Hmm, so apparently, looking up religious conversion testimonies on the intertubes is more difficult than I thought, because all the top search results lead to sites that basically say, “here’s why religion X is wrong and my own religion Y is the best thing since sliced bread”. That said, here’s a random compilation of Chrtistianity-to-Islam conversion testimonials. You can also check out the daily “Why am I an Atheist” feature on Pharyngula, but be advised that this site is quite a bit more angry than Less Wrong, so the posts may not be representative.
BTW, I’m not endorsing any of these testimonials, I’m just pointing out that they do exist.
NO. That takes a BIG NO. Severity of mental illness is NOT correlated with violence
Well, I brought that up because I know of at least one mental illness-related violent incident in my own extended family. That said, you are probably right in saying that schizophrenia and violence are not strongly correlated. However, note that violence against others was just one of the negative effects I’d brought up; existential risk to one’s self was another.
I think they key disagreement we’re having is along the following lines: is it better to believe in something that’s true, or in something that’s probably false, but has a positive effect on you as a person ? I believe that the second choice will actually result in a lower utility. Am I correct in thinking that you disagree ? If so, I can elaborate on my position.
Okay, so I mean, if you think you only want to fulfill your own selfish desires...
I don’t think there are many people (outside of upper management, maybe, heh), of any religious denomination or lack thereof, who wake up every morning and say to themselves, “man, I really want to fulfill some selfish desires today, and other people can go suck it”. Though, in a trivial sense, I suppose that one can interpret wanting to be nice to people as a selfish desire, as well...
Well, not the Pope, certainly. He’s a Catholic.
You keep asserting things like this, but to an atheist, or an adherent of any faith other than yours, these assertions are pretty close to null statements—unless you can back them up with some evidence that is independent of faith.
But I thought a workable definition of “Christian” was “person who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ and tries to follow his teachings”
Every single person (plus or minus epsilon) who calls oneself “Christian” claims to “follow Jesus’s teachings”; but all Christians disagree on what “following Jesus’s teachings” actually means, so your test is not objective. All those Christians who want to persecute gay people, ban abortion, teach Creationism in schools, or even merely follow the Pope and venerate Mary—all of them believe that they are doing what Jesus would’ve wanted them to do, and they can quote Bible verses to prove it.
Compare it with a relevant quote from the Bible, which has been placed in different places in different versions...
Some Christians claim that this story is a later addition to the Bible and therefore non-authoritative. I should also mention that both YHVH and, to a lesser extent, Jesus, did some pretty intolerant things; such as committing wholesale genocide, whipping people, condemning people, authorizing slavery, etc. The Bible is quite a large book...
That said, here’s a random compilation of Chrtistianity-to-Islam conversion testimonials. You can also check out the daily “Why am I an Atheist” feature on Pharyngula, but be advised that this site is quite a bit more angry than Less Wrong, so the posts may not be representative.
Thank you.
Well, I brought that up because I know of at least one mental illness-related violent incident in my own extended family.
I’m sorry.
I think they key disagreement we’re having is along the following lines: is it better to believe in something that’s true, or in something that’s probably false, but has a positive effect on you as a person ?
No, I don’t think that’s true, because it’s better to believe what’s true.
I believe that the second choice will actually result in a lower utility.
So do I, because of the utility I assign to being right.
Am I correct in thinking that you disagree ?
No.
Every single person (plus or minus epsilon) who calls oneself “Christian” claims to “follow Jesus’s teachings”; but all Christians disagree on what “following Jesus’s teachings” actually means, so your test is not objective. All those Christians who want to persecute gay people, ban abortion, teach Creationism in schools, or even merely follow the Pope and venerate Mary—all of them believe that they are doing what Jesus would’ve wanted them to do, and they can quote Bible verses to prove it.
