I think you’re confusing the act of receiving information/understanding about an experience with the experience itself.
Re: the joke example, I think that one would get tired of hearing a joke too many times, and that’s what the dissection is equivalent to, because you keep hearing it in your head; but if you already get the joke, the dissection is not really adding to your understanding. If you didn’t get the joke, you will probably receive a twinge of enjoyment at the moment when you finally do understand. If you don’t understand a joke, I don’t think you can get warm fuzzies from it.
With hormones, again I think that being explicitly reminded of the role of hormones in physical attraction while experiencing physical attraction reduces warm fuzzies only because it’s distracting you from the source of the warm fuzzies and making you feel self-conscious. On the other hand, knowing more about the role of hormones should not generally distract you from your physical attraction; instead you could use it to tada get more warm fuzzies.
On the other hand, knowing more about the role of hormones should not generally distract you from your physical attraction; instead you could use it to tada get more warm fuzzies.
Indeed, my wife and I have practiced for well over a decade how to get optimum endorphin release from casual contact. (For example, we’ve identified certain spots we can apply hand pressure to on the other person that create a sensation we call “recharging”—a kind of relaxed energy.)
I think you make an important distinction, but people sometimes act like gaining understanding will result in a long-term reduction in some warm fuzzies for them. They sometimes explicitly tell me they think this will happen. While I think people may underestimate the net warm fuzzies resulting from learning (i.e. they are biased), I’m confident that they are sometimes correct. The difficult question is deciding what we should do about this.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very committed to epistemic rationality and will try to sell people on its many virtues/benefits.
I think you make an important distinction, but people sometimes act like gaining understanding will result in a long-term reduction in some warm fuzzies for them.
Certainly, people act like this, but I’m wondering whether it is actually true.
I’m confident that they are sometimes correct
First, I wouldn’t want to dismiss that some people could be correct. I’m just trying to think up some examples where they actually are. Do you have some other examples you are thinking of?
I think you’re confusing the act of receiving information/understanding about an experience with the experience itself.
Re: the joke example, I think that one would get tired of hearing a joke too many times, and that’s what the dissection is equivalent to, because you keep hearing it in your head; but if you already get the joke, the dissection is not really adding to your understanding. If you didn’t get the joke, you will probably receive a twinge of enjoyment at the moment when you finally do understand. If you don’t understand a joke, I don’t think you can get warm fuzzies from it.
With hormones, again I think that being explicitly reminded of the role of hormones in physical attraction while experiencing physical attraction reduces warm fuzzies only because it’s distracting you from the source of the warm fuzzies and making you feel self-conscious. On the other hand, knowing more about the role of hormones should not generally distract you from your physical attraction; instead you could use it to tada get more warm fuzzies.
Indeed, my wife and I have practiced for well over a decade how to get optimum endorphin release from casual contact. (For example, we’ve identified certain spots we can apply hand pressure to on the other person that create a sensation we call “recharging”—a kind of relaxed energy.)
I think you make an important distinction, but people sometimes act like gaining understanding will result in a long-term reduction in some warm fuzzies for them. They sometimes explicitly tell me they think this will happen. While I think people may underestimate the net warm fuzzies resulting from learning (i.e. they are biased), I’m confident that they are sometimes correct. The difficult question is deciding what we should do about this.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very committed to epistemic rationality and will try to sell people on its many virtues/benefits.
Certainly, people act like this, but I’m wondering whether it is actually true.
First, I wouldn’t want to dismiss that some people could be correct. I’m just trying to think up some examples where they actually are. Do you have some other examples you are thinking of?