Like gjm, I don’t understand what the point of this post is. All is see is playing with words and making them stretch into uncomfortable positions—something that doesn’t seem all that useful.
The point of the playing with words is to show that all four of those words are pointing at roughly the same concept. Each of the words has their own bias.
The different people who use the different words generally think that their way of thinking is superior, so I’m trying to demonstrate that this is not the case, and that it is a bias to think that your perspective is superior when you are simply looking at the biases of the other perspectives and not your own.
The points at the end were meant to illustrate the “everyone is biased” theory. Basically, if I can work with rationalists and get the sorts of results that I do by removing biases, then that implies that they have a lot of biases which they are not aware of and/or aware of how to fix until talking with me.
The solution I’m alluding to is to be more open minded about what the possibilities actually are. That simply taking a different perspective (plus a lot of positive reinforcement) can make the difference between not being able to get out of bed and having your dream job.
I’ll write this up more clearly and eloquently in the morning after I sleep on it, but hopefully this at least helps a little for now?
Again, Brienne’s post suggested doing what you imagine a more rational version of yourself would do. I’ve used this technique to some benefit. It serves as a testable and useful way of demonstrating bias, though I still can’t tell if it supports your thesis. She posted before you did. And she put the technique in the title and conclusion of her post, rather than making us guess what the Hell she was talking about!
all four of those words are pointing at roughly the same concept
Very VERY roughly. Too roughly for any use, I think. In particular, these words are not interchangeable—to say that deciding to get out of bed in the morning is a matter of faith is a misuse of the language.
The different people who use the different words generally think that their way of thinking is superior
That’s a non sequitur.
illustrate the “everyone is biased” theory
That theory is generally accepted on LW and has people like Kahneman popularizing it in the wide world :-)
The solution I’m alluding to is to be more open minded about what the possibilities actually are.
That’s a platitude and a part of all self-help advice since times immemorial. So what else is new?
Yes. My understanding of Less Wrong is that there is a general viewpoint that everyone is biased and people on this site are “Less Wrong.” Its not an official viewpoint, but its the attitude I see.
The reason I gave the examples and not the platitude is so that people might actually get it, and not just consider it a platitude that they dismiss. I seem to have failed on this blog at this time :)
Platitudes are platitudes not because people don’t get them—they are platitudes because everybody has already heard them many times and repeating them once more is not helping.
I am still not sure what are you trying to get to. Is it, basically, better living through self-hacking? Or through being hacked by you?
Before this, I read your post as saying mainly, ‘You should believe true claims instead of false ones,’ without any non-commercial way of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Likewise, I saw no guidelines for how to choose “functional” belief systems.
If I read the summary charitably, it seems to mean that ‘When people pride themselves on their rationality due to their atheism, this tends to get in the way of optimizing for truth and/or functionality.’ This is technically progress. But I get the impression the LW community already hates people patting themselves on the back for atheism, and may actually discourage it too strongly.
Like gjm, I don’t understand what the point of this post is. All is see is playing with words and making them stretch into uncomfortable positions—something that doesn’t seem all that useful.
I added the summary to the main post.
So, the really important thing is to find right things to believe in? As you are saying,
Any reason why that shouldn’t be Jesus?
The point of the playing with words is to show that all four of those words are pointing at roughly the same concept. Each of the words has their own bias.
The different people who use the different words generally think that their way of thinking is superior, so I’m trying to demonstrate that this is not the case, and that it is a bias to think that your perspective is superior when you are simply looking at the biases of the other perspectives and not your own.
The points at the end were meant to illustrate the “everyone is biased” theory. Basically, if I can work with rationalists and get the sorts of results that I do by removing biases, then that implies that they have a lot of biases which they are not aware of and/or aware of how to fix until talking with me.
The solution I’m alluding to is to be more open minded about what the possibilities actually are. That simply taking a different perspective (plus a lot of positive reinforcement) can make the difference between not being able to get out of bed and having your dream job.
I’ll write this up more clearly and eloquently in the morning after I sleep on it, but hopefully this at least helps a little for now?
Again, Brienne’s post suggested doing what you imagine a more rational version of yourself would do. I’ve used this technique to some benefit. It serves as a testable and useful way of demonstrating bias, though I still can’t tell if it supports your thesis. She posted before you did. And she put the technique in the title and conclusion of her post, rather than making us guess what the Hell she was talking about!
Very VERY roughly. Too roughly for any use, I think. In particular, these words are not interchangeable—to say that deciding to get out of bed in the morning is a matter of faith is a misuse of the language.
That’s a non sequitur.
That theory is generally accepted on LW and has people like Kahneman popularizing it in the wide world :-)
That’s a platitude and a part of all self-help advice since times immemorial. So what else is new?
Yes. My understanding of Less Wrong is that there is a general viewpoint that everyone is biased and people on this site are “Less Wrong.” Its not an official viewpoint, but its the attitude I see.
The reason I gave the examples and not the platitude is so that people might actually get it, and not just consider it a platitude that they dismiss. I seem to have failed on this blog at this time :)
Platitudes are platitudes not because people don’t get them—they are platitudes because everybody has already heard them many times and repeating them once more is not helping.
I am still not sure what are you trying to get to. Is it, basically, better living through self-hacking? Or through being hacked by you?
A certain type of self hacking. I added a summary, does it help?
Before this, I read your post as saying mainly, ‘You should believe true claims instead of false ones,’ without any non-commercial way of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Likewise, I saw no guidelines for how to choose “functional” belief systems.
If I read the summary charitably, it seems to mean that ‘When people pride themselves on their rationality due to their atheism, this tends to get in the way of optimizing for truth and/or functionality.’ This is technically progress. But I get the impression the LW community already hates people patting themselves on the back for atheism, and may actually discourage it too strongly.