Suppose, hypothetically, that current LessWrong trends of adding rituals and treating EY as to some extent above others continue. And then suppose that decades or centuries down the line, we haven’t got transhumanism, but we HAVE got LessWrongians who now argue about what EY really meant. And some of them disagree with each other, and others outside their community just raise their eyebrows and think man, LessWrongians are such a weird cult. Would it be correct, at least, to say that there’s a correct answer to the question “who is following Eliezer Yudkowsky’s teachings?” That there’s a yes or no answer to the question “did EY advocate prisons just because he failed to speak out against them?” Or to the question “would he have disapproved of people being irrational?” If not, I’ll admit you’re being self-consistent, at least.
Some Christians claim that this story is a later addition to the Bible and therefore non-authoritative.
And that claim should be settled by studying the relevant history.
EDIT: oh, and I forgot to mention that one doesn’t have to actually think “I want to go around fulfilling my selfish desires” so much as just have a utility function that values only one’s own comfort and not other people’s.
No, I don’t think that’s true, because it’s better to believe what’s true.
This statement appears to contradict your earlier statements that a). It’s better to live with the perception-altering symptoms of schizophrenia, than to replace those symptoms with depression and other side-effects, and b). You determine the nature of every “gut feeling” (i.e., whether it is divine or internal) by using multiple criteria, one of which is, “would I be better off as a person if this feeling was, in fact, divine”.
Suppose, hypothetically, that current LessWrong trends of adding rituals and treating EY as to some extent above others continue.
I hope not, I think people are engaging in more than enough EY-worship as it is, but that’s beside the point...
And then suppose that decades or centuries down the line, we haven’t got transhumanism, but we HAVE got LessWrongians who now argue about what EY really meant… Would it be correct, at least, to say that there’s a correct answer to the question “who is following Eliezer Yudkowsky’s teachings?”
Since we know today that EY actually existed, and what he talked about, then yes. However, this won’t be terribly relevant in the distant future, for several reasons:
Even though everyone would have an answer to this question, it is far from guaranteed that more than zero answers would be correct, because it’s entirely possible that no Yudkowskian sect would have the right answer.
Our descendants likely won’t have access to EY’s original texts, but to Swahili translations from garbled Chinese transcriptions, or something; it’s possible that the translations would reflect the translators’ preferences more than EY’s original intent. In this case, EY’s original teachings would be rendered effectively inaccessible, and thus the question would become unanswerable.
Unlike us here in the past, our future descendants won’t have any direct evidence of EY’s existence. They may have so little evidence, in fact, that they may be entirely justified in concluding that EY was a fictional character, like James Bond or Harry Potter. I’m not sure if fictional characters can have “teachings” or not.
That there’s a yes or no answer to the question “did EY advocate prisons just because he failed to speak out against them?”
This question is not analogous, because, unlike the characters on the OT and NT, EY does not make a habit of frequently using prisons as the basis for his parables, nor does EY claim to be any kind of a moral authority. That said, if EY did say these things, and if prisons were found to be extremely immoral in the future—then our descendants would be entirely justified in saying that EY’s morality was far inferior to their own.
And that claim should be settled by studying the relevant history.
I doubt whether there exist any reasonably fresh first-hand accounts of Jesus’s daily life (assuming, of course, that Jesus existed at all). If such accounts did exist, they did not survive the millennia that passed since then. Thus, it would be very difficult to determine what Jesus did and did not do—especially given the fact that we don’t have enough secular evidence to even conclude that he existed with any kind of certainty.
This statement appears to contradict your earlier statements that
a). It’s better to live with the perception-altering symptoms of schizophrenia, than to replace those symptoms with depression and other side-effects,
I want to say I don’t know why you think I made that statement, but I do know, and it’s because you don’t understand what I said. I said that given that those drugs fix the psychosis less than half the time, that almost ten percent of cases spontaneously recover anyway, that the entire rest of the utility function might take overwhelming amounts of disutility from side-effects including permanent disfiguring tics, a type of unfixable restlessness that isn’t helped by fidgeting and usually causes great suffering, greater risk of diseases, lack of caring about anything, mental fog (which will definitely impair your ability to find the truth), and psychosis (not even kidding, that’s one of the side-effects of antipsychotics), and given that it can lead to a curtailing of one’s civil liberties to be diagnosed, it might not be worth it. Look, there’s this moral theory called utilitarianism where you can have one bad thing happen and still think it’s worth it because the alternative is worse, and it doesn’t just have to work for morals. It works for anything; you can’t just say “X is bad, fix X at all cost”. You have to be sure it’s not actually the best state of affairs first. Something can be both appalling and the best possible choice, and my utility function isn’t as simple as you seem to think it is. I think there are things of value besides just having perfectly clear perception.
