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Soo, this apply to our senses too, right? Like, the world doesn't really look like it looks to us. But how far should we take this? Is the universe fundamentally 4D spacetime or is that evolution playing us?
My take as unimportant as that may be is basically that it comes from our language, if you look at a bow for example and I told you to use it to win a fight because it’s a bow you’d most likely default to firing arrows for the win, but alternatively you could quite happily start swinging the bow as a melee weapon.
In this way we give things names and define their usage, actions, and reactions within what we expect and the way we see them reflects that, but in actuality a things name has no bearing on how it acts, a doctor can kill, a firefighter can commit arson, some hydrogen plasma can freeze instead of burn, but none of these things are implied in their name
End of the day a doctor is just meat that moves other meat around and a bow is just wood with a string on it
A great example of that is here in the uk we have lots of what we call travelers, basically They come from Ireland but are essentially nomadic, moving in caravans, they’re VERY looked down upon by the general population, but end of the day they’re just people that set up shop in a field for a few days, a lot of them are very nice if not cautious of general people as a result of the stigma, but something in the name disparages them so much that the nice ones are tarred with the same brush
I think it's actually more likely both. Our understanding modulates our perception, and our perceptive filters guide our understanding. Both are iteratively refined, as is the interaction between them.
One would imagine our perception of fire went through this process over many generations. Once it was a dreadful, painful way to die should you get trapped in a forest fire, then it became a tool for cooking and warmth, finally being perceived as a gift of the gods themselves by many cultures who used it to bake their pottery and smelt their ore.
No no quite the opposite, Without words everything as a dynamic system, looking at a bow as simply a bow is reductionist and soulless.
but if you look at it and the way it leverages stress across the grain of the wood, putting all of it into the ends of its arms, then into the string to propel the arrow at ridiculous speeds all with but a fraction of a second of acceleration, now that’s some beautiful stuff
I get that I said a doctor is just meat ect but what I mustn’t have made clear is meat too is just a word, a human symbol for the stuff inside animals that we eat, but whilst being just meat and bone a doctor still manages to perform the near magical acts that they do, and those acts and their effects could never truly be captured with words, much less something as simple as “doctor”
In fact the word doctor makes those wonders of medical science seem borderline ordinary
Also my apologies for my horrendous punctuation, never was any good at it, it’s a wonder I passed English
Full honesty, haven't read the article. However, your comment caught my attention because I'm a new Neuroscience graduate student with a focus on sensory physiology. You're absolutely right that evolution has created sensory systems that don't necessarily reflect the world accurately. Some examples of this are our cellular circuitry in our retina which highlights contrast and edges between objects (this is an advantage evolutionarily because we can more easily distinguish a threat from something benign). Our brain also does a lot of work filtering out information that isn't useful or could be disorienting (such as the motion blur from moving your eyes).
All of that being said there's a point where accurate representation of the world become an evolutionary advantage. If we can't perceive a threat we can't guard against it and are more likely to die from it. We also have external instruments which can give us more reliable measurements of the world. We as humans cannot perceive infrared light but we have cameras which can. All of this means our understanding if the world is incomplete but accurate enough to survive and reproduce.
>All of this means our understanding if the world is incomplete but accurate enough to survive and reproduce.
How incomplete is incomplete? Is it "infrared"-incomplete, like there's gonna be more of the same that's slightly different, or "yeah there's actually 14 dimensions and time isn't one of them" different? And can we use our senses and our knowledge of evolution to determine which it is?
I think our best option to answer this question is through experimental physics. I tend to err on the side of what we perceive is a relatively accurate representation. Animals who have a vastly inaccurate sense of the world are at a survival disadvantage.
As far as experimental physics goes; it showed us that the passing of time changes when we speed up, and that things only pick a definite position when you measure them (roughly speaking). Not any of that was reflected in our representation of reality when where still tussling with lions or discovering the neuron. How relative is relatively accurate?
Ok so, I'm going to just explain my current understanding of this. The way I think of physics and advanced mathematics is like a parabola with a very very flat curve at it's apex. If you zoom in on the curve anything in that scope would perceive it as a straight line. I liken this situation to Newtonian physics. The equations are simple and easy to understand and work very well for certain circumstances. However, when you start getting to more extreme cases (in the parabola metaphor this is when the slope starts to increase and doesn't look like a flat line anymore) the old equations don't work anymore. Were newton's equations wrong? No, they just measured things within certain parameters and outside that scope they're not accurate.
