I think the notion the ‘most people suffer from significant problem X’ is very often plain misunderstood. If everybody ‘suffers’ X, X is the norm, not an affliction (with exceptions such as, say, lower back pain). You’re projecting your normative values onto factual matters.
Also, the notion that we have deficient moral/mental capacities seems to me unsupported and basically quasi-religious. “What we think of as normal is very dysfunctional...” Red pill or blue pill. Please.
Our attachment to material trinkets, material self-worth, emotion expression abilities, family problems etc. all stem from our evolutionary background and the conflicting selection pressures our species was subjected to. Why would one even think that an conflict-free perfect Bayesian could, would or should result from evolution?
Yes, it sucks loving your spouse and wanting to cheat at the same time. I just don’t see how this translates into “significant psychological problems.” Especially not some that need be overcome before moving on towards rationality Nirvana. I suggest bullet-biting as the cure for this ailment.
It is possible for X to be the norm and simultaneously cause suffering, contra your first paragraph. How common the characteristic is and how much suffering it causes are only loosely related. I’m not talking about normative values at all.
OF COURSE attachment to material trinkets, etc., come from our evolutionary background. Where else would they come from? That has no bearing at all on whether we would benefit from overcoming some of evolved tendencies. I have no idea how you could possibly have misinterpreted me to be arguing that a “conflict-free perfect Bayesian could, would or should result from evolution”. Please enlighten me as to how anything I said implies that.
You’re arguing against a position that nobody here has put forward. Notice how I said “overly attached” (overly implying that some amount is healthy but that there is commonly too much, where too much means “contributes to losing, not winning”) and you misrepresented me as saying “attached”, how I said “having persistent family and relationship problems” (indicating losing not winning over an extended period of time) and you misrepresented that as “loving your spouse and wanting to cheat” (which most of us probably agree is extremely common and not necessarily a problem at all).
Please try to read more carefully and not immediately pigeonhole me into “the most likely cliche”.
I think the notion the ‘most people suffer from significant problem X’ is very often plain misunderstood. If everybody ‘suffers’ X, X is the norm, not an affliction (with exceptions such as, say, lower back pain). You’re projecting your normative values onto factual matters.
Also, the notion that we have deficient moral/mental capacities seems to me unsupported and basically quasi-religious. “What we think of as normal is very dysfunctional...” Red pill or blue pill. Please.
Our attachment to material trinkets, material self-worth, emotion expression abilities, family problems etc. all stem from our evolutionary background and the conflicting selection pressures our species was subjected to. Why would one even think that an conflict-free perfect Bayesian could, would or should result from evolution?
Yes, it sucks loving your spouse and wanting to cheat at the same time. I just don’t see how this translates into “significant psychological problems.” Especially not some that need be overcome before moving on towards rationality Nirvana. I suggest bullet-biting as the cure for this ailment.
It is possible for X to be the norm and simultaneously cause suffering, contra your first paragraph. How common the characteristic is and how much suffering it causes are only loosely related. I’m not talking about normative values at all.
OF COURSE attachment to material trinkets, etc., come from our evolutionary background. Where else would they come from? That has no bearing at all on whether we would benefit from overcoming some of evolved tendencies. I have no idea how you could possibly have misinterpreted me to be arguing that a “conflict-free perfect Bayesian could, would or should result from evolution”. Please enlighten me as to how anything I said implies that.
You’re arguing against a position that nobody here has put forward. Notice how I said “overly attached” (overly implying that some amount is healthy but that there is commonly too much, where too much means “contributes to losing, not winning”) and you misrepresented me as saying “attached”, how I said “having persistent family and relationship problems” (indicating losing not winning over an extended period of time) and you misrepresented that as “loving your spouse and wanting to cheat” (which most of us probably agree is extremely common and not necessarily a problem at all).
Please try to read more carefully and not immediately pigeonhole me into “the most likely cliche”.
Lower back pain is exactly the model you should have in mind
That’s exactly what normative values are for
The notion that we have deficient mental capabilities is borne out in countless experimental studies.
Of course we haven’t evolved to be perfect Bayesians—that’s the whole point.
Pick a better example—many relationship problems demand a more thoughtful take than “suck it up”.
EDIT: Re-reading, this seems unnecessarily hostile. Don’t have time to reword properly, please accept my apologies...