[HN Gopher] The Limits of Rationality
___________________________________________________________________
The Limits of Rationality
Author : mahathu
Score : 65 points
Date : 2022-10-01 13:05 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pursuingreality.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pursuingreality.com)
| e63f67dd-065b wrote:
| It's not helpful to think of rationality as a set of rules. I
| think rationality is better described, in my view, as an
| _explicit acknowledgement of a search for optima in their own
| chosen utility functions_.
|
| Rationality is not thinking like a robot; it's asking the
| question: if I have a vaguely-defined utility function f, how
| would a rational optimiser optimise for f? Would you march
| towards a local optima, or try to look for other better local
| optima? You see an optima in the distance, what's the shortest
| path that will lead you there? Other rational agents have
| function y that conflict with your function; how best to
| resolve/navigate said conflict? What path traverses along high-
| value areas such that the expected utility of your path over time
| is highest?
|
| As OP points out, our utility functions are poorly defined. That
| doesn't mean, however, that we cannot apply mathematical/rational
| techniques to it. A big part is explicitly acknowledging our own
| biases and trying to restructure our thinking in a way that best
| avoids them.
|
| A good heuristic, for example, is that having a more accurate
| view of reality generally allows for more efficient searches of
| your utility space. Thus, updating your view of the world to
| better conform to reality is a positive EV investment.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| IMHO you missed the point of the article... it says that
| rationality on itself only can lead to progress in the light of
| virtues (rules of what is 'right'). Without those as a starting
| point, there can be no reasoning. Hence reasoning/rationalizing
| depends on the irrational, ie. subjective virtues, dogmas as it
| were.
| sanroot99 wrote:
| I don't think this article was rational /s
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| This is why I like to keep rational thinking as a tool in my box
| of strategies for life.
|
| The biggest change I've ever had living my life was the XKCD's 1
| of today's 10,000. https://xkcd.com/1053/
|
| To boil it down: "let people enjoy things". If you like something
| and it doesn't have a negative affect on your life or someone
| else's, go for.
|
| Not everything you do needs to analyzed.
| starkd wrote:
| To a point. But many joys are very destructive in and of
| themselves. Without any analysis, one might be tempted to snort
| meth all day.
| chousuke wrote:
| It's a bit difficult to disagree with "not _everything_ ",
| because that's obviously true; not everything even _can_ be
| perfectly analyzed.
|
| However, I think you can (and should) try to at least maintain
| awareness of your behaviour and its effects, but only because
| if you don't, you may actually end up acting in ways that
| _contradict_ your values; or if your values are ill-defined or
| vague, you might end up not understanding what it is that
| really matters to you. I think rationality is a necessary part
| of having a well-defined value system, even if the axioms are
| arbitrary. "Letting people enjoy things that aren't harming
| anyone" is a rational decision based on my value system.
|
| What I can use rationality for, really, is figuring out if
| there's something I'm doing that's actually in conflict with my
| own values, or if there's something I can do to nudge the world
| (or at least my own life) to have more of the things I value.
| Neil44 wrote:
| I'm reading Zen and the art of motorcycle maintainance at the
| moment which also pushes and pulls at the limits of reason and
| rationality. Some of the ideas are quite 'dense' and worth making
| notes over. Worth a read.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| Fantastic book. It's exploration of quality is amazing.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| ZatAoMM was really a great read for me.
|
| One of my big takeaways from the book is that the main
| character actually managed to literally drive himself insane
| through hyper-rationality and over-thinking.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| I read it some time ago, really enjoyed it. Lots of layers to
| it too.
| bilsbie wrote:
| > pushes and pulls at the limits of reason and rationality
|
| Any chance you'd be up for providing a few examples? I read it
| but I can't remember that.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| It's been a number of years since my last reading but what I
| remember is it pulling at the thread of the concept of
| quality. The author stumbles upon this while teaching an
| introductory writing course at college. What he discovers is
| that it's difficult to reduce the act of writing to a
| prescribed set of rules to follow in order to produce a
| quality piece. And yet, somehow his students, without
| training or much effort, are able to judge which pieces
| exhibit quality. This idea literally leads the author to
| madness.
| sifar wrote:
| And that quality arises at the moment of interaction. It is
| simple but was a stunning realization for me.
|
| This rhymes with what The Tao Te Ching says that you can't
| be taught - you have to experience it in your own way.