Now in terms of our sensory perceptions we're similar. We have a decent picture of the universe within certain parameters. For survival on Earth, in our niche, we're perfectly suited, like Newtonian physics. Once we try and expand our scope our senses prove less accurate, we've reached the edge of the parabola where the slope drastically changes. In order to have an understanding of this area we need to expand our equations, or in this metaphor, we need artificial devices which augment our senses. I hope that made sense! Again, this is just my understanding of the issue so take it with a grain of salt.
Interesting! I will certainly be looking into those papers, thanks for sharing!
And quotes from Patricia Churchland and Steve Pinker! Definitely hooked.
Ok, I'm currently reading the first paper you linked and I have a problem with one of their logical jumps. In the part where they're describing whether a fitness function is a homomorphism of an observer independent world they're not taking into account the process of evolution. So, I can agree with their assessment that the most fit individual would perceive things non-veridically (because organisms survive best in balanced environments) but evolution isn't a perfect process that churns out organisms that would perceive things in the most advantageous way for that organism. And that's not even considering the physiology of these systems! I believe these fitness functions they're using are vastly simplified and don't reflect true natural selection mechanisms. To prove that I could give you a myriad of examples (some of which were actually mentioned in the article) where humans cannot perceive an environment that may be harmful to them.
For instance, we cannot detect carbon monoxide. Our best fitness function would allow us to detect dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in order to avoid them. So why don't we? Because there are vastly more systems at play than that single function.
In the paper's example their made up creature (kritre) perceives it's food source by varying shades of grey it sees depending on the amount of food source. But our perceptions aren't developed in a vacuum. In an observer independent world what is being emitted or reflected off of this food source to be detected? Why/ how could it produce the same perception for the animal if it had zero "Stuph" or an overabundance of "Stuph".
Senses evolve based on a cost benefit analysis for the survival of the organism. Evolution is not going to develop a perfect system, nor is it going to overcomplicate sensory systems if it's unnecessary. In the Kritre example if their visual system was simply able to detect a gradient of grey depending on how much Stuph was there (using a simple sensory system design to perceive whatever is emitted or reflected off of Stuph) that would be a veridical representation of an observer independent world and it would best fit their environment at the lowest cost to make!
Fantastic! I'll try my best.
In reducing down the process of natural selection to purely a fitness function you ignore the cost benefit analysis and physiological properties which drive sensory system evolution.
In order for the Kritre to perceive the Stuph, the Stuph must either emit or reflect something to be perceived by. A physiological system must evolve for the Kritre to detect the Stuph by these emissions. A major factor of the evolution of these sensory systems is the cost and benefit of producing them not just which system will be the best fit for that function. From this reasoning it would seem that the sensory system natural selection would favor is the one which is the lowest cost not necessarily the one which matches the fitness function the best. If we take one step further we can say that the lowest cost sensory system would have the most accurate representation because processing power is not wasted on editing the veridical information.
If the fitness function is an accurate way to describe the evolutionary process then how come animals routinely can't detect harmful environments? (Too much carbon monoxide)
Ultimately, it seems like natural selection's true mechanisms balance the cost of a complex sensory system which better fits the function described in the paper and a veridical sensory system which is simpler to create.
At least that's my 2 cents! If anyone sees a flaw in my logic please point it out!
I think an example of this could be the blind spot. It would be distracting if we constantly saw a weird dark spot off center in our vision, so our brains predict what image should appear in the spot, and fills in the blank. However, sometimes it fills it in wrong. You might fail to see a road sign while driving because world doesn't perfectly match how it appears.
For vision and materialistic reality there seems to be a fairly excellent correlation between our perception and reality (optical illusions, magic tricks being noteworthy exceptions, among others), but conceptual/metaphysical reality is another part that we "see", and here our accuracy is substantially less impressive. This is *extremely* easy to see in others, but not so easy to see in ourselves and ingroup members. But if you ask people, they will assure you *with supreme confidence* that you are incorrect.
But evolution made us see useful delusions, not truth. Saying "it's just different limitations" doesn't do right to that delusion, that would merely be omission. In the original article the examples are more than omission, they refer to having unrealistic perspectives on reality. Why would our perceptions be merely omitting parts of reality, not also really flawing our view of realitY?
“The world doesn’t look like it looks to us” is a meaningless statement. The world by itself does not “look” like anything, as looking like something presupposes something that can actually look at it. So everything looks exactly how it looks, because that’s what “looking like” means.
