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Fuck no. This is the rationalist error. Nope. Not doing it. Pointing and laughing is the right response, not trying to figure out why mummification in the Vict

Fuck no. This is the rationalist error. Nope. Not doing it. Pointing and laughing is the right response, not trying to figure out why mummification in the Victorian era is a bad code smell for the mindset that produces it.

ben_w 3y ago
So your gut reaction is overriding any capacity for actual thought? I guess I can empathise — when I don't get enough sleep or if I drink too much caffeine my emotions can overwhelm my ability to reason. And that one time a heart transplant was shown explicitly on a TV documentary. As a mere memory that's fine, but at the moment the heart came out of the chest on TV? Nopenopenope. Likewise the existence of horror as a genre. The mere adverts for the Saw franchise left me disgusted at humanity, so obviously I never watched the films. Irony, you write as if rationality throws away something that we need, but I think you've lost something…
- leashless 3y ago
  "actual thought" "gut reaction" etc are artificial categories and are nothing like the real processes of human cognition. these are myths you are using to reason about reason. It's nonsense.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    How do you reason about reason? Would you rather I'd called those "system 2 and 1" or something? Or do you just find that none of the existing literature about human cognition matches your experience of yourself?
    - leashless 3y ago
      Noooooo this is all very very much messier and more complicated than it seems. The heart pumps. The heart is not a pump. There is neural tissue all over the place, hormones by glands which affect decision making and so on. You will not easily categorise kinds of thinking in any objectively measurable way. Type One thinking may have 72 subtypes once we get good brain imaging technology. They may decide the original category was wrong And So On. You cannot use those concepts, like type one thinking, except as heuristics. They are not true like “the sun is mostly hydrogen” is true.
- hnfong 3y ago
  GP's comments are interesting indeed. And while I think they're a bit extreme, I sympathize a lot. I've observed people who believe themselves rational use "reason" to lead themselves astray. Because "reason" is supposedly more reliable than "emotion", they tend to think whatever "reason" leads them to must be true, despite it disagreeing with "emotion". Kind of like giving oneself enough rope to hang oneself with. Personally I'd be quite suspect of any conclusion where "reason" and "emotion" does not converge. The former is more useful in convincing other people to agree with your views, but to be really honest, the scant few things I already know about utilitarianism smells enough that when GP brings up the mummy story, I'm not going to read a dozen books and academic papers on utilitarianism before I decide to agree with him...
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > Personally I'd be quite suspect of any conclusion where "reason" and "emotion" does not converge. You'd be right. Emotion tells us what we want, reason (when we don't mess up, which most do at least as much as ChatGPT) only tells us how to get what we want and what the consequences might be. The imperfections of human rationality is another reason to not use utilitarianism, as it is far too easy to just be wrong about what maximises utility, no matter how simple or complex you define that concept. The only two cases where I disagree with this, where I think one should be suspicious of the emotion, are: (1) you have two choices, A feels good and B feels bad, and reason tells you that choosing A will ultimately lead to a new condition you are disgusted/repulsed by/hate/etc. even more than you dislike choice B. But even then, distrust the reasoning also. (2) when you can't even figure out why you don't like something. The reason I care about that, includes homophobes and transphobes violently attacking people and using their emotions as the justification. But again, that you don't know the answer doesn't mean there isn't one — Old Testament law about shellfish and pork make a lot of sense once microscopes lead to germ theory. I'd put "has weird request for disposal of their corpse" in their W&T in the second category. Would I do what he did? No! But I'd also not specifically ask for my organs to get donated… because having to think about it makes me shiver a bit, not because I have any reason (including emotional responses!) to object. > The former is more useful in convincing other people to agree with your views Depends on the person, I think. This is why I think it's important to show the reason why I don't accept utilitarianism: the people who got there by reason will only change their mind by reason. > the scant few things I already know about utilitarianism smells enough that when GP brings up the mummy story, I'm not going to read a dozen books and academic papers on utilitarianism before I decide to agree with him... This is good! Nobody has time to do deep analyses of everything. Having quick shortcuts is fine — there are commenters on here that I've learned to skim past as they only make me angry or annoyed, so I don't get to even see any of their attempts at justification by reason. (And that lack of time is again a reason against utilitarianism…) But as I don't share your inner experience, nor anyone else's, I still have no idea which emotion either of you is experiencing. The other commenter is just acting like it's obvious. Is it empathy because you imagine yourself stuck forever motionless in that body, or disgust because it's a corpse and those should be hidden, or is it a violation of the sanctity of the human form (an emotion I don't have but which people discuss so I assume others do have)? Or something else?

