quen_tin

Karma: −70

quen_tin Aug 13, 2012, 8:41 PM
6 points
on: Bayes for Schizophrenics: Reasoning in Delusional Disorders
I wonder if the same mechanisms could be invovled in conspiracy theorists. Their way of thinking seems very similar. I also suspect a reinforcement mechanism: it becomes more and more difficult for the subject to deny his own beliefs, as it would require abandonning large parts of his present (and coherent) belief system, leaving him with almost nothing left.

This could explain why patients are reluctant to accept alternative versions afterwards (such as “you have a brain damage”).

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 8:16 PM
2 points
in reply to: TimS’s comment on: The curse of identity
What do you mean by “randomly feels like it”? Maybe he wants some fresh air or something… Then it’s a personal motivation, and my answer is (d) not relevant to ethic. The discussion in this article was not, I think, about casual goals like climbing a mountain, but about the goals in your life, the important things to do (maybe I should use the term “finalities” instead). It was a matter of ethic.

If Bob believes that climbing this mountain is good or important while he admits that his only motivation is “randomly feeling like it”, then I call his belief absurd.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 7:46 PM
3 points
in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: The curse of identity
Maybe I misunderstood a bit your point. I understood:
- “I thought I wanted to work for a great cause but it turned out I only wanted to be the kind of person who work for a great cause”
Now I understand:
- “I really wanted to work for a great cause, but it turned out all my actions were directed toward giving the impression, in the short-term, that I was”
In other words, you were talking about shortsightedness when I thought it was delusion?

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 6:40 PM
0 points
in reply to: TimS’s comment on: The curse of identity
Ok. I would replace “Being grateful for an action” by “recognizing that an action is important/beneficial”. Pursuing a pure gratitude-free goal would mean: pursuing a goal that nobody think is beneficial or important to do (except you, because you do it), and supposedly nobody ever will. My claim is that such action is absurd from an ethical (universalist) perspective.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 6:15 PM
0 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: The curse of identity
At T1, B is “subjectively true” (I believe that B). However it’s not an established truth. From the point of view of the whole society, the result needs replication: what if I was deceiving everyone? At T2, B is controversial. At T3, B is false.

Now is the status of B changing over time? That’s a good question. I would say that the status of B is contextual. B was true at T1 to the extent of the actions I had performed at that time. It was “weakly true” because I had not checked every flaws in my instruments. It became false in the context of T3. Similarly, one could say that Newtonian physics is true in the context of slow speeds and weak energies.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 5:36 PM
2 points
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: The curse of identity
I don’t think so. Let me precise that my thoughts are to be understood from an ethical perspective: by “goal” I mean something that deserves to be done, in other words, “something good”. I start from the assumption that having a goal supposes thinking that it’s somehow something good (=something I should do), which is kind of tautologic.

Now I am only suggesting that a goal that does not deserve any gratitude can’t be “good” from an ethical point of view.

Moreover, I am not proclaming I am purely seeking gratitude in all my actions.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 5:07 PM
0 points
in reply to: lessdazed’s comment on: The curse of identity
Let me justify my position.

Gratitude-free actions are absurd from an ethical point of view, because we do not have access to any transcendant and absolute notion of “good”. Consequently, we have no way to tell if an action is good if noone is grateful for it.

If you perform a gratitude-free action, either it’s only good for you: then you’re selfish, and that’s far from the universal aim of ethics. Either you you believe in a transcendant notion of “good”, together with a divine gratitude, which is a religious position.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 4:55 PM
0 points
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: The curse of identity
Seeking gratitude has nothing to do with selfishness., on the contrary. Something usually deserve gratitude if it benefits others. My position is very altruistic.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 4:45 PM
0 points
in reply to: TimS’s comment on: The curse of identity
My view is very altruistic on the contrary : seeking gratitude is seeking to perform actions that benefits others or the whole society. Game theoretic considerations would justify being selfish, which does not deserve gratitude at all.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 4:35 PM
0 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: The curse of identity
In my view, going from subjective truth to universal (inter-subjective) truth requires agreement between different people, that is, convincing others (or being convinced). I hold a belief because it is reliable for me. If it is reliable for others as well, then they’ll probably agree with me. I will convince them.

quen_tin Nov 22, 2011, 4:19 PM
2 points
in reply to: lessdazed’s comment on: The curse of identity
Ethic is not about predicting perceptions but conducting actions.

quen_tin Nov 21, 2011, 5:40 PM
−4 points
in reply to: Randolf’s comment on: The curse of identity
It’s absurd from an ethical point of view, as a finality. I was implicitely talking in the context of pursuing “important goals”, that is, valued on an ethical basis. Abnegation at some level is an important part of most religious doctrines.

quen_tin Nov 21, 2011, 3:42 PM
0 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: The curse of identity
Yes in a sense. The pragmatic conception of truth holds that we do not have access to an absolute truth, nor to any system as it is “in itself”, but only to our beliefs and representations of systems. All we can do is test our beliefs and the accuracy of our representations.