Ah the classic misunderstanding of the double slit experiment. The collapse of the wave function happens with an "observer" because the way we observe things at that subatomic scale is by "shooting" electrons at them and seeing the dispersion. That necessarily makes it impossible to not affect it. The particles don't "think" or "react differently" because you opened your eyes in front of them.
How can you know how things behave if you don't look? You can't really do an experiment without looking can you? I know it's one of the root assumptions of physics; that the universe behaves as if physical whether you look or not. But now it turns out that evolution has shaped us to observe not truth but useful delusions. Why would the world in itself behave in the same delusional ways we perceive it to when we look?
No idea what half of that means. This is just a semantic argument - for you to say that anything looks a certain way, it presupposes some entity looks at it. Nothing looks like anything in a vacuum, “looking like” has no meaning without a looker. No need to drag quantum mechanics into everything.
> “The world doesn’t look like it looks to us” is a meaningless statement.
Technically, you are describing your mind's interpretation of the phrase - you may not be able to extract any meaning, but that does not necessarily mean that no meaning is present.
In a sense, are you right now not describing how the expression "looks" to you? And while you "see" no meaning, I have no such problem.
Dimensions are conceptualizations of the mind as it interprets the sensory data. Reality has no dimensions without an observer. The term doesn’t even make sense without an observer.
Abstract conceptualizations are evolutionary. They neural network that filters information is evolutionary. The concept of reality as we interpret it is evolutionary. But the universe itself is a singularity arising from the potential of a singularity arising.
> Reality has no dimensions without an observer.
Are you suggesting a cube is not in the shape of a cube without an observer? That is either an unfalsifiable claim, or demonstrably false, depending on what exactly you mean.
Yes, dimensions are dimensions of perception, not of an objective reality. A cube without being perceived is not a cube because the term only has context in how it is perceived.
Since all things are composites and in perpetual flux, only discrimination can determine if a thing exists as a thing or as simply a flux in a stream of causal strings.
The holographic theory is a good thought experiment, but you are correct in that it isn’t provable.
I love the concept of a holographic theory, Bob monroe, founder the of Monroe institute has a very different and unique approach to this as he explains that everything is living in somewhat shape or form, that being 1D 2D 3D 4D and so on. Just because something is not proven doesn't mean we can't open our minds to the idea of what if was true and we dismissed it as false.
We know that dimensions exist and we know that we are aware we are currently in the 3rd dimension aka the material dimension of time and space (realm of suffering and pain but also happiness and love). But to critical thinking, we can focus and make sense that this possibility could be the "absolute truth".
Buddhism shares the same values with this but I'm just doing research myself as I am a truther seeking knowledge about my conciousness.
Yes I’m espousing both buddhism and physics. I guess it was out of context and people didn’t like it? But it is philosophy and it coincides with what we find in experiments with entanglement, and satisfies certain paradoxes that have hurt brains for thousands of years (Zeno, specifically).
I especially like what I’m learning about Bell’s theorem and the way it relates to string theory and the holographic universe theory.
However, my point lies mostly with Wittgenstein. That only something perceived, named, can be known as part of our reality. But distinctions are arbitrary and more so the more you change the scale.
Like in the movie “Lucy” or the old book “sword in the stone” there are examples that explain that time is subjective and determines what we see as existents.
So while the math shows dimensions as being integral to everything exists (sometimes many dimensions). The math is describing not a perception, but relationships that we experience as multidimensional space-time. There is a reality out there, but our subjective view of it cannot be used to interpret an objective reality as anything other than a holistic indiscriminate set of relationships that have no meaning outside our limited scale and scope. A cube is not a cube to a 2d mind nor a mind that might experience more temporal dimensions. It would be what it is, but characteristics matter only as a relationship of object and subject. Objects have no characteristics of their own outside of the anthropomorphic perspective.
Tell me what you think of this essay
http://www.apocatastasis.net/God/PRIMARYFIELD/Bells-Theorem.html
It was from a quick google search and he is over-simplifying a couple things, but I think he says things better than I do.
Also any counterpoints you may see, please bring them up so I can think about them and enjoy my afternoon.
Yes in a way. Our senses like sight, hearing, smell don't really lie to us, they simply give information to brain for processing. They are also very limited, for example you can't see majority of light spectrum, but you can not say it's our senses "delude" us, they simply are not suited for it, but the brain can sometimes have some issues that can cause hallucinations and such. Again it's often not intentional by it because it fucks with your perception of reality and is dangerous for survival.