ben_w 3y ago

So your gut reaction is overriding any capacity for actual thought? I guess I can empathise — when I don't get enough sleep or if I drink too much caffeine my emotions can overwhelm my ability to reason. And that one time a heart transplant was shown explicitly on a TV documentary. As a mere memory that's fine, but at the moment the heart came out of the chest on TV? Nopenopenope. Likewise the existence of horror as a genre. The mere adverts for the Saw franchise left me disgusted at humanity, so obviously I never watched the films. Irony, you write as if rationality throws away something that we need, but I think you've lost something…

leashless 3y ago
"actual thought" "gut reaction" etc are artificial categories and are nothing like the real processes of human cognition. these are myths you are using to reason about reason. It's nonsense.
- ben_w 3y ago
  How do you reason about reason? Would you rather I'd called those "system 2 and 1" or something? Or do you just find that none of the existing literature about human cognition matches your experience of yourself?
  - leashless 3y ago
    Noooooo this is all very very much messier and more complicated than it seems. The heart pumps. The heart is not a pump. There is neural tissue all over the place, hormones by glands which affect decision making and so on. You will not easily categorise kinds of thinking in any objectively measurable way. Type One thinking may have 72 subtypes once we get good brain imaging technology. They may decide the original category was wrong And So On. You cannot use those concepts, like type one thinking, except as heuristics. They are not true like “the sun is mostly hydrogen” is true.
hnfong 3y ago
GP's comments are interesting indeed. And while I think they're a bit extreme, I sympathize a lot. I've observed people who believe themselves rational use "reason" to lead themselves astray. Because "reason" is supposedly more reliable than "emotion", they tend to think whatever "reason" leads them to must be true, despite it disagreeing with "emotion". Kind of like giving oneself enough rope to hang oneself with. Personally I'd be quite suspect of any conclusion where "reason" and "emotion" does not converge. The former is more useful in convincing other people to agree with your views, but to be really honest, the scant few things I already know about utilitarianism smells enough that when GP brings up the mummy story, I'm not going to read a dozen books and academic papers on utilitarianism before I decide to agree with him...
- ben_w 3y ago
  > Personally I'd be quite suspect of any conclusion where "reason" and "emotion" does not converge. You'd be right. Emotion tells us what we want, reason (when we don't mess up, which most do at least as much as ChatGPT) only tells us how to get what we want and what the consequences might be. The imperfections of human rationality is another reason to not use utilitarianism, as it is far too easy to just be wrong about what maximises utility, no matter how simple or complex you define that concept. The only two cases where I disagree with this, where I think one should be suspicious of the emotion, are: (1) you have two choices, A feels good and B feels bad, and reason tells you that choosing A will ultimately lead to a new condition you are disgusted/repulsed by/hate/etc. even more than you dislike choice B. But even then, distrust the reasoning also. (2) when you can't even figure out why you don't like something. The reason I care about that, includes homophobes and transphobes violently attacking people and using their emotions as the justification. But again, that you don't know the answer doesn't mean there isn't one — Old Testament law about shellfish and pork make a lot of sense once microscopes lead to germ theory. I'd put "has weird request for disposal of their corpse" in their W&T in the second category. Would I do what he did? No! But I'd also not specifically ask for my organs to get donated… because having to think about it makes me shiver a bit, not because I have any reason (including emotional responses!) to object. > The former is more useful in convincing other people to agree with your views Depends on the person, I think. This is why I think it's important to show the reason why I don't accept utilitarianism: the people who got there by reason will only change their mind by reason. > the scant few things I already know about utilitarianism smells enough that when GP brings up the mummy story, I'm not going to read a dozen books and academic papers on utilitarianism before I decide to agree with him... This is good! Nobody has time to do deep analyses of everything. Having quick shortcuts is fine — there are commenters on here that I've learned to skim past as they only make me angry or annoyed, so I don't get to even see any of their attempts at justification by reason. (And that lack of time is again a reason against utilitarianism…) But as I don't share your inner experience, nor anyone else's, I still have no idea which emotion either of you is experiencing. The other commenter is just acting like it's obvious. Is it empathy because you imagine yourself stuck forever motionless in that body, or disgust because it's a corpse and those should be hidden, or is it a violation of the sanctity of the human form (an emotion I don't have but which people discuss so I assume others do have)? Or something else?