| cainxinth wrote:
| It's paradoxical, but a certain amount of irrational behavior can
| be optimal. Consider the balance between depressive realism
| (seeing the world so accurately that it eats away at your hope
| for a better future) and positive illusions, the small lies
| people convince themselves of that they are better, stronger,
| smarter, and luckier than they are.
|
| In small amounts, self-deception and avoidance of discomfort are
| necessary coping mechanisms. Reality is daunting, mysterious, and
| random; staring into the abyss can cause despair. It's a better
| strategy to be slightly optimistic, even if there isn't a strong
| rational basis for that outlook. Taken too far, you get total
| self delusion, the people who live in their own reality
| distortion fields, but there are benefits to a modicum of
| irrational self confidence.
| srinivgp wrote:
| Pretty much every direction is a local improvement given _some_
| starting point, but if you broaden your overall search, the
| "more self-deception" direction is gonna be worse.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| It doesn't escape my notice that a large amount of extremely
| successful people basically live in their reality distortion
| field.
|
| Obviously some Bias here, where I am sure most of the people
| that live like this are just complete losers and that makes
| them even more of a jerk, but there does seem to be something
| to it, it certainly seems to multiply your success if you can
| actually get some.
| kiba wrote:
| Do people really see the world so 'accurately' that they become
| depressed? I suspect it's a matter of perspective rather than
| being a realist.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| It's certainly been observed: "With much wisdom comes much
| sorrow".
|
| Regarding the abyss and reality (I'm taking liberties):
|
| - "I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to
| know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows
| something although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not
| know anything, so I do not fancy I do."
|
| - "I myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while
| vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me"
|
| What you do when "enlightened" is personal, but I don't think
| everyone is prepared to handle it in a healthy fashion.
|
| Curiosity and discovery, even when reality is difficult? Or
| fall into despair?
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| In some sense yes. Buddhists talk about the difficulty of
| acknowledging this "ocean of tears".
|
| Rather than trying to find bliss in ignorance or aversion,
| there are practices for holding all of it in your head in a
| way that doesn't destroy you.
|
| Many people who see a lot of death find it useful, I find I
| need it just for everyday life :).
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I sometimes wonder if that perspective is largely about what
| you should be able to influence or control, too.
|
| If you desire control or influence then the world can become
| a daunting and depressing place. You learn to feel trapped
| and impotent. If you let it be and learn to focus your energy
| on your own realm of control, it's much easier to be at peace
| (though still challenging at times). If there's nothing you
| can do and you aren't responsible for the awful things you
| see in the world, should it really consume you? Shouldn't you
| focus more on what's good, and the limited good you can do?
| Perhaps we should save most of our energy for exactly that.
|
| Fundamentally the act of being disturbed by bad things in the
| world seems to indicate or require that it should be some
| other way, or that one should be able to change it. If both
| aren't true, it seems futile to be so deeply bothered by it.
| If both are true, we should devote as much as we can to
| resolving it. As individuals it seems this is rarely the
| case, though.
|
| I don't eat animals. I don't think other people should,
| generally speaking, and I think the systems turning them into
| food are beyond deplorable. If I focus on that I can become
| pretty upset. If I dwelled on I could easily become
| depressed. But for what? What can I do but not eat the
| animals? Encourage my family to eat more vegetables without
| annoying them? Beyond these small acts, I'm virtually
| powerless to make a difference. I have to accept that.
|
| There are countless examples like that. The wars ongoing
| today are make some of the best examples. Fears that global
| recession will cause mass starvation while I experience what
| could be summarized as financial inconvenience. Existential
| questions about meaning and purpose. Personal problems caused
| by external forces (arguably most of them?). The list is
| endless and each item, if examined in depth, can make someone
| extremely sad.
|
| Certainly don't ignore these things, but don't become
| obsessed and engrossed. Don't feel personally responsible to
| make substantial changes. Just do the best within your means,
| and be glad you did.
|
| Without that, I would be so miserable. Before I learned this
| I was. The world seemed impossibly dark and sad. Today I hold
| on to the belief that to overcome these things, my
| perspective needs to be one of positive action and intent.
| Anything else seems to amount mostly to self-harm, and no one
| wins.
