Or, as you might say, “Of course I think my opinions are right and other people’s are wrong. Otherwise I’d change my mind.” Similarly, when we think about disagreement, it seems like we’re forced to say, “Of course I think my opinions are rational and other people’s are irrational. Otherwise I’d change my mind.”
I couldn’t agree more to that—to a first approximation.
Now of course, the first problem is with people who think a person is either rational in general or not, right in general, or not. Being right or rational is conflated with intelligence, for people can’t seem to imagine that a cognitive engine which output so many right ideas in the past could be anything but a cognitive engine which outputs right ideas in general.
For instance and in practice, I’m pretty sure I strongly disagree with some of your opinions. Yet I agree with this bit over there, and other bits as well. Isn’t it baffling how some people can be so clever, so right about a huge bundle of things (read : how they have opinion so very much like mine), and then suddenly you find they believe X, where X seems incredibly stupid and wrong for obvious reasons to you.
I posit that people want to find others like them (in a continuum with finding a community of people like them, some place where they can belong), and it stings to realize that even people who hold many similar opinions still aren’t carbon copies of you, that their cognitive engine doesn’t work exactly the same way as yours, and that you’ll have to either change yourself, or change others (both of which can be hard, unpleasant work), if you want there to be less friction between you (unless you agree to disagree, of course).
Problem number two is simply that whether you think yourself right about a certain problem, have thought about it for a long time before coming to your own conclusion, doesn’t preclude new, original information, or intelligent arguments to sway your opinion. I’m often pretty darn certain about my beliefs (those I care about anyway, that is, usually the instrumental beliefs and methods I need to attain my goals) but I know better than not to change my opinion or belief for a topic about which I care if I’m conclusively shown to be wrong (but that should go without saying in a rationalist community).
Rationality, intelligence, and even evidence are not sufficient to resolve all differences. Sometimes differences are a deep matter of values and preferences. Trivially, I may prefer chocolate and you prefer vanilla. There’s no rational basis for disagreement, nor for resolving such a dispute. We simply each like what we like.
Less trivially, some people take private property as a fundamental moral right. Some people treat private property as theft. And a lot of folks in the middle treat it as a means to an end. Folks in the middle can usefully dispute the facts and logic of whether particular incarnations of private property do or do not serve other ends and values, such as general happiness and well-being. However perfectly rational and intelligent people who have different fundamental values with respect to private property are not going to agree, even when they agree on all arguments and points of evidence.
There are many other examples where core values come into play. How and why people develop and have different core values than other people is an interesting question. However even if we can eliminate all partisan-shaded argumentation, we will not eliminate all disagreements.
‴I posit that people want to find others like them (in a continuum with finding a community of people like them, some place where they can belong), and it stings to realize that even people who hold many similar opinions still aren’t carbon copies of you, that their cognitive engine doesn’t work exactly the same way as yours, and that you’ll have to either change yourself, or change others (both of which can be hard, unpleasant work), if you want there to be less friction between you (unless you agree to disagree, of course).‴
I couldn’t agree more to that—to a first approximation.
Now of course, the first problem is with people who think a person is either rational in general or not, right in general, or not. Being right or rational is conflated with intelligence, for people can’t seem to imagine that a cognitive engine which output so many right ideas in the past could be anything but a cognitive engine which outputs right ideas in general.
For instance and in practice, I’m pretty sure I strongly disagree with some of your opinions. Yet I agree with this bit over there, and other bits as well. Isn’t it baffling how some people can be so clever, so right about a huge bundle of things (read : how they have opinion so very much like mine), and then suddenly you find they believe X, where X seems incredibly stupid and wrong for obvious reasons to you.
I posit that people want to find others like them (in a continuum with finding a community of people like them, some place where they can belong), and it stings to realize that even people who hold many similar opinions still aren’t carbon copies of you, that their cognitive engine doesn’t work exactly the same way as yours, and that you’ll have to either change yourself, or change others (both of which can be hard, unpleasant work), if you want there to be less friction between you (unless you agree to disagree, of course).
Problem number two is simply that whether you think yourself right about a certain problem, have thought about it for a long time before coming to your own conclusion, doesn’t preclude new, original information, or intelligent arguments to sway your opinion. I’m often pretty darn certain about my beliefs (those I care about anyway, that is, usually the instrumental beliefs and methods I need to attain my goals) but I know better than not to change my opinion or belief for a topic about which I care if I’m conclusively shown to be wrong (but that should go without saying in a rationalist community).
Rationality, intelligence, and even evidence are not sufficient to resolve all differences. Sometimes differences are a deep matter of values and preferences. Trivially, I may prefer chocolate and you prefer vanilla. There’s no rational basis for disagreement, nor for resolving such a dispute. We simply each like what we like.
Less trivially, some people take private property as a fundamental moral right. Some people treat private property as theft. And a lot of folks in the middle treat it as a means to an end. Folks in the middle can usefully dispute the facts and logic of whether particular incarnations of private property do or do not serve other ends and values, such as general happiness and well-being. However perfectly rational and intelligent people who have different fundamental values with respect to private property are not going to agree, even when they agree on all arguments and points of evidence.
There are many other examples where core values come into play. How and why people develop and have different core values than other people is an interesting question. However even if we can eliminate all partisan-shaded argumentation, we will not eliminate all disagreements.
‴I posit that people want to find others like them (in a continuum with finding a community of people like them, some place where they can belong), and it stings to realize that even people who hold many similar opinions still aren’t carbon copies of you, that their cognitive engine doesn’t work exactly the same way as yours, and that you’ll have to either change yourself, or change others (both of which can be hard, unpleasant work), if you want there to be less friction between you (unless you agree to disagree, of course).‴
Well said.