Jeremy Bentham may be a candidate, or perhaps James Mill, father of J.S. Mill—though there’s been some recent speculation that the former fell somewhere on the autism spectrum (no slight intended). By the way, if you’re interested, check out the research on shifting modes of moral congition, deontological vs. consequentialist, depending upon subject matter, featured in the work of David Pizarro, e.g. Further afield, one may check out what Taleb has to say about who has led a genuinely Popperian lifestyle.
Alan
Karma: 120
Eclectic lists can be fun. Here are a few titles:
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca;
Obliquity by John Kay;
Mistakes were Made but Not by Me by Tavris and Aronson;
Master and Margerita by Bulgakhov;
Social Cognition by Ziva Kunda;
The Synaptic Self by Joseph LeDoux;
Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz;
Knowledge and Its Limits by Tim Williamson;
Dilemmas by Gilbert Ryle; and 10.The Sacred Canopy by Peter Berger
This new finding may be correct, but the old dictum about “nullius in verba” still makes sense.
What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.
--Anatole France
Respectfully, the idiosyncracy of Semmelweis’s personality isn’t directly the point. Semmelweis had established beyond doubt early in his career that hand-washing with chlorinated water before deliveries dramatically drove down the maternal mortality rate. This was a huge finding. Incredibly to most of us now, at one time childbirth was a leading cause of death. The gut prejudice of his peers prevailed, however, and it was to be another 60 years later that the introduction of sulfa drugs and antibiotics again began to drive down maternal mortality. The point relates to pluralistic ignorance and the role of social proof. Social proof roughly means that the greater number of persons who find an idea correct, the greater it will be correct. In situations of uncertainty , everyone looks at everyone else to see what they are doing. One answer to Alicorn’s query at the end of her post is to bear in mind the phenomenon of social proof, and the tendency toward pluralistic ignorance. Therefore, look beyond what the plurality of people are doing or saying.
The compact terminology for the class of phenomena you are describing is “pluralistic ignorance,” and in other contexts it presents a far vaster challenge that the Kitty Genovese case would indicate. Consider the 19th century physician Ignatz Semmelweis, who pioneered the practice of hand-washing as a means of reducing sepsis and therefore maternal mortality. He was ostracized by fellow practitioners and died in destitution.
Leisure? Happiness? Aurelius, the emperor, was always on the move with his army trying to preserve his empire and worried about his conniving son, Commodus. Beethoven was a reclusive single man, who grew ill and deaf in later years. Schopenhauer was a self-absorbed and misogynistic single man (though he supposedly enjoyed walking his poodles). Nietzsche was a precocious and convalescent single man. Why not add Wittgenstein to the list? Selection bias?
Has anyone considered extending an invitation to Raymond Smullyan, as, say, a guest of honor to the summit (if not having done so already). Living in New York State, he recently published an amusing and short literary book (at age 89). There aren’t many students of A. Church (recall that Turing was one of them) still with us. With Aubrey de Grey on the roster covering issues of longevity and more, an appearance by Ray Smullyan, provided he is willing and able, may raise the level of your conference not only intellectually, but also in terms of humor, humanity and perspective. I’ve heard he also does magic tricks. Thoughts?
Well spotted! But why is it NOT strange to hold that the CI applies to an AI? Isn’t the raison d’etre of AI to operate on hypothetical imperatives?
In reply, at a superficial level, the statement was intended as (wry) humor toward consequentialist friends in the community. Anyone who wrote the AI code presumably had a hypothetical imperative in mind: “You, the AI, must do such and such in order to reach specified ends, in this case reporting a truthful statement.” And that’s what AI does, right? But If the AI reports that deontology is the way to go and tells you that you owe AI reciprocal respect as a rational being bound by a certain priori duties and prohibitions, that sounds quite crazy—after all, it’s only code. Yet might our ready to hand conceptions of law and freedom predispose us to believe the statement? Should we believe it?
Kant’s categorical imperative applies with equal force to AI.
With a name like “Utility,” while sonorous enough, might this be an invitation to some notion of a need for maximizsation? Is it advisable to freight a child with such expectations? If so, then an alternate that might serve is Bentham(e). At least it could be shortened to Ben. On a lighthearted note, might Utility find himself or herself drawn toward becoming a public utilities worker? (In Latin culture, I’m acquainted with a few people named Jesus and Angel. Suffice to say, none in that sample set appears particularly pious or angelic in disposition or outward behavior. Your mileage may vary.
Tangential to the observation about the Stanford experiement, a story appeared a few years ago about a New York family in which one boy was legally named “Loser;” the other, “Winner.” Care to guess which of the two brothers went on to become a police officer? http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/31/1027926917671.html
How about Gary Drescher?
Nicely done! Thanks for sharing.
