Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#141

Post by wait_a_minute » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:18 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #9

This feels like it belongs on /r/iamverysmart. Most people don't argue within moral frameworks. Most people don't live logic-based lives. Most people prefer happiness to correctness, peace to progress, and quietude to justice. This is a very difficult thing, and not a very good thing, for those who want change.

> Most people don't argue within moral frameworks. Most people don't live logic-based lives.

Yes they do. You may contest aspects of the foundation of their logical and moral framework of choice, but most people on earth adhere to a moral or religious framework. Those are logic-based and that is what apologetics and natural theology and philosophy are for.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#142

Post by growingkittens » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:20 PM UTC

> You could consider this a form of epistemic learned helplessness, where I know any attempt to evaluate the arguments is just going to be a bad idea so I don’t even try.

Replace "the arguments" in this sentence with "complexity" for a more universal statement on human nature.

Some people deal with complexity through science. This sounds great, until you realize that science is currently systematic (step by step) and not systemic (whole picture). Reality is made of interconnected systems. A systematic approach leaves blind spots.

For instance, look at medicine. Traditionally, men were seen as less complex to study because of the lack of a (regular) hormone cycle. Our medical system is largely based on authoritatively treating women as "smaller men". This results in systemic ignorance of women's health.

Even in veterinary medicine, kittens are often treated as "smaller puppies". This results in needlessly dead kittens.

The difference between essential complexity (complexity created to handle complexity) and inessential complexity (complexity driven by another purpose) is also important. Some people rely on inessential complexity to derive authority: they sound like an expert when they talk about their "complex" system.

Understanding systems and system dynamics is useful for discerning between good information and bad information. If you can visualize an argument as a system (and as part of a system), it is easier to avoid getting lost in the details.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#143

Post by Exoristos » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:21 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #118

> " Like I mean that on most topics, I could demolish their position and make them look like an idiot. Reduce them to some form of “Look, everything you say fits together and I can’t explain why you’re wrong, I just know you are!” " That isn't making them look like an idiot, reducing them, or demolishing their position. That is completely failing to demolish their position! While also failing to convincingly explain…

> believe both (even if they are contradictory, that's a thing humans can do)

It really isn't, though.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#144

Post by hindsightbias » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:24 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #106

helicalmix wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha yeah, I've been to rationalist meetups too, and have come to the same conclusion that I don't like them very much. Too much IQ stroking for my tastes. Scott specifically though, has an established history of thinking through arguments that I find much better than most, and I still think someone who trains at this stuff will do better. To extend my analogy a little further from before, if you go to a boxing gym o…

> Scott specifically though, has an established history of thinking through arguments that I find much better than most He has an established history of writing down detailed articles about arguments, yes. Unfortunately, a significant number of his articles contain schoolboy errors that anyone who wants to claim they are better at thinking through arguments than the average person should never have made. I'll mention…

> the Left?

You mean the GOPs modern definition of a leftist, or the vast majority of the times definition of a leftist?

https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Norman_Thomas/

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#145

Post by com2kid » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:25 PM UTC

growingkittens wrote: post #142

> You could consider this a form of epistemic learned helplessness, where I know any attempt to evaluate the arguments is just going to be a bad idea so I don’t even try. Replace "the arguments" in this sentence with "complexity" for a more universal statement on human nature. Some people deal with complexity through science. This sounds great, until you realize that science is currently systematic (step by step) and…

> Some people deal with complexity through science. This sounds great, until you realize that science is currently systematic (step by step) and not systemic (whole picture). Reality is made of interconnected systems. A systematic approach leaves blind spots.

The counter argument is that human minds are limited and very few people in history are able keep even a large % of the entire system in their head.

A huge problem we face as a species is that as the amount of information that needs to be connected to each other in order to make progress grows, fewer and fewer people are able to make large contributions, meaning we'll accumulate knowledge and understanding at a slower rate.

Hopefully technology will help here, and people have been working at using computers to try and connect those points, but I am not aware as to how successful those efforts have been.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#146

Post by bluetomcat » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:27 PM UTC

speak_plainly wrote: post #116

After spending many years studying philosophy I think that the right approach is that you don’t need to come to any conclusions about anything. Aristotle often started with common peoples’ viewpoints on any given topic, along with looking at what experts thought and built his own ideas from there, and of course was very successful with his methodology. Arguments are interesting and obviously some are more correct tha…

The epistemic standpoint of rationality (particularly Cartesianism) assumes a static arrangement of knowledge, where one uses analytic reason to gradually unveil bits of it like finding new territory on a map. It is rooted in analytic geometry.