| IngoBlechschmid wrote:
| I generally agree, and want to add that you are not
| powerless. You can band together with others and then
| create political wind for the change(s) you desire. Many
| (most? all?) important changes in society were the direct
| result of people organizing and campaigning. It is an
| uphill battle which can be rewarding, interesting, very
| social, and: successful. :-)
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Great point. That's definitely something in our power to
| exercise. Even if it doesn't succeed, the act of working
| together to strive to make the world better is a signal
| to others which I'd argue is worth communicating and
| encouraging.
| openfuture wrote:
| I am trying to make it easier for us to work together
| with datalisp.is
| dasil003 wrote:
| I agree with you, and also with the GP.
|
| Given this is HN, I read that comment as assuming an
| entrepreneurial disposition, one wants to "change the world".
| It's easy to imagine how one might want things to be, imagine
| steps to achieve that, and then crash hard into reality.
| Regardless of intelligence or diligence, the future is
| fundamentally unpredictable. I take the GPs point to be that
| you'll do better in your goals if you are able to pursue them
| with a measure of naivete versus dwelling on your best
| expected probabilistic outcomes which are likely to become
| more pessimistic as you gain experience. This is reflected in
| the common story from successful entrepreneurs: "if we knew
| how hard it was going to be we never would have started".
|
| That said, I also appreciate your point about perspective.
| The ideal is to be able to leverage all your knowledge,
| instinct and willful drive, but without an emotional
| attachment to an outcome. Walking the tightrope between
| apathy and frustration as it were.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| "Ignorance is bliss" is rather cliched but fairly profound
| and truthful.
| civilized wrote:
| There was a psych study where each participant was supposed
| to press a button to make a light flash. The flashes were
| random. Depressed people were more likely to recognize this
| while non-depressed people were more likely to believe they
| had control.
|
| The vast extrapolation of this into "depressive realism" has
| always struck me as misguided. The test favors depressed
| people's instincts because they tend to have less belief in
| self-agency in general. If the light _was_ influenced by the
| button you might have seen the opposite gap, with the non-
| depressed being more accurate.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| Well if we step aside from scientific conjectures on what
| makes people depressed, which as far as I know is
| inconclusive...
|
| We can ask ourselves what makes people depressed and
| postulate:
|
| I would point at a lack of realized agency as the main
| culprit. Now if one capable of operating via a realistic
| fictional narrative it's probable they could simply narrate
| that whatever happens was intended (internal), or perhaps is
| for the best (external), or is a challenge for the best
| (combined). And these modalities can be divided, perhaps
| unnecessarily, into various different subcategories... I
| think I could find this comfortable, and I think history has
| a lot of elements to reinforce this reasoning, one obvious
| and predominate one being religion, but I would suggest that
| some biographical works would equally point towards internal
| and combined narratives.
|
| But what if we imagine someone who can not or does not
| subscribe to these narratives? There's a huge degree of
| reduction in their agency automatically. For instance, it's
| pretty easy to brazenly rationalize some success as a gut
| feeling, an instinct, an unconscious will - but what if it's
| just... Luck? As for external: from my perspective it would
| be fairly comforting to think that some predestiny has been
| concocted for me, this is just some experiential ride for
| some greater purpose and I'm an element affecting a much
| greater end. Or a combined version wherein I _am_ both an
| agent, and a choice one, being pressed into ascension of
| spirit by some greater force, again for some greater end...
|
| Or we're a mortal meatsocks who will live some relatively
| short life and have a very limited effect on the outcomes of
| the greater picture (except by extremely limited and fixed
| chance), highly constrained by innumerable forces impeding
| our ability to enact our wishes regardless of their actual
| magnitudes.
|
| Personally I feel obliged to exist in the lattermost space,
| because I hope to seek truth - but I don't discount the other
| approaches either. But as TFA indicates, and I will
| corroborate, there is a balance to be struck.
| jhbadger wrote:
| It's basically the argument that poets like Keats had, that
| science was destroying beauty because it "unweaved the
| rainbow" -- that is the rainbow is less beautiful if we
| understand why it occurs rather than being magical. I
| personally can't understand this argument at all -- but then
| I always enjoyed figuring out how magic tricks worked as
| well.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| I also try to find out how and why things work, I suppose
| that's why I became an engineer. Thinking about the subject
| further, the beauty is not the rainbow, the beauty is the
| fantasy around it. For an engineer, fantasising can be a
| means to enhance creativity and out of the box thinking,
| which can lead to a solution, the pieces of the puzzle fall
| into place, in the end the effect can be explained
| logically. The journey to come to the conclusion is like a
| game, and is fun and satisfying. Once the solution is
| known, their interest will sheft to other effects,
| rendering the former less interesting.
