7 ms·

Make believe

73 points by kiyanwang 4y ago

jchw 4y ago
If I'm going to make-believe for fun I'd rather pick something that invokes enjoyable thoughts and not religion. I'd rather take up something lame but fun like role playing, or I dunno ... Y'know, suddenly, I feel like I now understand overly-attached adult anime and video game fans a little better.
- krembo 4y ago
  Go pastafarians
  - jchw 4y ago
    I had my time of being angsty about religion in HS, but now I'm indifferent. Doesn't affect me, at least anymore. I think it's amusing trying to guess what in my comment caused it to get downvoted. Could be suggesting that religion isn't "fun", calling role playing "dumb", or the note about anime and video game fans. I feel like any one of those things could have been polarizing on HN. I'll imagine it's the last one, since I think that's the funniest interpretation.
galactus 4y ago
“ Same with philosophies, nationalities, norms, and concepts like loyalty, destiny, and identity. None of these are true. But they are useful.” His use of the word ‘useful’ implies he classifies things as ‘useful’ and ‘useless’ according to some absolute value system that he considers evidently true but that in reality is no more or less valid that those things he lists as merely useful.
- adolph 4y ago
  All models are wrong is a common aphorism in statistics; it is often expanded as "All models are wrong, but some are useful". The aphorism acknowledges that statistical models always fall short of the complexities of reality but can still be useful nonetheless. The aphorism originally referred just to statistical models, but it is now sometimes used for scientific models in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong
- Sakos 4y ago
  I struggle to understand what the point of this comment is. Yes, we know, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. You don't have to believe him or agree with anything he says. That's ... how it works. I generally find his posts quite helpful and useful. Even ones where I might not agree with him. Your comment is noise. It's just blind criticism without actually saying anything. I don't find it helpful or useful. "His value system could be valid or not valid". Also, water is wet and British food sucks.
  - xwowsersx 4y ago
    Huh? No. As I understand it, GP is making the point that implicit in Sivers' idea is that there actually is, at bottom, a notion of objective truth that is more than merely this sort of utilitarian notion of useful. Because in order to even judge whether something is useful or helps to achieve some beneficial end in any way that we'd care about, one must have some axiological conception in mind. Also, I really don't understand why your comment is so biting and aggressive and how you finding his posts helpful and useful is responsive to GP's point? Did GP offer some general critique of his posts? Maybe GP also finds them generally helpful and useful, but had a point to make about this specific post? Your entire response is generally strange and the rudeness is unwarranted.
    - galactus 4y ago
      You explained it better than I did, thanks
    - Sakos 4y ago
      > implicit in Sivers' idea is that there actually is, at bottom, a notion of objective truth that is more than merely this sort of utilitarian notion of useful. Sivers' perspective is subjective. As most opinions are. So even if he is implying an "objective truth", none of us are obliged to treat it that way. But that isn't specific to Sivers or his above post. That literally applies to everybody. Again, it's like saying water is wet.
NickBusey 4y ago
> Following a religion improves your daily actions Citation needed. Edit: the fact that this is being downvoted is hilarious. Religion is a helluva drug.
- Juliate 4y ago
  Counter examples also abound in history books. And day-to-day life. Edit: what OP may have wanted to say is that « following a religion is a make-believe that also makes you believe what you do is good ». Which is not much more reassuring either (but an apt « mise en abyme » observation of what religion without a sane self-criticism can become)
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    Good non-religious people exist, and bad religious people exist. Religion might help a lot of people stay good or become better, but lack of religion is almost never a plausible cause for badness.
    - Juliate 4y ago
      Indeed. Religion or not is often not the issue. Self-criticism, humility, ability to take a step back on one's own belief system with its intrinsic limits and issues are. Which is often harder for fundamentalists, whatever their base is.
- nindalf 4y ago
  There’s no direct cause and effect between believing in a religion and living a longer, happier life. However, religious people are more likely to attend regular religious services, where they are likely to develop social connections. As social animals, social connections are great for our physical and mental well being. This is probably one of the factors that leads to religious people living longer, happier lives (Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2521827 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...) You got the citation you wanted?
doix 4y ago
> Following a religion improves your daily actions, feels wonderful, and connects you to a worldwide community. These are better reasons than insisting it’s absolutely true. Religion terrifies me, I don't feel wonderful thinking about eternal existence in the afterlife. Even if there was some proof that the afterlife did exist, I would most likely pretend it doesn't exist. You can get a sense of community doing many other things. > Same with philosophies, nationalities, norms, and concepts like loyalty, destiny, and identity. None of these are true. But they are useful. I don't know what this means. How can nationalities not be true? Philosophies do not claim to be true, they are just a logically consistent framework. No idea how it applies to concepts either.
- floppydiskette 4y ago
  Nationalities are a social construct, a bit of a shared delusion we all believe in. If we all stopped believing in them at the same time, they would cease to exist. That’s how they can not be “true”. Whether or not it’s useful or relevant to think that way depends on the situation. And that doesn’t mean they don’t have real consequences. As for philosophies, he’s referring to living your life by any particular philosophy, whether or not it’s “objectively” the best way to live.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - doix 4y ago