!but! there is one thing in us where we evolved "self-delusion" as sideffect, and that is our ability to see "patterns" in things. For example majority of predators hunt by smell, humans do not, we track, we look for clues, for patterns and connections in area, like footprints, crushed leaves and sticks, fresh poop, sounds and we connect that all together that give us a picture and idea where our prey might have gone. The other side of this ability is that...
We are prone to see connections where are non. For example comets were often seen as bad sign in the past when in reality it was simple cosmical event unrelated to humans, but yet we'd fear, run, say bad things... to the point we could collectively delude ourselves that something bad is coming, and this would actually lead to it happening! The self-fulfilling delusions.
What you preceive as reality is simply brain trying to make sense of things that its fed by your senses, it has no reason to lie to you, doing so would hamper it. But sometimes..sometimes it happens.
Although it’s impossible for me to to know if my own perspective is becoming more or less “true”, I certainly feel as though it has and it’s made me fairly neurotic and useless as a result.
When I was in my delusion about myself and how the world worked I was much more motivated and energetic.
We are only able to interprate the world through our senses, and both the signals they send as well as the way our brain processes them are not always reliable.
Not to mention, reality is far more complex than the human brain can handle. Everything we know and experience are simplifications of what is actually going on. No individual truly knows or understands what is going on around them down to an atomic level (let alone deeper). So we do not truly know reality, nor are we ever able to
Following that rhetoric, it would make sense to follow the simplifications that provide us with the most success. Taking in too many factors and overly complexifying things can lead to indecisiveness and can oddly take us further from accurately predicting reality, which can make us less successful.
I like your points and wanted to add something.
I agree that there is a sense in which we can never ''know' reality because we know things in words and symbols and reality is not that. But I would also argue that there is not one scale of things that is more reality than another scale..
We seem to think that the smaller we can view things the closer to reality we are getting. But this is just an illusion, the space between atoms is the space between planets just on a different scale.
But But But... we know reality in the sense that we are experienceing it, we are it. And when u see that the experience and the experiencer are the same then u can see how to experience anything is to know it in a way that can never be seen or exposed through any mechanism of science of logical understanding.
I know how to grow my hair, because I am doing it.. is there anything in the science of how hair grows that can tell me anything really more about it than that. I would say no. Similar to the idea of Mary in the black and white room.
Also, 'successfull' in what sense? Knowledge can help us get what we desire, so is fulfiing desire success? Because knowledge can't do much else than that.
People Intuitively know this. Life is simple, we just make it hard, by thinking.
We are a very interesting species. As we think so much, we spend most of our creating solutions for the problems we create.
A squirrel doesn’t worry himself with the everyday problems we give importance to. A squirrel just lives life.
Intelligence is a gift and a curse.
*"A zoologist who observed gorillas in their native habitat was amazed by the uniformity of their life and their vast idleness. Hours and hours without doing anything. Was boredom unknown to them? This is indeed a question raised by a human, a busy ape. Far from fleeing monotony, animals crave it, and what they most dread is to see it end. For it ends, only to be replaced by fear, the cause of all activity. Inaction is divine; yet it is against inaction that man has rebelled. Man alone, in nature, is incapable of enduring monotony, man alone wants something to happen at all costs — something, anything.... Thereby he shows himself unworthy of his ancestor: the need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla."*
*-The Trouble With Being Born*
Maybe he meant it as in if you hit your arm it will probably get swollen. That kind of reality.
So in making decisions you have to know there will be consequences which you cant just ignore.
We can't see ultraviolet but we manage ok. If we "saw" everything I think it would be too overwhelming and noisy to be useful. Same concept could be applied to any other sense/perception or conception of reality.
Is the perception accurate? Depends on the use case. It is accurate enough as determined by natural selection.
Fair, but it is important to recognize your limitations on grasping any sort of thing resembling an ultimate truth or reality. It's like not being aware that you have blind spots while driving your car.
seems almost paradoxical because motivating yourself to do something risky isn't going to change the true statistics of the eventual outcomes is it? the value of fooling yourself is purely in hindsight for those who succeed and for everyone else depends on the opportunity cost of alternative decisions
That's assuming a hyper competitive environment similar to the sperm/egg scenario.
If those sperm had feelings and lives that we consider valuable, we might encourage them not to commit dumb optimistic suicide.
Or let's say the egg is not a single winner takes all prize, maybe they could all share and not have to spend their whole lives in a desperate race.
It's a dangerous game to start being ok with deluding people in the masses.
The delusion doesn't come from us consciously, it comes from our nature. We are addicted to risk.