| polio wrote:
| I would suggest that awareness-related depression is itself
| irrational. Seeing the world for what it is may expose a lot of
| net suffering, but to be weighed down by that reality, for
| which you have little personal culpability, doesn't make sense.
| We should be able to acknowledge that the world is full of
| suffering without reflexively experiencing it.
|
| There are ways to be optimistic without being irrational, as
| well. Simply looking at the world and deciding that there is
| something minor that you can do is both true and an act of
| optimism.
| pstuart wrote:
| I don't know how to remain aware of the general state of
| things without being depressed by it. Stoicism seems to be
| the path to take if I can make my way there.
| k__ wrote:
| If the results are tangible, is the behaviour leading to them
| irrational?
| Supermancho wrote:
| Usually, results of behavior produce multiple effects.
|
| One example is short term gain vs long term gain.
|
| Yes I can steal a candy from this baby, resulting in me
| having a candy I didn't have. Longer term thinking? Maybe not
| such a good tradeoff.
|
| Criminals are often ridiculed for making bad behavioral
| tradeoffs.
|
| When opportunists are held accountable for behavior that has
| given them some long term benefit (like the "breakup" of
| Microsoft or Amazon federal fines) there is a cultural
| tendency to celebrate. This is despite the tradeoff having
| benefitted the opportunist greatly in comparison to the
| penalty.
|
| I feel like these imbalanced punishment valuations are being
| depressed by a fear of injustice or economic disaster.
| cainxinth wrote:
| That's the paradox
| awillen wrote:
| This doesn't feel particularly insightful to me.
|
| "We have to realise that rationality, particularly in the form of
| scientific thought, cannot provide us with a value system." Yeah,
| that's true, but it's not the point of rationality - rationality
| is a system of thinking and decision making designed to optimize
| for the best outcome, but you have to define what's best and thus
| what you want to optimize for.
|
| Rationality won't provide you with a value system, but I don't
| think anyone who understands it would claim that it does. This is
| sort of like saying culinary school will teach you how to cook,
| but it won't pick what's for dinner.
| Joeri wrote:
| I also felt that paragraph didn't hit the mark. All value
| systems apply rationality to a set of assumptions. Religion
| starts from the assumption "what is in our holy writing is
| true" and then applies logic to derive a complete value system.
| In that sense religious and atheist value systems only differ
| by their priors, not their use of rationality.
| kiba wrote:
| _Rationality won 't provide you with a value system, but I
| don't think anyone who understands it would claim that it does.
| This is sort of like saying culinary school will teach you how
| to cook, but it won't pick what's for dinner._
|
| Someone's belief and value system is the difference between
| being shunned or supported, like a gay teenager being disowned
| by their parent.
|
| We should definitely examine our value system.
| awillen wrote:
| Sure, examining value systems is good and we should certainly
| do that. That's not really relevant to the article or my
| response, though.
| starkd wrote:
| It does seem like a truism. However, given how many of us are
| so quick to try to solve every problem with technology, perhaps
| there is a bigger lesson here than we realize. Entire
| businesses seem to be formed more on whether we CAN do
| something without first answering whether we should. Although a
| lot that probably comes from the business environment of cheap
| credit.
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| Plenty of people think Sam Harris understands rationality.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Utilitarians. There actually are some people out there who
| claim to be.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| But even the pursuit of optimality is a value, is it not? Even
| if you define what's best, could one then not choose to do the
| opposite? No individual is required to live an optimal life,
| and many purposely and self-righteously shun one.
| awillen wrote:
| I would disagree - the value is about what you're optimizing
| for. When you say "No individual is required to live an
| optimal life, and many purposely and self-righteously shun
| one." it feels like you're assuming some value for which
| you're optimizing.
|
| If you're not trying to make a lot of money or be
| traditionally successful, you're still optimizing for
| something. You could be optimizing for the most relaxing
| life, or the life in which you do the most to help others.
| You can also go for more specific optimizations - maybe you
| want to help others but don't want to get investment banking
| and live like a pauper while donating every cent you can
| (which is generally going to be a more effective way to help
| others than, say, volunteering), then you might be optimizing
| for helping others while achieving some minimal level of
| enjoyment in your life.