Scholars estimate that the book of Job, probably the work of multiple authors, was composed some time between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C.E. When comparing didactic poetry, does the fact that the book of Job is so old have anything to do with the reverence or specialness which some modern readers attach to it? Furthermore, is Job really a fitting example of Sacred Truth rather than, say, “sacred perplexity”? Is advanced age in a wisdom narrative a necessary condition of Sacredness? Is there something special about “touching the old,” harkening back to an Overcoming Bias post by that name?
“What I Learning Losing a Million Dollars” by Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan (1994)
Subject: Analysis of catastrophic trading mistakes woven through the autobiography of a highly confident commodities trader. He made $250k in one day. Thereafter he went on to take greater risks in commodities markets, counting his profits before they were realized. At one point he considered renting a Concord jet to celebrate his imagined gains. Over the course of several months, however, due to a combination of misfortune, hubris , denial, and creative rationalization, his entire position was wiped out and he lost over $1 million.
This is the only non-quack popular book of its kind I know of which deconstructs the psychological mistakes a trader can make. The book is self-published, and until recently, was out of print. Sadly, one of the authors, Mr. Paul, perished in the attacks on the WTC. Not widely known about, the book is fortunately avalable once again.
The lessons contained in it are related not just to trading, but to life in general. Honest and unflinching in its analysis of self-deception, overconfidence, and how to guard against them. This book is unique.
This post has generated a disproportionate number of comments. I think it illustrates the common struggles we all face in attempting to optimize our own behavior as well as that of others. At what point does other-optimizing become a case of trying to hard and lapsing into failure mode, a disutility loop if you will. The UC Berkeley writer Michael Pollan summed up his dietary advice in seven words: “Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.” Or how about renowned nutritionist Marion Nestle: “East less, move more.” Of course, one of the joys of living is eating. Why not let the activity provide pleasure and utility? Is it the calories we are trying to conrol, or are we attempting to achieve mastery over some portion of our or other’s behavior in order to comfort ourselves with an illusion of control? Is it what you’re eating or is it what’s eating you, to put it colloquially?
Pardon the reference to Shakespeare, but I was trying to come up with a non-contemporary, non-hypothetical, well-known example of the adaptiveness of being an underdog. In Henry V you have a narrative where the king uses consciousness of the numerical inferiority of his troops to assert, i.e., signal, superior valor. In the play, one of his officers surmises that their army is outnumbered by the French by 5 to one; another wishes out loud that another 10,000 could be added to their number. Henry dismisses this talk, declaring: “The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.”
Unlike the cave-men who joined Urk’s faction, many of those who didn’t shrink from batle in Henry’s army would NOT have been wiped out. To the contrary, they would have succeeded disproportionately well in evolutionary terms. Might their tribal social emotions go some distance in suggesting why? Stripped of context, odds are merely quantitative, and necessarily leave out important information on qualitative dimensions, such as social emotions. Assume a supporter of Urk gets excited enough over the prospect of sharing the spoils of Zug and reputational rewards that would accrue to him. We might admit that it is not foreordained that Urk would lose the contest. Not only are supporters of the underdog not necessarily wiped out; when they win, as Shakespeare’s Henry intuited, they stand to gain a greater share of the glory, and hence evolutionary fitness.
Eliezer wrote, “Really, I suspect that what’s going on here has less to do with the motivating power of eternal damnation, and a lot more to do with the motivating power of physically meeting other people who share your cause.”
I think this observation strikes very close to the heart of the matter. People will tell you they attend Catholic mass, for example, for any number of reasons, most of which are probably not available to introspection, but which actually relate to our functioning as social animals. People are motivated to meet other people, and church attendance is one of the few remaining outlets for this tendency. Whether the rationale for congregating is to uphold some deep cause is almost beside the point for the majority. Certainly there will be some for whom some cause is salient and pressing; they are the visible and the vocal, not the representative.
It is perhaps tempting to offer up Catholicism as a proxy for Christianity, and Christianity as a proxy for religion. Bear in mind, though, that Western and Eastern Christianity do not even agree on when to celebrate their holiest day, Easter. Then there are some rather yawning doctrinal disparities between Protestant sects and Roman Catholicism, and even then within itself. There is a growing movement among Catholics to have the mass recited to them in Latin. A prototypical rationalist might call this practice an example of willful obscurantism and worshipping ignorance, but that would be incorrect. It seems unlikely that the point is to comprehend the words of a dead language, but rather to use the setting as a means of priming a type of experience that William James was talking about.
In addition to Yvain’s catalogue of Catholics being communal, hierarchical, and official, one could add socially reinforcing. If your co-religionist is giving 10% of his income to support church activities, and you know this is true (it’s easy to find out), then there is social pressure not to be a slouch when it comes to tithing—a phenomenon of competition in terms of signaling commitment to cooperative behavior. Would rationalists would ever do that?
If there were a party of those who are not sure they are right, I’d belong to it.
--Albert Camus