5 ms·

really interesting read. the only thing that bugs me, with this text, and the whole rationalist world-view, is how human emotion sometimes becomes a thing to b

by bakhy 11y ago

really interesting read. the only thing that bugs me, with this text, and the whole rationalist world-view, is how human emotion sometimes becomes a thing to be ashamed of. something beneath a hypothesized "true", "correct" condition. like, the part about recognizing that other people have different minds, different motives, and thus reach different conclusions - on one hand i agree that it is a matter of personal development, and that many people are just plain jerks (sometimes, myself included). but on the other hand, the political examples given in the text seem like a normal emotional response. isn't it simply hard trying to think for everyone, understand everyone all the time? is it even possible? particularly when the issue is something that, for whatever reason, you feel personally. it is not automatically a sign of retarded cognitive development if you just simply got tired. rationalism sometimes seems so, well, christian - we are all filthy sinners by default.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> the only thing that bugs me, with this text, and the whole rationalist world-view, is how human emotion sometimes becomes a thing to be ashamed of. something beneath a hypothesized "true", "correct" condition. The "rationalist world-view" is just noticing that (per #1) what brain tells you and what the world really is are two different things, therefore your emotions may or may not be properly aligned with reality (btw. this is also the primary insight of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Emotions are just like opinions, but in different part of the brain - you want to have ones that correspond to reality. "Contrary to the stereotype, rationality doesn't mean denying emotion. When emotion is appropriate to the reality of the situation, it should be embraced; only when emotion isn't appropriate should it be suppressed." - http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Emotion http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Emotion
- bakhy 11y ago
  OK, but let's take again the political example - there is a confounding social factor there. i think it is common to regard a concession, in the eyes of the public, as defeat. this drives many people to shout their positions, and disregard rational counterarguments, resorting to personal attacks (like the "democrats are pro-crime" claim). even if those people are in fact perfectly reasonable otherwise... the political example is really insufficiently explained by bringing in just cognitive development. now, generally, from experience, i have the impression that higher mental skills often translate simply into a higher capability of producing more elaborate rationalizations of positions that a person would have held anyway, positions which are rooted in emotions. pointing out rational counterarguments can in many situations only go so far. in fact, i have many times had an easier time discussing with people one might call primitive, since you get to the truth of their motives very quickly, and with respectful approach to people's feelings, a lot can be achieved. with very rational people it's sometimes really difficult to break through the layers of rationalizations. i'm not saying that rationalism is bad, or that the author (or you) like to go around calling people retards :D i just feels that despite best intentions it can lead to disregard for emotion, even though in many cases emotion is the ultimate relevant "reality of the situation". we can and must make ourselves better, but we can never stop being people.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > now, generally, from experience, i have the impression that higher mental skills often translate simply into a higher capability of producing more elaborate rationalizations of positions that a person would have held anyway, positions which are rooted in emotions. pointing out rational counterarguments can in many situations only go so far. in fact, i have many times had an easier time discussing with people one might call primitive, since you get to the truth of their motives very quickly (...) with very rational people it's sometimes really difficult to break through the layers of rationalizations. I think that's a potential failure mode of getting too smart. Rationality is supposed to teach you to notice when you're building layers of rationalization instead of updating your opinion to account for new evidence. It's a hard habit to learn, so what you described often happens instead. But if you're aware of this trap I still think learning more is better than not learning :). > with respectful approach to people's feelings, a lot can be achieved That's probably the truth about dealing with people, of all kinds of skill, education, smartness, etc. I'd say most of interpersonal conflicts come from one or both sides not groking it.
    - bakhy 11y ago
      i absolutely agree that learning more is still better! in fact, meeting a gray area like this one is to me a heuristic indicator that something really worth learning is lurking behind. i think i took it from Zen - path to enlightenment through doubt... my question is perhaps do we properly acknowledge the difficulty we face? you say, for example, "it's a hard habit to learn" - but can we ever even learn it fully? it should make us humble. we can easily add disclaimers to our speech, but in practice it shows that we don't really mean them. we say it is hard to shake the rationalizing habit, and yet we often ascribe a level of certainty and objectivity to our conclusions which makes it seem like we completely disregard the possibility of our own emotions being behind our thinking. and ultimately, can any thought ever be had without an emotion behind it? Minsky, i think, remarked that he does not believe AI without emotion is possible. i completely agree with that.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    The point of rationality is to detect your own cognitive failures and to recognize and exploit those of others. It's pretty explicitly NOT about ignoring them. So when I observe someone saying "that guy is racist, don't believe his arguments", I can recognize that this is an emotional claim. It's an attempt to demonize a person rather than refute the argument. I can then observe that no one is disputing the actual argument, evaluate that on merit, and have a true belief about the world unbiased by my desire not to affiliate with racists. I can also update my beliefs about the rationality/honesty of the person saying "hey that guy is racist". Conversely, I can also recognize that a desire not to be racist is strong in people, and exploit it when I want to manipulate the less rational. For example, if I'm arguing against economic protectionism with an emotionally driven person, I might use Jim Crow as an example of protectionism rather than occupational licensing.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by bakhy 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> the only thing that bugs me, with this text, and the whole rationalist world-view, is how human emotion sometimes becomes a thing to be ashamed of. something beneath a hypothesized "true", "correct" condition. The "rationalist world-view" is just noticing that (per #1) what brain tells you and what the world really is are two different things, therefore your emotions may or may not be properly aligned with reality (btw. this is also the primary insight of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Emotions are just like opinions, but in different part of the brain - you want to have ones that correspond to reality. "Contrary to the stereotype, rationality doesn't mean denying emotion. When emotion is appropriate to the reality of the situation, it should be embraced; only when emotion isn't appropriate should it be suppressed." - http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Emotion http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Emotion

