We care about saving the world and we care about the truth, so sometimes we start caring too much about the ideas that we think represent those things. How can we foster detachment? How can we encourage people to consider an idea even if they don’t like it, and then encourage people to relinquish an idea after it’s been considered and evenly rejected?
The following paradigm has worked for me:
It’s natural to be afraid of considering an idea that we know is false. Thus it is useful to occasionally practice considering ideas that we don’t like in order to find that nothing bad happens to our brains or ourselves when we consider them.
It is really important to be able to consider bad ideas, not just because the bad idea might be a good idea, but because it is only through empathy (identification) with an idea that you will be able to find the right counter-argument that will encourage the holder of the idea to relinquish it. (Otherwise, as I’m sure you’ve observed, the same argument just gets presented another way, another time.)
it is only through empathy (identification) with an idea that you will be able to find the right counter-argument that will encourage the holder of the idea to relinquish it. (Otherwise, as I’m sure you’ve observed, the same argument just gets presented another way, another time.)
We care about saving the world and we care about the truth, so sometimes we start caring too much about the ideas that we think represent those things. How can we foster detachment? How can we encourage people to consider an idea even if they don’t like it, and then encourage people to relinquish an idea after it’s been considered and evenly rejected?
The following paradigm has worked for me:
It’s natural to be afraid of considering an idea that we know is false. Thus it is useful to occasionally practice considering ideas that we don’t like in order to find that nothing bad happens to our brains or ourselves when we consider them.
It is really important to be able to consider bad ideas, not just because the bad idea might be a good idea, but because it is only through empathy (identification) with an idea that you will be able to find the right counter-argument that will encourage the holder of the idea to relinquish it. (Otherwise, as I’m sure you’ve observed, the same argument just gets presented another way, another time.)
Related: Is That Your True Rejection?, Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles (arguments as paintbrush handles for emotional responses).
Eliezer’s counter-argument in “The Pascal’s Wager Fallacy Fallacy” is an example of this mistake. Arguments from the Pascal’s Wager Fallacy aren’t paintbrush handles for expected utility computations, they’re paintbrush handles for the fear of being tricked in confusing situations and the fear of exhibiting markers of membership in a ridiculed or rejected group.