Our descendants likely won’t have access to EY’s original texts, but to Swahili translations from garbled Chinese transcriptions, or something;
This is the internet. Nothing anyone says on the internet is ever going away, even if some of us really wish it could. /nitpick
b). You determine the nature of every “gut feeling” (i.e., whether it is divine or internal) by using multiple criteria, one of which is, “would I be better off as a person if this feeling was, in fact, divine”.
I really want to throw up my hands here and say “but I’ve explained this MULTIPLE TIMES, you are BEING AN IDIOT” but I remember the illusion of transparency. And that you haven’t understood. And that you didn’t make a deliberate decision to annoy me. But I’m still annoyed. I STILL want to call you an idiot, even though I know I haven’t phrased something correctly and I should explain again. That doesn’t even sound like what I believe or what I (thought I) said. (Maybe that’s how it came out. Ugh.)
Why is communication so difficult? Why doesn’t knowing that someone’s not doing it on purpose matter? It’s the sort of thing that you’d think would actually affect my feelings.
This is the internet. Nothing anyone says on the internet is ever going away, even if some of us really wish it could. /nitpick
You would be surprised… If it weren’t for the internet archive much information would have already been lost. Some modern websites are starting to use web design techniques (ajax-loaded content) that break such archive services.
I really want to throw up my hands here and say “but I’ve explained this MULTIPLE TIMES, you are BEING AN IDIOT” but I remember the illusion of transparency.
One option would be to reply with a pointer to your previous comment.
I see you’ve used the link syntax within a comment—this web site supports permalinks to comments as well.
At least you wouldn’t be forced to repeat yourself.
But since I obviously explained it wrong, what good does it do to remind him of where I explained it? I’ve used the wrong words, I need to find new ones. Ugh.
Best wishes. Was your previous explanation earlier in your interchange with Bugmaster?
If so, I agree that Bugmaster would have read your explanation, and that pointing to it
wouldn’t help (I sympathize). If, however, your previous explanation was in response to
another lesswrongian, it is possible that Bugmaster missed it, in which case a pointer might
help. I’ve been following your comments, but I’m sure I’ve missed some of them.
(I just came back from vacation, sorry for the late reply, and happy New Year ! Also, Merry Christmas if you are so inclined :-) )
Firstly, I operate by Crocker’s Rules, so you can call me anything you want and I won’t mind.
It works for anything; you can’t just say “X is bad, fix X at all cost”. You have to be sure it’s not actually the best state of affairs first.
I agree with you completely regarding utilitarianism (although in this case we’re not talking about the moral theory, just the approach in general). All I was saying is that IMO the utility one places on believing things that are likely to be actually true should, IMO, be extremely high—and possibly higher than the utility you assign to this feature. But “extremely high” does not mean “infinite”, of course, and it’s entirely possible that, in some cases, the disutility from all the side-effects will not be worth the utility gain—especially if the side-effects are preventing you from believing true things anyway (f.ex. “mental fog”, psychosis, depression, etc.).
That said, if I personally was seeing visions or hearing voices, I would be willing (assuming I remained reasonably rational, of course) to risk a very large disutility even for a less than 50% chance of fixing the problem. If I can’t trust my senses (or, indeed, my thoughts), then my ability to correctly evaluate my utility is greatly diminished. I could be thinking that everything is just great, while in reality I was hurting myself or others, and I’d be none the wiser. Of course, I could also be just great in reality, as well; but given the way this universe works, this is unlikely.
This is the internet. Nothing anyone says on the internet is ever going away, even if some of us really wish it could.