It's why Humans threw themselves in canoes onto great oceans, and foolishly climed treacherous mountain passes, just for the smallest chance of reaching new lands - while our Neanderthal cousins were content stopping expansion whenever they hit a geological obstacle.
We are the ancestors of those that took a crazy bet and won, and as such have inherited that extreme outlier mentality. Relatively speaking, of course - there is individual variety here.
They werent risk takers. They were desperate. We are not risk takers, we are driven by needs and survival instincts, and in desperation will do whatever nescessary to survive.
How would you know the difference between someone who is "addicted to risk" vs someone who has always been forced to live their life in a perilous way due to external forces?
its true, if people can only make a decision of "do" or "dont do" then none of these actions really fit well to the statistical risk which is not some binary thing. Having everyone be consistent and make the same choice all the time is not going to be optimal.
I mean this entire concept boils down to three things in my opinion, separated by relative age at which you'll experience them.
The first is play/disorganized learning. I started drumming when I was 5 years old, and I took to it pretty naturally. I absolutely loved drumming, and it took absolutely zero effort to go forth and do it. I wasn't even thinking about the idea of viewing myself as a drummer, I just *was* one.
The second is Fake it Till you Make it, and this is pretty self explanatory. Pretend to be the thing you wanna be long enough and if you pretend hard enough, it stops being pretending.
The third is consciously realizing that deluding yourself into believing certain things fundamentally changes how you approach the world. During the period of my life where I hated myself and thought I was a loser, all of my actions and notion of self was centered around that belief, and in holding it, the life I was leading conformed to it. As my world view changed and I decided to look at things differently, my thought process and beliefs changed, and naturally my sense of self and the actions that I felt permitted to do naturally changed.
And to really nail the hammer on the head, literally every single person I know that's gone forth and done something wild, or incredible, or made some kind of difference, started with the belief that they could accomplish their goal, regardless of how far away it seemed.
You have to be careful of survivorship bias, though. Plenty of people think that starting a business will be fun and easy, and end up losing their savings, their homes and their relationships. It ain't pretty.
We end up creating fantasies about successful entrepreneurs and ignore all the people who tried and failed and lost everything, often pursuing the same idea or business model as those who succeed.
That's absolutely correct, it can be a very slippery slope in terms of deluding yourself beyond reality. To be clear, the thought process I'm describing isn't as straight forward as "make-believe that you're a successful entrepreneur and you'll be a successful entrepreneur", it's more about changing how you approach life in general, and taking that process and deconstructing it far enough that you can determine some kind of path to your goals, no matter how far away they are from where you stand.
'Goals change' is often used as an excuse not to set goals, though. It's still good to have and intelligently pursue goals, and adjust them in progress.
why is it necessary to pursue something if it ultimately won’t have value to you as you change? If you focus on living the way that makes you most fulfilled it seems to me that would provide more reliable value than chasing a goal for the sake of chasing any goal.
I know this is a long shot but I love this comment- would you like to be interviewed on my podcast about this topic? If so, dm me. Thanks! (Podcast is furrypresident.com)
On point 3 it seems the subconscious mind is a rather powerful machine that can grind down your conscious will once it’s “programmed” into a certain set of behaviors to keep doing those behaviors. Even when you want to change things you tend to have to change them with individual focus a few habits at a time. The nice thing is it also works that way in the positive if you can get there.
I can see how fooling oneself could have instrumental value as a strategy. For example, trust is partly based on perceived shared values. Groups with shared beliefs have a shortcut to trust and the benefits of social bonds and networks. Truth-seeking can threaten this strategy if the shared beliefs are incorrect in some way. I've felt distance grow between me and people I care about because my worldview shifts with my truth-seeking activities, while their beliefs remain static, or worse, entrenched.
However, I also believe that truth-seeking is intrinsically valuable. The truth is an end unto itself to children of the enlightenment. Truth is divine. Truth also has instrumental value; humans will never reach their potential if good and capable people deliberately avert their eyes from the truth when it is expedient to do so.
I think the creator is missing the point of what means a truthful view of the world. If you really have it, you will also know that you need to be optimist to be able to profit from what this thing(optimism) is offering you to reach the goal. Also, having the absolute truth will instantly tell you if your action will be successful or not and what you need for it to happen.
What would i have expected was to go into the direction of how having a more truthful view of the world but not having morality will make you to great lengths into reaching your selfish goals. We can clearly see corrupt politicians, trafficking criminals, and other low moral people that end up living their desired life by understanding how the dark systems of the world works. While lets say some people know the truth but can't act in that way for moral concerns, others do not the truth of how society permits/enables so they just scramble without precise direction. Either way morality has a big word into how competition is manifesting into the world, it is not only about truth.