|
| This is all to say that I would argue that you can't pursue
| optimality in and of itself, because you have to be
| optimizing for something.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| > Before, my enjoyment of art, music or literature came with a
| vague angst, urging me to try to understand why it made me feel a
| particular way, rather than just enjoying the experience itself.
|
| I always thought Bazarov from Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" was a
| caricature nihilist/rationalist, with his "Nature is just a back
| wall in a worker's workshop, no need to admire its so called
| 'beauty'" attitude... but apparently not.
| yamrzou wrote:
| Here is an interesting perspective that I heard recently:
|
| The (rational) mind is just another sense. As such, it has limits
| like the rest of the senses. For example our vision struggles
| with very close objects (we do not see our own eyelashes) or very
| distant objects. Similarly, very low or very high sound
| frequencies are outside the audible range of the human ear. Our
| rationality must also be limited in that sense.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| A step in the right direction, to be sure. Now for a theoretical
| course correction...
|
| While valuation is not the task of empirical science per se (and
| indeed, even the choice to pursue science is itself a result of
| valuation), the view that value and ends aren't rationally
| knowable, that they are somehow "pre-rational" or "extra-
| rational" or even "irrational" (Hume famously said that
| rationality serves the passions) only holds if you reject telos,
| and this is something the materialist metaphysical doctrine does
| axiomatically. But if human beings have a nature, then the end or
| ends of human nature are a defining part of that nature. Human
| nature is then what determines what is good for human beings and
| what furthers human flourishing; in short, what results in human
| happiness. Indeed, it is human nature that is the foundation for
| any truly defensible objective morality, because without it, we
| are left with nihilism or relativism or subjectivism or whatever.
| To reduce rationality to the methods empirical science is not
| only incoherent, but it is to take a narrow, castrated view of
| rationality that condemns whole swathes of reality (such as the
| axiological) to unintelligibility. If the author were to revise
| his metaphysical views to include telos, I think he would be in a
| position to make sense of value rather than consigning it to some
| realm of unintelligible priors.
|
| This is where the blog post becomes confusing. On the one hand,
| value seems to be construed as something outside of rationality.
| Then we speak of "intrinsic" values which frankly begins to sound
| like the beginning of an awareness that human nature is a
| determiner of such things, though still mired in a subjectivist
| perspective. Then the author speaks of things as if they were
| objectively valuable which seems to contradict what he said
| earlier. How can you criticize the hamster wheel of productivity
| on subjective grounds? Maybe the workaholic loves the hamster
| wheel. You need human nature to show that workaholism is bad for
| human beings.
|
| It is important here to recognize that telos is not a matter of
| conscious intent. This is a common misconception (though telos is
| involves here as well). Telos that toward which something is
| ordered, especially causally. Indeed, without telos, efficient
| causality itself becomes unintelligible and scientific
| explanation itself becomes impossible. You could not explain why
| striking a match, for instance, predictably results in fire and
| not something else like confetti falling from the ceiling or the
| sudden appearance of an elephant.
| wellbehaved wrote:
| There's nothing more silly than presenting the appearance of
| reasoning that tries to undercut reasoning as such.
| fictionfuture wrote:
| Nietzsche discusses this at length (the author mentions Jung, but
| Jung borrowed heavily from Nietzsche in this regard)...
|
| Nietzsche believed that the best decisions weren't the most
| rationale ones but the ones that were "life furthering."
|
| However he believed rationality is preferable to idealism.
| Therefore, best to first deal with reality, learn rationality,
| then make decisions with your feet on the ground
| badrabbit wrote:
| I would also say that another, perhaps controversial shortcoming
| of rational thinking is that it presumes the human mind can
| process and reason with all aspects of reality. But using
| rational thinking, isn't it rational to also presume that there
| could be aspects of reality which the human brain simply isn't
| equipped to process but are still real in that we can sense and
| be affected by them?
|
| This is similar to how a person born blind accepts the reality of
| the visible world without ever experiencing or being able to
| rationalize it.
|
| Or perhaps a better analogy would be ants and other insects who
| only think/see in 2d (or so I heard, correct me if this is
| wrong).
| sifar wrote:
| Like all fundamental things, rationality is what we say it is.