Data on the Internet is less permanent than many people think, IMO, but this is probably beside the point; I was making an analogy to the Bible, which was written in the days before the Internet, but (sadly) after the days of giant stone steles. Besides, the way things are going, it’s not out of the question that future versions of the Internet would all be written in Chinese...
Why is communication so difficult? Why doesn’t knowing that someone’s not doing it on purpose matter?
I think this is because you possess religious faith, which I have never experienced, and thus I am unable to evaluate what you say in the same frame of reference. Or it could be because I’m just obtuse. Or a bit of both.
Besides, the way things are going, it’s not out of the question that future versions of the Internet would all be written in Chinese...
I don’t think so. The popularity of the English language has gained momentum such that even if its original causes (the economic status of the US) ceased, it would go on for quite a while. Chinese hasn’t. See http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm (It was written a decade and a half ago, but I don’t think the situation is significantly qualitatively different for English and Chinese in ways which couldn’t have been predicted back then.) I think English is going to remain the main international language for at least 30 more years, unless some major catastrophe occurs (where by major I mean ‘killing at least 5% of the world human population’).
You keep asserting things like this, but to an atheist, or an adherent of any faith other than yours, these assertions are pretty close to null statements—unless you can back them up with some evidence that is independent of faith.
There is a bit of ambiguity here, but I asked after it and apparently the more strident interpretation was not intended. The position that the Pope doesn’t determine who is Christian because the Pope is Catholic and therefore doesn’t speak with authority regarding those Christians who are not Catholic seems uncontroversial, internally consistent, and not privileging any particular view.
Hmm, so apparently, looking up religious conversion testimonies on the intertubes is more difficult than I thought, because all the top search results lead to sites that basically say, “here’s why religion X is wrong and my own religion Y is the best thing since sliced bread”. That said, here’s a random compilation of Chrtistianity-to-Islam conversion testimonials. You can also check out the daily “Why am I an Atheist” feature on Pharyngula, but be advised that this site is quite a bit more angry than Less Wrong, so the posts may not be representative.
BTW, I’m not endorsing any of these testimonials, I’m just pointing out that they do exist.
Well, I brought that up because I know of at least one mental illness-related violent incident in my own extended family. That said, you are probably right in saying that schizophrenia and violence are not strongly correlated. However, note that violence against others was just one of the negative effects I’d brought up; existential risk to one’s self was another.
I think they key disagreement we’re having is along the following lines: is it better to believe in something that’s true, or in something that’s probably false, but has a positive effect on you as a person ? I believe that the second choice will actually result in a lower utility. Am I correct in thinking that you disagree ? If so, I can elaborate on my position.
I don’t think there are many people (outside of upper management, maybe, heh), of any religious denomination or lack thereof, who wake up every morning and say to themselves, “man, I really want to fulfill some selfish desires today, and other people can go suck it”. Though, in a trivial sense, I suppose that one can interpret wanting to be nice to people as a selfish desire, as well...
You keep asserting things like this, but to an atheist, or an adherent of any faith other than yours, these assertions are pretty close to null statements—unless you can back them up with some evidence that is independent of faith.
Every single person (plus or minus epsilon) who calls oneself “Christian” claims to “follow Jesus’s teachings”; but all Christians disagree on what “following Jesus’s teachings” actually means, so your test is not objective. All those Christians who want to persecute gay people, ban abortion, teach Creationism in schools, or even merely follow the Pope and venerate Mary—all of them believe that they are doing what Jesus would’ve wanted them to do, and they can quote Bible verses to prove it.
Some Christians claim that this story is a later addition to the Bible and therefore non-authoritative. I should also mention that both YHVH and, to a lesser extent, Jesus, did some pretty intolerant things; such as committing wholesale genocide, whipping people, condemning people, authorizing slavery, etc. The Bible is quite a large book...
Thank you.
I’m sorry.
No, I don’t think that’s true, because it’s better to believe what’s true.
So do I, because of the utility I assign to being right.
No.
