Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Quick Trick for Unidentifying Beliefs

 A bug in Caino hypocriens: dire apes often identify with their beliefs. 

 Beliefs are correctly treated as tools. Identifying with or as your beliefs makes as much sense as identifying with a specific frying pan or a particular instance of a particular brand of screwdriver. 

 "I am the kind of person who believes it's raining today." *looks outside, storm's over* "Oh shit." If you are your hammer, when your hammer's handle wears out and snaps, you snap along with it. 

 The easiest way to break the system is to hold two beliefs at a time. Entertain two contradictory ideas as live possibilities. You can't possibly identify with both at once and as a result the identification system will get confused, trip over itself, and give up. 

 

 As a bonus, this helps you identify robust conclusions. I will demonstrate.


 As an example: believe in both free will and determinism. 

 "If you could have acted otherwise than you in fact did, libertarianism obtains, and you should be held responsible for your actions to encourage the choice of cooperative behaviour in the future." 

 "If you could not have acted other than you in fact did, then determinism obtains, and you should be held responsible for your actions so as to forcibly cause at least some cooperative behaviour in the future." 


 Holding two beliefs hinges on an unknown and an [if]. Luckily real life is full of unknowns. They are usefully exploitable.

1 comment:

rezzealaux said...

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