    Edit: the definition I had for "nation" in my head was incorrect. My comment is based on an incorrect understanding, leaving it up since there are replies that won't make sense if I remove it. I find it very hard to make the mental leap between religion and nationalities. I think the correct thing to actually discuss is if "nations" are true. Nationality just means you belong to a nation, by definition. If we stopped believing in nations, people would still form groups. Groups would organise and govern, nations are reborn again. I think as long as humans are social creatures, nations are about as "true" as you can get. They are inevitable in my opinion. Religion on the other hand, if people stop believing in it, it ceases to exist. > As for philosophies, he’s referring to living your life by any particular philosophy, whether or not it’s “objectively” the best way to live. Okay, I misunderstood that part. I thought they were talking about the study of philosophy. I agree that living your life by a philosophy does not make it true. But I suspect most people that follow a particular philosophy would not claim it is "true", but maybe I'm in a bit of a bubble.
jawns 4y ago
What the author is proposing is known in philosophy as the Pragmatic Theory of Truth, which says, essentially, something is true if it is useful to believe that it is true. This is in contrast to the more widespread Correspondence Theory of Truth, which says that something is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are. This is a classical theory of truth held by both Aristotle and Aquinas. Personally, I think the Correspondence Theory is far superior to the Pragmatic Theory. I don't want to believe in a religion because it feels good to believe in it. I want to believe in it because it's actually telling us true things about the way things actually are. By the way, there are many other theories of truth, some quite out there. This entry on truth in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a good overview: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/
- cratermoon 4y ago
  But are you familiar with Gettier problems[1] and justified true beliefs? 1 https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/ https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/
  - eternalban 4y ago
    I missed the bit where belief in "anybody" was justified by the facts regarding "Jones" getting the job. Given that all sorts of smart people have looked at this before, I'll plead to being dumb and hopefully someone will help me understand. [For me] All that seems to reinforce the need for the 'correspondence' variety of truth. Smith is free to believe all sorts of non-sense, and this in fact happens in real life all the time. People around us have all sorts of funny theories about the world and reality. We all have them. That sort of 'knowledge' -- actionable and informative theories about the world regardless of completeness or factuality -- serves its purpose in every day life. The degree to which it is false and contextually relevant determines the probability of a collision between actual reality and one's theories about reality modulo 'chance' events. This is basically how human society operates and has operated for ever. We have (hopefully) learning agents navigating a partially error tolerant environment. "Live and learn". So this is a practical sort of knowledge that can be well served by a pragmatic take on truth. The only question really is more fundamental and this asks if philosophy is itself a sort of mental appendix, a part that really serves no purpose :_, for every day conduct of life. To wit, this 'unassailable' sort of knowledge, who needs it? And if we can't answer that, why ask the question?
cratermoon 4y ago
> make: ** No rule to make target `believe'. Stop.
inphovore 4y ago
We are self deceivers. The question becomes, is this useful?
- imbnwa 4y ago
  Enter Nietzche and the revaluation of all values
  - inphovore 4y ago
    Or Zarathustra, by Nietzsche the noble messenger.
fasterik 4y ago
The author cherry picks a couple of positive examples while ignoring all of the negative consequences of making believe. Believing things are true when they aren't has also been the cause of war, genocide, human sacrifice, and oppression. It is also possible to have the positives (community, sense of connection) without any unjustified beliefs.
zug_zug 4y ago
upvoting for the audio. the incredibly relaxed audio presentation gives this theory a casual and jovial nature which feels wildly different than most blog posts (which I tend to read in a lecturing-professor tone).
masukomi 4y ago
see also: why role playing games are an important form of play for adults. There are so many amazing Tabletop Role Playing Games (TTRPGs) these days. They span every genre: sci-fi, horror, fantasy, bronze age, lovecraftian horror in the 20s, pretending to be babies pretending to be jumping over lava... you name it, there's probably a game out there in a genre and play-style that you would enjoy. If you're interested in something like this, but don't know where to start, or don't think D&D is the right thing for you, feel free to message me. I love helping folks find the right game for their kind of play.
gmuslera 4y ago
Some Hogfather vibes. Believing small lies make you ready to believe the big ones. Yes, they are useful, till they are not, when following the lie instead of the truth is really harmful. Will we face that kind of situations? or we will prefer to believe that it won't happen?
mwcampbell 4y ago
On nationalities and religions, I'd like to live by Thomas Paine's famous quote (which, incidentally, was set to music by Dan Barker), "The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." Of course, to take that seriously, I'd have to care about bad things that happen to others far away that benefit me, that it would be easier to just ignore because they're happening to other people somewhere far away. So believing in an in-group and an out-group may allow us to remain blissfully ignorant of uncomfortable realities. But I suppose that's not the best way to live.
tombert 4y ago
I don’t want to be too mean here, but this comes off as idiotic nonsense. Well-intentioned bullshit is still bullshit. I think most religions were initially well-intentioned but because they added a layer of supernatural bullshit to it people decided to weaponize it and justify basically anything horrible. When you base your belief on bullshit, you have the ability to justify anything, because nonsense can mean whatever you want it to mean. Obviously not all religious people are homophobes or racists or bigots but it does seem like a lot of demagogues have an easy time using religion to justify homophobia or racism or bigotry.
LouisSayers 4y ago
He may as well say "join a cult, it feels great!". Religion is like the OG social network - designed to hook its members and extract value from them. "But I get value from my Instafeed" its users decry. Yeah, but it's also a lot of non productive doom scrolling, causes social issues and can be used as a political tool to manipulate the masses. The people running the platforms can buy themselves a nice boat though, so there's always that.