| Things just are, if we cannot explain them we call them
| irrational but that doesn't mean that they are inherently bad or
| to be shunned.
|
| Rational thought arises out living, it is not mechanical. I would
| say the triumph of our rationality has been the ability to deal
| with this irrationality, something which is on the decline.
|
| I would say that we won't be able to build true AI till we
| understand and reconcile this conflict and find a way to express
| it.
| swayvil wrote:
| Rationality is a game. Played within a structure of rules (aka
| assertions, assumptions, axioms).
|
| These rules are not themselves rationally born. They are born
| from habit, tradition, convention, aesthetics, consensus,
| utility, authority... Lots of possible sources for rules.
|
| Logical consistency is one good rule. Puts the rational in
| rationality.
|
| It's just a game. A dream. Ungrounded. That may be obvious, but
| it's easy to lose yourself in a dream. (Forever even.) That's
| important to keep in mind.
| starkd wrote:
| I would argue most are built on tradition, which offer the
| ability to build on the results of our forebears without
| reinventing the wheel. It's also helpful to have a little
| humility in the face of multiple complexities. That's why
| challenging tradition, while it can prove useful at times, does
| not come without a cost.
| swayvil wrote:
| Oh good point. That's 2 important powers of rationality.
| Communicability and buildability. That's how we build things
| like "chemistry".
|
| But yes, tradition. That's a big one.
| anonporridge wrote:
| It is a game, but we judge games by the fruit they bear, and
| the harsh reality of life is the ultimate judge.
|
| The reason we value the games of rationality and science over
| the games of religion and mythology is that the former games
| produce significantly more power.
|
| And that's the ultimate game of life. Crudely, might makes
| right. Those individuals or groups that can most effectively
| harness various forms of power to first defend, and then
| extend, their claim of limited resources win the game, by
| simple virtue of the fact that they remain while their
| competition fades away.
|
| But even games like religion have been, and continue to be
| valuable frameworks for this ultimate game. There's a strong
| argument to be made that religion binds large groups of people
| together towards a common goal and incentivizes individuals to
| sacrifice the entirety of their life because they believe their
| rewards will come in the non existent afterlife. That's a
| powerful game, if you can keep the fantasy alive.
| swayvil wrote:
| A rational game becomes very useful (and sane) when its rules
| are founded in observation (that is to say, it's empirical).
| That's science. And basically all of our "crafts" (cooking,
| carpentry, gardening...)
|
| That could spell the difference between sane rational games
| and crazy rational games right there. That presence or
| absence of empirical grounding.
|
| And on the flipside, we are all familiar with games that are
| rigorous, with good logical consistency, but founded on thin
| air. Dogmatic religion, videogames, fiction...
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Yes, but there is also the game of choosing between sanity
| and insanity and all manner of flavors in between and
| beyond. Let us not forget the game of choosing.
| swayvil wrote:
| Nice :)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| " The reason we value the games of rationality and science
| over the games of religion and mythology is that the former
| games produce significantly more power."
|
| This is probably wrong. We know from the stats that power
| belong to those who show up. The religious are showing up
| from a demographic standpoint due to above-replacement-rate
| fertility. Rationality can't choose when a child should exist
| with much confidence; the delay causes the slow degradation
| of the 'rations' institute.
| tehchromic wrote:
| It's a well meaning article. My first thought is that it's
| generated by AI in the service of some moderate yet far reaching
| religious org.
|
| "Finding our intrinsic values is no trivial task, but something
| that forces us to stare into the core of our humanity."
|
| I think it misses a critical topical conclusion which is that
| "intrinsic values" means little or nothing to many, and many
| folks are fairly incapable of competently doing the kind of
| contemplative meditating required to arrive at some set of rules
| like that, and so they look to others.
|
| And here's the crux of the missed point:
|
| To really resonate with our intrinsic values, we need to drop the
| myth that a rational economic system exists, and build one with
| the value of present and future human life explicitly built in.
|
| We already have a massive framework for understanding individual
| intrinsic values in terms of the sanctity of human life and
| that's the great mystery religions that have birth to our modern
| age. What's needed now is a planetary ethos where intrinsic human
| value is put in the proper context of the ecological reality of
| the biological and geological systems and processes that sustain
| us. Building that culture requires myth and magic, but also is an
| intensely rational project. There is really no way around it, and
| any philosophical text intended to shift the cultural landscape
| is incomplete without it.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > first thought is that it's generated by AI
|
| We're in the Yosemite park bear era of AI: there is
| considerable overlap between the capabilities of the most
| intelligent AI and the most stupid humans
|
| ... And that's very generous to humans
| openfuture wrote:
| Please join us on matrix! Starting from datalisp.is.