Within that conception, a belief is true if “it works”, that is, if it can be successfully confronted to other established belief systems and serve as a base for action with expectied result (e.g. scientific inquiry). Incidentally, there is no truth outside our beliefs, and truth is always temporary. A truth could be considered universal if it could convince everyone.

quen_tin Nov 21, 2011, 8:04 AM
0 points
in reply to: TheOtherDave’s comment on: The curse of identity
This is a bit caricatural. I made my statement as simple as possible for the sake of the argument, but I subscribe to the pragmatic theory of truth.

quen_tin Nov 21, 2011, 7:53 AM
2 points
in reply to: Fleisch’s comment on: The curse of identity
Sorry, but I am only refining the statement I made from the start, which in my view is still perfectly relevant to the material. You don’t agree with me, now let’s not loose too much time on meta-discussions...

I understand your concern about the problems mentioned in the article, and your feeling that I don’t address them. You’re right, I don’t: my feeling about these problems is that they occur in complex situations where lots of actors are involved, and i am not convinced at all that they result from a lack of motivation or a problem of unconscious motivation hijacking.

quen_tin Nov 20, 2011, 5:27 PM
−3 points
in reply to: Fleisch’s comment on: The curse of identity
Imagine that in the current discussion, we suddenly realize that we’ve been writing all that time not to find the truth, but to convince each other (which I think is actually the case). It would be one of those situations where someone like Kaj Sotala would say: “it seems you’re deeply motivated in finding the truth, but you’re only trying to make people think you have the truth (=convince them)”. Then my point would be: unless you’re cynical, convincing and finding the truth are exactly the same. If you’re cynical, you just think short term and your truth won’t last (people will soon realize you were wrong). If you’re sincere, you think long term and your truth will last. I would even argue that the only proper definition of truth is: what convinces most people in the long run. Similarly, a proper definition of good (or “important to do”) would be: what brings gratitude from most people in the long run.

quen_tin Nov 20, 2011, 3:10 PM
−2 points
in reply to: wedrifid’s comment on: The curse of identity
I don’t make a difference between seeking social gratitude and having a goal. In my view, sincere motivation is positively correlated with seeking social gratitude. You can make an analogy with markets if you want: social gratitude is money, motivation is work. If something is worth doing, it will deserve social gratitude. In my view, the author here appears to be complaining that we are working for money and not for free...

quen_tin Nov 20, 2011, 2:59 PM
0 points
in reply to: Fleisch’s comment on: The curse of identity
I don’t make a difference between having a goal and seeking gratitude for that goal, it’s exactly the same for me. Something is important if it deserve a lot of gratitude, something is not if it does not. That’s all. The “gratitude” part is intrinsic.

If you accept my view, Kaj Sotala’s statement is a nonsense: it can’t turn out to be strategic self-deception when we thought we were deeply motivated, we’re seeking gratitude from the start (which is precisely what “being deeply motivated” means. If at one point we discover that we’ve been looking for gratitude all that time, then we don’t discover that we’ve been fooling ourself, we’re only beginning to understand the true nature of any goal.

quen_tin Nov 18, 2011, 2:45 PM
−3 points
in reply to: Fleisch’s comment on: The curse of identity
Let me rephrase.

The assumption that there would exist pure gratitude-free goals is a myth: pursuing such goals would be absurd. (people who seem do perform gratitude-free actions are often religious people: they actually believe in divine gratitude).

Therefore social gratitude is an essential component of any goal and thus it is not correlated with lack of sincere motivation, nor does it “downgrade” the goal to something less important. It’s just part of it.

quen_tin Nov 18, 2011, 9:43 AM
0 points
in reply to: Fleisch’s comment on: The curse of identity
I deny that having a goal as a “strategic feature” is incompatible with being sincerly and deeply motivated. That’s my point.

More precisely : either one is consciously seeking gratitude, then he/she is cynical, but I think this is rarely the case. Either seeking gratitude is only one aspect of a goal that is sincerly pursued (which means that one wants to deserve that gatiude for real). Then there is no problem, the motivation is there.