David Hume challenged this view. His main insight was that an object we call "A" in time T1 may not be the same object in time T2. We also need to distinguish between "A" as an idea of an object and "A" as a particular instance of object.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#147

Post by EamonnMR » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:30 PM UTC

melkor73 wrote: post #52

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #6

Take a shot anytime a “rationalist” invokes Bayes. Long article for him to basically say nothing insightful. Crazy people will say seemingly true things that attract more crazy people. OK. Thanks I guess. The two paragraphs about how good at arguments he is and how other educated people might be able to out argue him in topics if they’re specialists _maybe_ was so stupid I closed the tab, but then I decided to be adu…

I noticed this too. People that casually drop "Bayesian priors" into conversation seems to be a strong signal for someone who's up their own arse. Sam Bankman-Fried did it a lot.

It's a shibboleth for the Rationalist community, that's why.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#148

Post by nineplay » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:32 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #104

nineplay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some degree the idea of a Creator is easier to wrap one's head around than the idea of nothing-->something. Of course it really just rolls the question uphill since you're now faced with 'Where did the Creator come from?'. Happily there are no academic theories on this matter so there's no need to engage with it. Ultimately satisfaction doesn't come from the belief itself, satisfaction comes from the feeling of be…

> Of course it really just rolls the question uphill since you're now faced with 'Where did the Creator come from?'. Creationists aren't actually faced with that question - not Creationists who believe in a God who is eternal, anyway. Things without beginnings don't have origins. If you want to actually attack that belief, you need to either 1) show that God isn't eternal, or 2) show that eternal things are impossibl…

I'm just suggesting that Creationism requires more faith than one might think at first glance.

Creationist beliefs

- a Creator

- things which are eternal

- an Eternal Creator

Whether those things are easier or harder to believe than naturalistic processes is up to the reader.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#149

Post by nineplay » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #135

nineplay wrote: post #12

>engineering trains you to have a very black-and-white right-or-wrong view of the world based on a few simple formulae, and this meshes with fundamentalism better than it meshes with subtle liberal religious messages. Back in the usenet days it was taken as given that any creationist was also an engineer. Creationism was nice and neat and logical unlike that handwavy big bang thing that was probably dreamed up by woo…

Back in the usenet days everybody using it was either an engineer or a physicist, and every single one of those people had a bias about one of those groups being wrong more often than the other.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that. There were also professors of all stripes, and of course first-year students which were wrong more often than everybody.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#150

Post by speak_plainly » Fri, Jan 12, 2024, 6:38 PM UTC

ineptech wrote: post #140

speak_plainly wrote: post #116

After spending many years studying philosophy I think that the right approach is that you don’t need to come to any conclusions about anything. Aristotle often started with common peoples’ viewpoints on any given topic, along with looking at what experts thought and built his own ideas from there, and of course was very successful with his methodology. Arguments are interesting and obviously some are more correct tha…

This is probably true, but not very helpful. We can shrug over historical curiosities, but in a lot of cases we have to make a decision. Consider Linus Pauling's claim that you can prevent cancer with megadoses of vitamin C. It was never widely accepted, but Pauling is a titan of science with two Nobels and he wrote books with convincing-sounding arguments, so it's tempting to think maybe this is a case where the sta…

The same argument can be turned against you, someone can wait for absolute expert certainty and die in the process due to lack of action. We all act pragmatically when making decisions and simply blindly trusting people is no way to live for a thinking and intelligent being.

I was not suggesting this sort of Burdian’s ass scenario where everyone is so gripped by ignorance that they can’t act. I’m suggesting instead that ignorance is a starting point, to drop your preconceived notions and opinions or at the very least challenge them and not be afraid to come to no conclusions at all— keep everything open. To see there is gold in the common opinions of people and in the arguments of experts, that no one has a monopoly on truth.

You don’t need to work yourself up to absolute certainty over the world to make a decision. You don’t need to blindly trust experts and you don’t need to be gripped by fear of uncertainty and you don’t need to be forced into action because of arguments. You really don’t need to do anything at all. There are bigger questions to ponder and a life to live that’s worth living.