| pas wrote:
| > sanctity of human life
|
| what's so sacrosanct about life? life is common, many argue too
| common. (see the overpopulation hysteria.)
|
| I'd argue there are better things that we should hold dear,
| like empathy and cooperation, the resilience of getting up
| after devastating events, our ability to cooperate in even the
| most abstract frameworks.
| krapp wrote:
| >I'd argue there are better things that we should hold dear,
| like empathy and cooperation, the resilience of getting up
| after devastating events, our ability to cooperate in even
| the most abstract frameworks.
|
| You can't hold those things dear without first believing in
| the sanctity of human life. If human life has no value above
| the value of human endeavor neither do empathy, cooperation
| or resilience, human life becomes just another resource to
| exploit and consume.
|
| I disagree religion is the only possible framework through
| which this can be expressed, however. It's entirely possible
| to hold human life sacrosanct in its own liminal terms
| without invoking the supernatural.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| You're not negating properly, you've got to balance both
| sides of the equation.
|
| If we discount life altogether, there is perhaps a greater
| hidden element of value which goes unseen.
|
| Instead, if we acknowledge that all life is meaningless,
| that we're on some infinitesimal little body floating
| around a star whose life is slowly ticking away set to
| vaporize everything ever known - if we really acknowledge
| that desperation, certainly the closest to universal value
| we might have, then we can engage with _reality_ and work
| together. Real egalitarianism, and trans-species as well,
| because at least within the scope of our limited knowledge
| we 're the only advanced life known, and correct me if I'm
| wrong, but the only planet with confirmed life.
|
| The sanctity of life shit is just a means to defer the
| ultimate end that we're all fraught to look into, our
| inevitable deaths. It's a write off. Chris's life was
| sacrosanct, he died delivering Pizza Hut for $8.50/h, he
| died painfully and left behind a mangled corpse. We make a
| big, superficial guffaw about it. That's fucking tragic!
| We, collectively, should all be fucking horrified that
| someone was relegated to that, horrified that someone could
| possibly die like that - but it's sacred by default -
| that's bullshit though, we let Chris fall into a swirling
| oblivion that carried him to a rock bottom and put him in a
| position that made it really likely he'd die doing the
| shameful shit of delivering a pizza.
|
| Sanctity of life is what allows us to justify the
| egregious, not the lack thereof.
| NateEag wrote:
| > and put him in a position that made it really likely
| he'd die doing the shameful shit of delivering a pizza.
|
| Delivering a pizza is _not_ "shameful shit".
|
| It brings warmth, sustenance, and comfort to those Chris
| delivered it to.
|
| What's shameful is being paid tens or hundreds of times
| Chris's annual salary to manipulate people into clicking
| on ads or continuing to doomscroll.
| the_af wrote:
| > _real egalitarism_
|
| ... is worthless if you don 't value life. Who cares
| about egalitarism for motes of dust?
| sifar wrote:
| You do realize none of them would exist without life.
| pas wrote:
| yes, of course, but life is just a necessary not sufficient
| condition.
| sifar wrote:
| Sorry i cannot parse this.
|
| How can you value something and not the thing that it
| cannot exist without ?
| Thiez wrote:
| Life cannot exist without excrement, but relatively few
| people think highly of poop. What is your point? If you
| go far enough with your reasoning you have to basically
| value the entire universe and everything in it to be
| allowed to say you value any particular thing. It dilutes
| the meaning of valuing something to the point where the
| word/concept itself becomes meaningless.
| the_af wrote:
| I disagree. You cannot hold this principle "in theory"
| without understanding the specifics of this case.
|
| It makes no sense to value (human) empathy and
| cooperation without valuing (human) life. You can argue
| about first principles, excrement and the universe, but
| this will still be true.
|
| Without valuing human life, all sorts of things start to
| unravel in our society. Of course, _just_ life is not
| enough! Empathy, cooperation, kindness, curiosity, etc:
| all things that make the human experience worthy.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| In the rational context of the universe, life is impossibly
| rare.
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