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It's not a zero sum. If my opponent is also rational and unpersuaded by emotional pleas, then we converge to truth more rapidly. I recently got around to readi

It's not a zero sum. If my opponent is also rational and unpersuaded by emotional pleas, then we converge to truth more rapidly. I recently got around to reading Scott Aaronson's Complexity of Agreement: http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf One of the predictions of this paper is that rational Bayesians sharing information will a) rapidly converge to agreement and b) after making arguments, will often switch sides. An individual's position in an argument will look like a convergent random walk rather than a gradual concession in a negotiation. Of course, real life arguments rarely go this way [1]. But when reading this, I was struck by the fact that in some rare cases I have engaged in arguments that move this way. In every case I can think of, the other participant in the conversation was either a mathematician, a philosophers or a lesswrong reader. [1] One rare exception to this is real life arguments about what a stock price should be. Yay for market transmission of information!

bakhy 11y ago
not to attack your position, but just to further illustrate where i'm going with all this. > ...rational Bayesians sharing information... setting aside the inherent humor of economics (which is sadly completely lost on economists), have you ever wondered - why would a purely rational actor even participate in the discussion, or, as a matter of fact, in anything? why would a purely logical machine get out of bed in the morning? would it not need to "want" something first? what would an emotionless logical machine "think" about, and why would it think about that and not something else? intellect without emotion is nothing. not figuratively, not poetically, but literally nothing. P.S. since when does the word "converge" apply to anything going on in a market? :P
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Why do you think a rational actor has no goals, or is somehow emotionless? The word "converge" has always applied to market responses to new info. Find a news event (e.g., WMT Oct 13-14) and look at the second or minute level movements near that event. It's qualitatively quite similar to Aaronson's theorem.
  - bakhy 11y ago
    well, i'm definitely not educated on the terminology, particularly when it comes to economics. i guess we could clear out a lot of the misunderstanding here as soon as we sort the terms out ;) so, just IMO, a perfectly rational actor should be emotionless, at least on the matter at hand. any kind of emotional tendency would skew their reasoning. to add to what you said more above, about those fruitful discussions: i would bet that the people you had those fruitful discussions with have had another common characteristic. namely, they did not have much personal stake in the issue you were discussing. when people approach a discussion with only a desire to learn and improve their opinions, they can indeed have a quality discussion. ultimately, i don't believe such neat separation of rational and irrational can ever work (aside from sometimes being a useful approximation). which is why i asked those silly questions - how can a rational actor want something, without wanting it? i find the concept very contradictory, borderline useless. edit - i think i have to back down a bit, or maybe just clarify, dunno. i maybe get what you meant. people that appreciate rationality will tend to be better discussion partners even if they are personally affected. but it will be much harder...
    - gjm11 11y ago
      > a perfectly rational actor should be emotionless. Nope. A perfectly rational actor should have unskewed reasoning, yes, but you can (in principle) achieve that by making your emotions not skew your reasoning rather than by throwing your emotions away.
- fenomas 11y ago
  > why would a purely logical machine get out of bed in the morning? would it not need to "want" something first? In a word - huh? An irrational person might wake up one morning with the urge to paint a picture - are you suggesting a purely rational person wouldn't feel such an urge, or that they wouldn't act on it? In either case, why not?
  - bakhy 11y ago
    i'm suggesting "purely rational" prohibits the existence of emotion, otherwise we're dealing with a contradiction. sorry, i already replied to the peer comment to yours, maybe you can reply there?..
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      This discussion is confusing terms. Economic meaning of a rational agent is a bit different than the one we're discussing here. See: [0] about the definition and [1] about the feelings angle. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/ [1] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/hp/feeling_rational/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/hp/feeling_rational/
lmm 11y ago
You're right that not everything is zero-sum. But I suspect an overwhelming majority of the issues that come up for argument are very close to zero-sum.

bakhy 11y ago

not to attack your position, but just to further illustrate where i'm going with all this. > ...rational Bayesians sharing information... setting aside the inherent humor of economics (which is sadly completely lost on economists), have you ever wondered - why would a purely rational actor even participate in the discussion, or, as a matter of fact, in anything? why would a purely logical machine get out of bed in the morning? would it not need to "want" something first? what would an emotionless logical machine "think" about, and why would it think about that and not something else? intellect without emotion is nothing. not figuratively, not poetically, but literally nothing. P.S. since when does the word "converge" apply to anything going on in a market? :P

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Why do you think a rational actor has no goals, or is somehow emotionless? The word "converge" has always applied to market responses to new info. Find a news event (e.g., WMT Oct 13-14) and look at the second or minute level movements near that event. It's qualitatively quite similar to Aaronson's theorem.
- bakhy 11y ago
  well, i'm definitely not educated on the terminology, particularly when it comes to economics. i guess we could clear out a lot of the misunderstanding here as soon as we sort the terms out ;) so, just IMO, a perfectly rational actor should be emotionless, at least on the matter at hand. any kind of emotional tendency would skew their reasoning. to add to what you said more above, about those fruitful discussions: i would bet that the people you had those fruitful discussions with have had another common characteristic. namely, they did not have much personal stake in the issue you were discussing. when people approach a discussion with only a desire to learn and improve their opinions, they can indeed have a quality discussion. ultimately, i don't believe such neat separation of rational and irrational can ever work (aside from sometimes being a useful approximation). which is why i asked those silly questions - how can a rational actor want something, without wanting it? i find the concept very contradictory, borderline useless. edit - i think i have to back down a bit, or maybe just clarify, dunno. i maybe get what you meant. people that appreciate rationality will tend to be better discussion partners even if they are personally affected. but it will be much harder...
  - gjm11 11y ago
    > a perfectly rational actor should be emotionless. Nope. A perfectly rational actor should have unskewed reasoning, yes, but you can (in principle) achieve that by making your emotions not skew your reasoning rather than by throwing your emotions away.
fenomas 11y ago
> why would a purely logical machine get out of bed in the morning? would it not need to "want" something first? In a word - huh? An irrational person might wake up one morning with the urge to paint a picture - are you suggesting a purely rational person wouldn't feel such an urge, or that they wouldn't act on it? In either case, why not?
- bakhy 11y ago
  i'm suggesting "purely rational" prohibits the existence of emotion, otherwise we're dealing with a contradiction. sorry, i already replied to the peer comment to yours, maybe you can reply there?..
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    This discussion is confusing terms. Economic meaning of a rational agent is a bit different than the one we're discussing here. See: [0] about the definition and [1] about the feelings angle. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/ [1] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/hp/feeling_rational/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/hp/feeling_rational/

lmm 11y ago

You're right that not everything is zero-sum. But I suspect an overwhelming majority of the issues that come up for argument are very close to zero-sum.