73 points by kiyanwang 4y ago

jchw 4y ago

If I'm going to make-believe for fun I'd rather pick something that invokes enjoyable thoughts and not religion. I'd rather take up something lame but fun like role playing, or I dunno ... Y'know, suddenly, I feel like I now understand overly-attached adult anime and video game fans a little better.

krembo 4y ago
Go pastafarians
- jchw 4y ago
  I had my time of being angsty about religion in HS, but now I'm indifferent. Doesn't affect me, at least anymore. I think it's amusing trying to guess what in my comment caused it to get downvoted. Could be suggesting that religion isn't "fun", calling role playing "dumb", or the note about anime and video game fans. I feel like any one of those things could have been polarizing on HN. I'll imagine it's the last one, since I think that's the funniest interpretation.

galactus 4y ago

“ Same with philosophies, nationalities, norms, and concepts like loyalty, destiny, and identity. None of these are true. But they are useful.” His use of the word ‘useful’ implies he classifies things as ‘useful’ and ‘useless’ according to some absolute value system that he considers evidently true but that in reality is no more or less valid that those things he lists as merely useful.

adolph 4y ago
All models are wrong is a common aphorism in statistics; it is often expanded as "All models are wrong, but some are useful". The aphorism acknowledges that statistical models always fall short of the complexities of reality but can still be useful nonetheless. The aphorism originally referred just to statistical models, but it is now sometimes used for scientific models in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong
Sakos 4y ago
I struggle to understand what the point of this comment is. Yes, we know, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. You don't have to believe him or agree with anything he says. That's ... how it works. I generally find his posts quite helpful and useful. Even ones where I might not agree with him. Your comment is noise. It's just blind criticism without actually saying anything. I don't find it helpful or useful. "His value system could be valid or not valid". Also, water is wet and British food sucks.
- xwowsersx 4y ago
  Huh? No. As I understand it, GP is making the point that implicit in Sivers' idea is that there actually is, at bottom, a notion of objective truth that is more than merely this sort of utilitarian notion of useful. Because in order to even judge whether something is useful or helps to achieve some beneficial end in any way that we'd care about, one must have some axiological conception in mind. Also, I really don't understand why your comment is so biting and aggressive and how you finding his posts helpful and useful is responsive to GP's point? Did GP offer some general critique of his posts? Maybe GP also finds them generally helpful and useful, but had a point to make about this specific post? Your entire response is generally strange and the rudeness is unwarranted.
  - galactus 4y ago
    You explained it better than I did, thanks
  - Sakos 4y ago
    > implicit in Sivers' idea is that there actually is, at bottom, a notion of objective truth that is more than merely this sort of utilitarian notion of useful. Sivers' perspective is subjective. As most opinions are. So even if he is implying an "objective truth", none of us are obliged to treat it that way. But that isn't specific to Sivers or his above post. That literally applies to everybody. Again, it's like saying water is wet.

