believe the truth. (Or at least, I want to want to believe the truth. If everyone who professed to seek truth wholeheartedly really did so, the world would be very different. I cannot claim to be wholeheartedly rational; I can only claim that I try, after my fashion.) There are theories that scare me that I do want to believe if and only if they are true—I’d rather not talk about them in this comment.
Epistemic rationality alone might be well enough for those of us who simply love truth (who love truthseeking, I mean; the truth itself is usually an abomination)
What motivation is there to seek out an abomination?
Presumably the position mentioned is simply that one can value truth without valuing particular truths in the sense that you want them to be true. It might be true that an earthquake will kill hundreds, but I don’t love that an earthquake will kill hundreds.
Presumably the position mentioned is simply that one can value truth without valuing particular truths in the sense that you want them to be true. It might be true that an earthquake will kill hundreds, but I don’t love that an earthquake will kill hundreds.
Yes, thank you, that’s what I was trying to get at. “[U]sually an abomination” was poetic exaggeration—in retrospect, a very poor choice of words on my part.
Contempt of the map? It is the map that should be is irrelevant, while the possibilities implied by it for the territory are to be valued and selected from.
What motivation is there to seek out an abomination? I read the linked comment and I disagree strongly… The curious, persistent rationalist should find the truth seeking process rewarding, but shouldn’t it be rewarding because your working toward something wonderful? Worded another way—of what value is truth seeking if you hold the very object you seek in contempt?
If you take the strictly classical, rational view of the world than you lose the ability to say that truth is “beautiful”. Not a great loss, considering “beauty” is an ill-defined, subjective term—but if you continue to cut everything our of your life that has no rational value then you very quickly become a psuedo-vulcan.
Truth, at the highest level, has an irrational, indefinable quality. It’s this quality that makes it seductive, worthwhile, valuable, desirable. Truth is something you grok. Heinlein was a loony, but I do thank him for that word.
I like to think that I seek truth. Others are here to “win” or “be better”. Maybe we’re all talking about the same thing. Maybe not.
This comment is a bit off-topic from the rest of the post, and quickly becoming dangerously Zen, but I would much appreciate it if somebody more knowledgeable on the subject could offer some disambiguation either here or in a separate post.
But if you expect the truth to be wonderful, then what do you do when you come across strong evidence for some horrifying hypothesis that makes you want to cry? And if there is no hypothesis that horrifies you, then you really must be a Vulcan …
This is not how I understand the term rationality. I find it helpful to keep a strict type distinction: you cut everything untrue out of your beliefs, and fold everything beautiful into your utility function.
While I can imagine hypotheses that would horrify me if they turned out to be true, I cannot think of an actual case of encountering strong evidence for such a hypothesis. Even for the examples I can think of, if they were in fact true I believe I would prefer to know the truth than to continue to believe the comforting falsehood. Can you give an example of a horrifying hypothesis that you would prefer not to know the truth of even if it was in fact true?
No; like you, I want to believe the truth. (Or at least, I want to want to believe the truth. If everyone who professed to seek truth wholeheartedly really did so, the world would be very different. I cannot claim to be wholeheartedly rational; I can only claim that I try, after my fashion.) There are theories that scare me that I do want to believe if and only if they are true—I’d rather not talk about them in this comment.
Presumably the position mentioned is simply that one can value truth without valuing particular truths in the sense that you want them to be true. It might be true that an earthquake will kill hundreds, but I don’t love that an earthquake will kill hundreds.
Yes, thank you, that’s what I was trying to get at. “[U]sually an abomination” was poetic exaggeration—in retrospect, a very poor choice of words on my part.
You cannot fix, or kill, what you haven’t found. The phrase “truth hunting” might be appropriate.
Though if the point is that contempt of the territory does not imply contempt of the map, then I agree.
Contempt of the map? It is the map that should be is irrelevant, while the possibilities implied by it for the territory are to be valued and selected from.