Suppose, hypothetically, that current LessWrong trends of adding rituals and treating EY as to some extent above others continue. And then suppose that decades or centuries down the line, we haven’t got transhumanism, but we HAVE got LessWrongians who now argue about what EY really meant. And some of them disagree with each other, and others outside their community just raise their eyebrows and think man, LessWrongians are such a weird cult. Would it be correct, at least, to say that there’s a correct answer to the question “who is following Eliezer Yudkowsky’s teachings?” That there’s a yes or no answer to the question “did EY advocate prisons just because he failed to speak out against them?” Or to the question “would he have disapproved of people being irrational?” If not, I’ll admit you’re being self-consistent, at least.
And that claim should be settled by studying the relevant history.
EDIT: oh, and I forgot to mention that one doesn’t have to actually think “I want to go around fulfilling my selfish desires” so much as just have a utility function that values only one’s own comfort and not other people’s.
This statement appears to contradict your earlier statements that
a). It’s better to live with the perception-altering symptoms of schizophrenia, than to replace those symptoms with depression and other side-effects, and
b). You determine the nature of every “gut feeling” (i.e., whether it is divine or internal) by using multiple criteria, one of which is, “would I be better off as a person if this feeling was, in fact, divine”.
I hope not, I think people are engaging in more than enough EY-worship as it is, but that’s beside the point...
Since we know today that EY actually existed, and what he talked about, then yes. However, this won’t be terribly relevant in the distant future, for several reasons:
Even though everyone would have an answer to this question, it is far from guaranteed that more than zero answers would be correct, because it’s entirely possible that no Yudkowskian sect would have the right answer.
Our descendants likely won’t have access to EY’s original texts, but to Swahili translations from garbled Chinese transcriptions, or something; it’s possible that the translations would reflect the translators’ preferences more than EY’s original intent. In this case, EY’s original teachings would be rendered effectively inaccessible, and thus the question would become unanswerable.
Unlike us here in the past, our future descendants won’t have any direct evidence of EY’s existence. They may have so little evidence, in fact, that they may be entirely justified in concluding that EY was a fictional character, like James Bond or Harry Potter. I’m not sure if fictional characters can have “teachings” or not.
This question is not analogous, because, unlike the characters on the OT and NT, EY does not make a habit of frequently using prisons as the basis for his parables, nor does EY claim to be any kind of a moral authority. That said, if EY did say these things, and if prisons were found to be extremely immoral in the future—then our descendants would be entirely justified in saying that EY’s morality was far inferior to their own.
I doubt whether there exist any reasonably fresh first-hand accounts of Jesus’s daily life (assuming, of course, that Jesus existed at all). If such accounts did exist, they did not survive the millennia that passed since then. Thus, it would be very difficult to determine what Jesus did and did not do—especially given the fact that we don’t have enough secular evidence to even conclude that he existed with any kind of certainty.
I want to say I don’t know why you think I made that statement, but I do know, and it’s because you don’t understand what I said. I said that given that those drugs fix the psychosis less than half the time, that almost ten percent of cases spontaneously recover anyway, that the entire rest of the utility function might take overwhelming amounts of disutility from side-effects including permanent disfiguring tics, a type of unfixable restlessness that isn’t helped by fidgeting and usually causes great suffering, greater risk of diseases, lack of caring about anything, mental fog (which will definitely impair your ability to find the truth), and psychosis (not even kidding, that’s one of the side-effects of antipsychotics), and given that it can lead to a curtailing of one’s civil liberties to be diagnosed, it might not be worth it. Look, there’s this moral theory called utilitarianism where you can have one bad thing happen and still think it’s worth it because the alternative is worse, and it doesn’t just have to work for morals. It works for anything; you can’t just say “X is bad, fix X at all cost”. You have to be sure it’s not actually the best state of affairs first. Something can be both appalling and the best possible choice, and my utility function isn’t as simple as you seem to think it is. I think there are things of value besides just having perfectly clear perception.