NickBusey 4y ago

> Following a religion improves your daily actions Citation needed. Edit: the fact that this is being downvoted is hilarious. Religion is a helluva drug.

Juliate 4y ago
Counter examples also abound in history books. And day-to-day life. Edit: what OP may have wanted to say is that « following a religion is a make-believe that also makes you believe what you do is good ». Which is not much more reassuring either (but an apt « mise en abyme » observation of what religion without a sane self-criticism can become)
- nerdponx 4y ago
  Good non-religious people exist, and bad religious people exist. Religion might help a lot of people stay good or become better, but lack of religion is almost never a plausible cause for badness.
  - Juliate 4y ago
    Indeed. Religion or not is often not the issue. Self-criticism, humility, ability to take a step back on one's own belief system with its intrinsic limits and issues are. Which is often harder for fundamentalists, whatever their base is.
nindalf 4y ago
There’s no direct cause and effect between believing in a religion and living a longer, happier life. However, religious people are more likely to attend regular religious services, where they are likely to develop social connections. As social animals, social connections are great for our physical and mental well being. This is probably one of the factors that leads to religious people living longer, happier lives (Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2521827 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...) You got the citation you wanted?

doix 4y ago

> Following a religion improves your daily actions, feels wonderful, and connects you to a worldwide community. These are better reasons than insisting it’s absolutely true. Religion terrifies me, I don't feel wonderful thinking about eternal existence in the afterlife. Even if there was some proof that the afterlife did exist, I would most likely pretend it doesn't exist. You can get a sense of community doing many other things. > Same with philosophies, nationalities, norms, and concepts like loyalty, destiny, and identity. None of these are true. But they are useful. I don't know what this means. How can nationalities not be true? Philosophies do not claim to be true, they are just a logically consistent framework. No idea how it applies to concepts either.

floppydiskette 4y ago
Nationalities are a social construct, a bit of a shared delusion we all believe in. If we all stopped believing in them at the same time, they would cease to exist. That’s how they can not be “true”. Whether or not it’s useful or relevant to think that way depends on the situation. And that doesn’t mean they don’t have real consequences. As for philosophies, he’s referring to living your life by any particular philosophy, whether or not it’s “objectively” the best way to live.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- doix 4y ago
  Edit: the definition I had for "nation" in my head was incorrect. My comment is based on an incorrect understanding, leaving it up since there are replies that won't make sense if I remove it. I find it very hard to make the mental leap between religion and nationalities. I think the correct thing to actually discuss is if "nations" are true. Nationality just means you belong to a nation, by definition. If we stopped believing in nations, people would still form groups. Groups would organise and govern, nations are reborn again. I think as long as humans are social creatures, nations are about as "true" as you can get. They are inevitable in my opinion. Religion on the other hand, if people stop believing in it, it ceases to exist. > As for philosophies, he’s referring to living your life by any particular philosophy, whether or not it’s “objectively” the best way to live. Okay, I misunderstood that part. I thought they were talking about the study of philosophy. I agree that living your life by a philosophy does not make it true. But I suspect most people that follow a particular philosophy would not claim it is "true", but maybe I'm in a bit of a bubble.