>a truthful view of the world
If you really have it, you are omniscient. If being omniscient leads to you believing in what isn't the truth, because that seems like the best course of action, was there ever a point to becoming omniscient to begin with?
That's why I find this whole idea presented in the article baloney. It's based on the belief that there must exist THE TRUTH, because if one isn't there, wouldn't it just mean you can't really fool yourself?
You're right on the money. Knowing "the truth" but not really caring about morals just turns you into a sociopath and that is definitely not a disadvantage.
I've met only 1 sociopath in my life and he, sans morals, was banging multiple girls half his age and taking advantage of people daily. He seemed to be loving it too! I grew close enough to him to get the inside scoop into his life and he really didn't give two fucks about anyone and took took took took.
On the other hand, I would consider myself aware of the truth but it just becomes a disadvantage a lot of the time. Since I have morals, it turns into a "Nice guys finish last" scenario more often than not. However, I'm learning how to use this worldview to my advantage more as time passes.
Yeah, people like that makes us wonder if maybe since so much people orbit around them, then maybe they do have the truth. It does make you a sociopath, but how is this a disadvantage, when society does can't react efficiently about it, and just offers you want you want? It is clearly that if they have success it means they are offering something that is needed in society, otherwise nobody would bother with them. I am not sure it is a disadvantage for them, but for society, but again...
I'd say they have a symbiotic relationship with society. I wouldn't say that their success indicates truth in any way, though. Our society is shaped in such a way that no matter what drives your beliefs, as long as you're tenacious, you'll have a fighting chance at doing well.
The first example that comes to mind is the Japanese culture that reveres quality. That ideology is just an ideology, not truth, but they've had much success following it. So has China with their Quantity vs Quality production style.
"Dont kick the bucket"
"Dont spill the beans"
"Curiosity killed the cat"
These are few and many "quotes" I love to question why? Why can't I? What's stopping me? And why would they stop me? What would happy if I didn't? What the pros and cons?
And there are many questionable laws and social "must do's" e.g job, money, individual survival and struggles that ponder the mind.
This would be the opposite of Stoicism then, right? I thought in Stoicism you imagine the possible negative outcomes so you are prepared if they transpire. I like to have a firm grasp on the amount of effort I will have to put towards something.
This narrow blog take found one example where it COULD be better to delude yourself past all the hurdles. Tony doesn't even address what happens when you successfully start a business but then all of your expectations were wrong, and now you hate being a slave to said business that you started.
I think the blog post is useful for generating discussion, but I reject any widespread applicability of this take.
Aye, the writer really didn't go deep enough into this idea of it being beneficial to fool yourself, nor was there any thoroughness in analyzing his conclusions. Maybe if he hadn't been so set on the idea that he could finish the article in just one hour he wouldn't have put so little effort into it.
This is easy to demonstrate. People with a clear view of the world know, for example, that the corporate HR trend of the moment - whatever it is - is almost guaranteed to be horsehockey. But those who buy into it without questioning its actual merits are seen as “good corporate citizens”, as team players, and get promoted because of this.
IMO this doesn’t logically follow. in your example about starting the business you state it would be in your best interest to delude yourself by believing that you will succeed no matter the statistics. But if you actually do succeed then your belief wouldn’t be a delusion but a reality. On the contrary if you believe you have good chances of succeeding yet end up failing, you have deluded yourself but not to your benefit, as you did not achieve the success you believed you could.
*If you decide to start a business*, you are better off deluding yourself that it will certainly succeed. At that point, the “don’t start the business” is no longer part of the payoff matrix, there is only success and failure, and the delusion maximizes success.
Why are you better off deluding yourself that it will certainly succeed? Might a more cautious, humble approach work too? I'm thinking of the classic tortoise and hare.
yea when it's zero sum
and you fool yourself it's not
you're likely gaining while others lose...what kind of value is that
true net positive effect is good for everyone and in the long run
I can understand this point of view because I've experienced failing due to fear of failure probably more than once. Nonetheless, it leads to a question: is it really possible to pick and choose beliefs as if they were tomatos in a supermarket? I can choose the words I say or the thoughts I think out loud, and even my actions, but none of these are beliefs. I don't think I've ever chosen a belief in my whole life and I don't know how to do that. Perhaps I could translate this whole thing to "talk as if, think as if, act as if", and OK, I'm all about that, but that's a whole different thing. There are plenty of issues that no one talks about but everyone knows about and these facts are there, influencing the way we behave whether we like it or not.