This is the internet. Nothing anyone says on the internet is ever going away, even if some of us really wish it could. /nitpick
I really want to throw up my hands here and say “but I’ve explained this MULTIPLE TIMES, you are BEING AN IDIOT” but I remember the illusion of transparency. And that you haven’t understood. And that you didn’t make a deliberate decision to annoy me. But I’m still annoyed. I STILL want to call you an idiot, even though I know I haven’t phrased something correctly and I should explain again. That doesn’t even sound like what I believe or what I (thought I) said. (Maybe that’s how it came out. Ugh.)
Why is communication so difficult? Why doesn’t knowing that someone’s not doing it on purpose matter? It’s the sort of thing that you’d think would actually affect my feelings.
You would be surprised… If it weren’t for the internet archive much information would have already been lost. Some modern websites are starting to use web design techniques (ajax-loaded content) that break such archive services.
One option would be to reply with a pointer to your previous comment. I see you’ve used the link syntax within a comment—this web site supports permalinks to comments as well. At least you wouldn’t be forced to repeat yourself.
But since I obviously explained it wrong, what good does it do to remind him of where I explained it? I’ve used the wrong words, I need to find new ones. Ugh.
Best wishes. Was your previous explanation earlier in your interchange with Bugmaster? If so, I agree that Bugmaster would have read your explanation, and that pointing to it wouldn’t help (I sympathize). If, however, your previous explanation was in response to another lesswrongian, it is possible that Bugmaster missed it, in which case a pointer might help. I’ve been following your comments, but I’m sure I’ve missed some of them.
Or, perhaps, a link and a clarification.
It’s conceivable that English could drift enough that EY’s meaning would be unclear even if the texts remain.
(I just came back from vacation, sorry for the late reply, and happy New Year ! Also, Merry Christmas if you are so inclined :-) )
Firstly, I operate by Crocker’s Rules, so you can call me anything you want and I won’t mind.
I agree with you completely regarding utilitarianism (although in this case we’re not talking about the moral theory, just the approach in general). All I was saying is that IMO the utility one places on believing things that are likely to be actually true should, IMO, be extremely high—and possibly higher than the utility you assign to this feature. But “extremely high” does not mean “infinite”, of course, and it’s entirely possible that, in some cases, the disutility from all the side-effects will not be worth the utility gain—especially if the side-effects are preventing you from believing true things anyway (f.ex. “mental fog”, psychosis, depression, etc.).
That said, if I personally was seeing visions or hearing voices, I would be willing (assuming I remained reasonably rational, of course) to risk a very large disutility even for a less than 50% chance of fixing the problem. If I can’t trust my senses (or, indeed, my thoughts), then my ability to correctly evaluate my utility is greatly diminished. I could be thinking that everything is just great, while in reality I was hurting myself or others, and I’d be none the wiser. Of course, I could also be just great in reality, as well; but given the way this universe works, this is unlikely.
Data on the Internet is less permanent than many people think, IMO, but this is probably beside the point; I was making an analogy to the Bible, which was written in the days before the Internet, but (sadly) after the days of giant stone steles. Besides, the way things are going, it’s not out of the question that future versions of the Internet would all be written in Chinese...
I think this is because you possess religious faith, which I have never experienced, and thus I am unable to evaluate what you say in the same frame of reference. Or it could be because I’m just obtuse. Or a bit of both.
I don’t think so. The popularity of the English language has gained momentum such that even if its original causes (the economic status of the US) ceased, it would go on for quite a while. Chinese hasn’t. See http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm (It was written a decade and a half ago, but I don’t think the situation is significantly qualitatively different for English and Chinese in ways which couldn’t have been predicted back then.) I think English is going to remain the main international language for at least 30 more years, unless some major catastrophe occurs (where by major I mean ‘killing at least 5% of the world human population’).
There is a bit of ambiguity here, but I asked after it and apparently the more strident interpretation was not intended. The position that the Pope doesn’t determine who is Christian because the Pope is Catholic and therefore doesn’t speak with authority regarding those Christians who are not Catholic seems uncontroversial, internally consistent, and not privileging any particular view.
Ok, that makes more sense, thanks. My apologies (again :-( ) to AK for misreading her point.