There are three goals that are discussed here a lot, that I would like to see untangled. (Or else I’d like to be convinced that they are not untangleable)
The goal of believing true things and disbelieving false things.
The goal of causing others to believe true things
The goal of promoting, in the general public, belief-in-true-things as a value.
I can restate 3. with even worse prose but possibly more clarity: The goal of causing others to want to believe true things.
I am quite interested in 1. for what I consider idiosyncratic reasons, and not so interested in 2. or 3. Am I making a mistake?
About 2. and 3., a probably-incoherent thought experiment : what would be the result of causing, by magic, a person to discard their false beliefs without altering their values? If you have a Robin-Hanson-style model of human beings as giant hypocrites, you might expect to replace happy hypocrites who lie to themselves by unhappy hypocrites who don’t lie to themselves. I’d be interested to hear what less cynical rationalists would expect.
There are three goals that are discussed here a lot, that I would like to see untangled. (Or else I’d like to be convinced that they are not untangleable)
The goal of believing true things and disbelieving false things.
The goal of causing others to believe true things
The goal of promoting, in the general public, belief-in-true-things as a value.
I can restate 3. with even worse prose but possibly more clarity: The goal of causing others to want to believe true things.
I am quite interested in 1. for what I consider idiosyncratic reasons, and not so interested in 2. or 3. Am I making a mistake?
About 2. and 3., a probably-incoherent thought experiment : what would be the result of causing, by magic, a person to discard their false beliefs without altering their values? If you have a Robin-Hanson-style model of human beings as giant hypocrites, you might expect to replace happy hypocrites who lie to themselves by unhappy hypocrites who don’t lie to themselves. I’d be interested to hear what less cynical rationalists would expect.