bakhy 11y ago
OK, but let's take again the political example - there is a confounding social factor there. i think it is common to regard a concession, in the eyes of the public, as defeat. this drives many people to shout their positions, and disregard rational counterarguments, resorting to personal attacks (like the "democrats are pro-crime" claim). even if those people are in fact perfectly reasonable otherwise... the political example is really insufficiently explained by bringing in just cognitive development. now, generally, from experience, i have the impression that higher mental skills often translate simply into a higher capability of producing more elaborate rationalizations of positions that a person would have held anyway, positions which are rooted in emotions. pointing out rational counterarguments can in many situations only go so far. in fact, i have many times had an easier time discussing with people one might call primitive, since you get to the truth of their motives very quickly, and with respectful approach to people's feelings, a lot can be achieved. with very rational people it's sometimes really difficult to break through the layers of rationalizations. i'm not saying that rationalism is bad, or that the author (or you) like to go around calling people retards :D i just feels that despite best intentions it can lead to disregard for emotion, even though in many cases emotion is the ultimate relevant "reality of the situation". we can and must make ourselves better, but we can never stop being people.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > now, generally, from experience, i have the impression that higher mental skills often translate simply into a higher capability of producing more elaborate rationalizations of positions that a person would have held anyway, positions which are rooted in emotions. pointing out rational counterarguments can in many situations only go so far. in fact, i have many times had an easier time discussing with people one might call primitive, since you get to the truth of their motives very quickly (...) with very rational people it's sometimes really difficult to break through the layers of rationalizations. I think that's a potential failure mode of getting too smart. Rationality is supposed to teach you to notice when you're building layers of rationalization instead of updating your opinion to account for new evidence. It's a hard habit to learn, so what you described often happens instead. But if you're aware of this trap I still think learning more is better than not learning :). > with respectful approach to people's feelings, a lot can be achieved That's probably the truth about dealing with people, of all kinds of skill, education, smartness, etc. I'd say most of interpersonal conflicts come from one or both sides not groking it.
  - bakhy 11y ago
    i absolutely agree that learning more is still better! in fact, meeting a gray area like this one is to me a heuristic indicator that something really worth learning is lurking behind. i think i took it from Zen - path to enlightenment through doubt... my question is perhaps do we properly acknowledge the difficulty we face? you say, for example, "it's a hard habit to learn" - but can we ever even learn it fully? it should make us humble. we can easily add disclaimers to our speech, but in practice it shows that we don't really mean them. we say it is hard to shake the rationalizing habit, and yet we often ascribe a level of certainty and objectivity to our conclusions which makes it seem like we completely disregard the possibility of our own emotions being behind our thinking. and ultimately, can any thought ever be had without an emotion behind it? Minsky, i think, remarked that he does not believe AI without emotion is possible. i completely agree with that.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  The point of rationality is to detect your own cognitive failures and to recognize and exploit those of others. It's pretty explicitly NOT about ignoring them. So when I observe someone saying "that guy is racist, don't believe his arguments", I can recognize that this is an emotional claim. It's an attempt to demonize a person rather than refute the argument. I can then observe that no one is disputing the actual argument, evaluate that on merit, and have a true belief about the world unbiased by my desire not to affiliate with racists. I can also update my beliefs about the rationality/honesty of the person saying "hey that guy is racist". Conversely, I can also recognize that a desire not to be racist is strong in people, and exploit it when I want to manipulate the less rational. For example, if I'm arguing against economic protectionism with an emotionally driven person, I might use Jim Crow as an example of protectionism rather than occupational licensing.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]