jawns 4y ago

What the author is proposing is known in philosophy as the Pragmatic Theory of Truth, which says, essentially, something is true if it is useful to believe that it is true. This is in contrast to the more widespread Correspondence Theory of Truth, which says that something is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are. This is a classical theory of truth held by both Aristotle and Aquinas. Personally, I think the Correspondence Theory is far superior to the Pragmatic Theory. I don't want to believe in a religion because it feels good to believe in it. I want to believe in it because it's actually telling us true things about the way things actually are. By the way, there are many other theories of truth, some quite out there. This entry on truth in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a good overview: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

cratermoon 4y ago
But are you familiar with Gettier problems[1] and justified true beliefs? 1 https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/ https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/
- eternalban 4y ago
  I missed the bit where belief in "anybody" was justified by the facts regarding "Jones" getting the job. Given that all sorts of smart people have looked at this before, I'll plead to being dumb and hopefully someone will help me understand. [For me] All that seems to reinforce the need for the 'correspondence' variety of truth. Smith is free to believe all sorts of non-sense, and this in fact happens in real life all the time. People around us have all sorts of funny theories about the world and reality. We all have them. That sort of 'knowledge' -- actionable and informative theories about the world regardless of completeness or factuality -- serves its purpose in every day life. The degree to which it is false and contextually relevant determines the probability of a collision between actual reality and one's theories about reality modulo 'chance' events. This is basically how human society operates and has operated for ever. We have (hopefully) learning agents navigating a partially error tolerant environment. "Live and learn". So this is a practical sort of knowledge that can be well served by a pragmatic take on truth. The only question really is more fundamental and this asks if philosophy is itself a sort of mental appendix, a part that really serves no purpose :_, for every day conduct of life. To wit, this 'unassailable' sort of knowledge, who needs it? And if we can't answer that, why ask the question?

cratermoon 4y ago

> make: ** No rule to make target `believe'. Stop.

inphovore 4y ago

We are self deceivers. The question becomes, is this useful?

imbnwa 4y ago
Enter Nietzche and the revaluation of all values
- inphovore 4y ago
  Or Zarathustra, by Nietzsche the noble messenger.

fasterik 4y ago

The author cherry picks a couple of positive examples while ignoring all of the negative consequences of making believe. Believing things are true when they aren't has also been the cause of war, genocide, human sacrifice, and oppression. It is also possible to have the positives (community, sense of connection) without any unjustified beliefs.

zug_zug 4y ago

upvoting for the audio. the incredibly relaxed audio presentation gives this theory a casual and jovial nature which feels wildly different than most blog posts (which I tend to read in a lecturing-professor tone).

masukomi 4y ago

see also: why role playing games are an important form of play for adults. There are so many amazing Tabletop Role Playing Games (TTRPGs) these days. They span every genre: sci-fi, horror, fantasy, bronze age, lovecraftian horror in the 20s, pretending to be babies pretending to be jumping over lava... you name it, there's probably a game out there in a genre and play-style that you would enjoy. If you're interested in something like this, but don't know where to start, or don't think D&D is the right thing for you, feel free to message me. I love helping folks find the right game for their kind of play.

gmuslera 4y ago

Some Hogfather vibes. Believing small lies make you ready to believe the big ones. Yes, they are useful, till they are not, when following the lie instead of the truth is really harmful. Will we face that kind of situations? or we will prefer to believe that it won't happen?

mwcampbell 4y ago

On nationalities and religions, I'd like to live by Thomas Paine's famous quote (which, incidentally, was set to music by Dan Barker), "The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." Of course, to take that seriously, I'd have to care about bad things that happen to others far away that benefit me, that it would be easier to just ignore because they're happening to other people somewhere far away. So believing in an in-group and an out-group may allow us to remain blissfully ignorant of uncomfortable realities. But I suppose that's not the best way to live.

tombert 4y ago

I don’t want to be too mean here, but this comes off as idiotic nonsense. Well-intentioned bullshit is still bullshit. I think most religions were initially well-intentioned but because they added a layer of supernatural bullshit to it people decided to weaponize it and justify basically anything horrible. When you base your belief on bullshit, you have the ability to justify anything, because nonsense can mean whatever you want it to mean. Obviously not all religious people are homophobes or racists or bigots but it does seem like a lot of demagogues have an easy time using religion to justify homophobia or racism or bigotry.

LouisSayers 4y ago

He may as well say "join a cult, it feels great!". Religion is like the OG social network - designed to hook its members and extract value from them. "But I get value from my Instafeed" its users decry. Yeah, but it's also a lot of non productive doom scrolling, causes social issues and can be used as a political tool to manipulate the masses. The people running the platforms can buy themselves a nice boat though, so there's always that.