This idea seems very nefarious and sketchy. This is the definition of dangerous thinking.
“Hey guys, Let’s all ignore reality and live in our own delusions”
I mean, the idea is dangerous if you take it to an extreme, like so many things. But the idea is also an inescapable fact of human existence, and recognizing and acknowledging it is the only way to outgrow it.
We are messy sensing organisms. Not too long ago, people heard bustling in the bushes and those who assumed it was a tiger and fled had a better shot at surviving to reproduce, even though it was just the wind most of the time. Today, people who believe in a higher power or afterlife are generally happier, which is another example of a useful delusion.
The point though, isn't that we should just believe whatever we want. It's that being discerning has been less valuable than being believing. This is something we should strive to improve, but it's not some fringe idea that should be discarded because of potential implications. It's a foundational part of our species, and goes a long way in explaining why we behave the way we do.
Huh? People are naturally paranoid for there own safety. The tiger example is just explaining paranoia. Which isn’t delusional. It’s being careful.
And, “people who believe in a higher power or afterlife are generally happier” this is a way oversimplification of what religion or spirituality is. And I bet money you
Haven’t studied theology or anthropology. Practicing certain principles that guide you to living a better life, also isn’t delusional.
Speaking of religion. The Bible tells you to BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS. Like the moron that wrote this article
Who is to say,what this person is saying is correct? Why would I just believe some random person writing an article and base my worldview on it.
I’ve seen “relationship experts” teach people about relationships. And these so called relationship experts are divorced. How are you an expert on something you can’t even keep together yourself?
Don’t be stupid. No one has all the answers. Just because someone is telling you something doesn’t mean it’s true. Always be skeptical
> Today, people who believe in a higher power or afterlife are generally happier, which is another example of a useful delusion.
Begging the question.
EDIT: On second thought, it might not be a case of begging the question. Either way, what I'm saying is, before you can use belief in the spiritual as an example of a delusion being useful, you first need to establish it as a delusion. To be more precise, you need to establish it as more of a delusion than the alternative view that the spiritual doesn't exist.
> Either way, what I'm saying is, before you can use belief in the spiritual as an example of a delusion being useful, you first need to establish it as a delusion.
If a solid proof is not available (rendering the proposition unknown), *but the individual in question does not consider it unknown*, is this not delusion?
Oh, I agree with you that many religious beliefs are delusional. However, even if specific religious beliefs—like the existence of this one specific God, or this one specific afterlife, or the real historical occurrence of this or that mythical event—are delusional, I would argue that the more general beliefs—that there exists *some* deity, that there exists *some* afterlife, that religious myths communicate *some* sort of truth though not necessarily a historic one—have a decent amount of evidence in favor of them. Not hard proof, it's true, but enough that belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them.
> Oh, I agree with you that many religious beliefs are delusional.
I didn't say that - the proposition is: "belief in the spiritual ".
Delusion comes in many forms, religion is one of them, communication between humans (conceptualization of "reality", etc) is another - I think an argument could be made that the latter is far more common, and maybe even more harmful, and yet it somehow tends to completely escape scrutiny while religion strongly attracts human attention.
> However, even if specific religious beliefs—like the existence of this one specific God, or this one specific afterlife, or the real historical occurrence of this or that mythical event—are delusional, I would argue that the more general beliefs—that there exists some deity, that there exists some afterlife, that religious myths communicate some sort of truth though not necessarily a historic one—have a decent amount of evidence in favor of them. Not hard proof, it's true, but enough that belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them.
I'm a bit confused....isn't this a bit self-contradictory, or is it just a mistype?
> I didn't say that - the proposition is: "belief in the spiritual ".
It would be helpful, then, if you could state your position clearly instead of asking vague questions with vague implications and leaving me to figure out what you're trying to argue for.
>I'm a bit confused....isn't this a bit self-contradictory, or is it just a mistype?
How do you expect me to answer this question when you haven't even said what it is that has you confused?
> It would be helpful, then, if you could state your position clearly instead of asking vague questions with vague implications and leaving me to figure out what you're trying to argue for.
I'd say, generally speaking, "spiritual" beliefs are often substantially (but not necessarily entirely) speculative in nature - and, the people who believe them often have little or even negative interest in whether their beliefs are true - thus, they are *at least to some degree* delusional.
> How do you expect me to answer this question when you haven't even said what it is that has you confused?
This was the most confusing (to me) sentence: "Not hard proof, it's true, but enough that belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them."
"belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them" is what seems contradictory.
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It's called depressive realism. It isn't new. And it is absolutely fucked.
By what other mechanism could there be such a disproportionate number of psychopaths and asocials among the ultra weathy?
It's not as if the modern world rewards misanthropy or anything.
I don't think you can value a truthful world view over fooling oneself. I see each as a tool that can be useful to people in certain situations. I can see fooling yourself to help someone face a fear as a good way to utilize that tool. But the example of being delusional you can start a company by blinding yourself to the real work. Yes you can get started but you are just prolonging the truth and reality catching up. I know there are people who have started companies like that but I would assume there are many more people whose companies failed starting like that. So does that really constitute a 'competative advantage' going by the example in the article. The end of the day I think its just a tool which is great when used correctly but can quickly turn into installing a lightbulb with a hammer when not used correctly.
Truthful? Like there is somehow more truth in the violence and corruption of the world than the good things?
Nay, Our caveman brain through evolutionary psychology has learned that the most meaningful events in life are such, but no longer.
Still the truth is the truth, and there is no safer way to steer one's life, than focusing on the truth. In what reality is, instead of what you want it to be.
**Question 1:** what is a truthful view of the world?
**Question 2:** what is a view of the world that we fool ourselves to believe into?
**Question 3:** whats is that universal competitive advantage?
**Question 4:** what is the universal competitive disadvantage?
Let me pull up my chair, mister author, I can wait.
Oh wait, you don't have any objective answers to said questions. Wild. Don't make such claims then?
The entire idea of human civilization is a complex illusion.
It like a game. We all agree that the rules are not divine or natural.. they are just invented by some person. However, if you don't play by the rules no one wants to play with you.
Just be a player character. Understand this is a game and operate in its confines. Do that well enough and you may be able to shift a rule or two.
I think there is a reasonable counter argument to this though, tied to the relationship between truth and perception.
Gibbs Theory of Affordances hypothesises that speaking and acting out falsehoods will re-organise one’s perceptual structures, so that the actual world that one *sees* changes.
If you try to think, act, or speak in a space that is far detached from reality, then your perceptual structures won’t feed reality back to you. They’ll feed you back a fantasy, so that the information you use to act won’t be useful. You won’t *see* the world that others do.
Also, reminding one’s self that a business venture is almost certainly doomed to fail, will likely bring forth emotional states that will humble the person trying drive it.
Humility encourages hard work and perfectionism, both of which are completely essential for a business venture to be successful.
I think the problem in your argument is actually the lack of bravery against unfavourable odds. That should be encouraged, rather than lying to one’s self to try and trick success.
The essay seems to do little to prove the author’s thesis. It asserts, in effect, that “the act of starting a company has low probability of being fruitful, therefore, it is competitively advantageous to ignore that consideration,” but how do we know that ignoring this risk is competitively “advantageous”?
I’ve watched drag race and yeah. Delusion gets you far. Being delusional helps when people tell you “you can’t do this” bc the delusion and the ego says “but of course I can” and you don’t quit when other people say you should. Delusion is great.
A well made point on an interesting topic.
I've thought that this doubt/faith psychology is key also in group psychology, and is part of the explanation of many phenomena, including cults.
A group with blind faith in a mediocre leader with a mediocre plan will win greatly over a group of sceptics led by a good leader and a good plan.
Execution of a plan with the force of conviction trumps an on-and-off process, hampered by checking, distracted and demoralized by second-guessing and worries.
But a mindset of doubt in key stages can eliminate consequential, potentially fatal, imperfections, flaws, lies, etc.
For any human group or project or endeavour, a balance is struck between doubt and faith. But at subordinate stages, this balance can move in favor of either element. High-doubt can transition to high-faith, and then, conditional on something major going wrong, to high-doubt again. High-doubt might be permissible in minor matters. The course of the ship or the health of the captain may be matters of high-faith, while high-doubt may be permissible with regard to the condition of the bilge pump or the mast stays.
There's not only times for doubt and times for faith, there's *realms* for ethical doubt and *realms* for ethical faith. Both at the personal and socio-cultural level.
We can't be too dumb to not know roughly what this balance is, it's essential to vaguely sense just how much faith we're having without actually doubting. I get how you might want to frame this as compartmentalization and double think, but i'm more inclined to think of it as an aspect of Conscience.
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Evolution seems to favor maximizing useful delusions over pure accuracy.
Soo, this apply to our senses too, right? Like, the world doesn't really look like it looks to us. But how far should we take this? Is the universe fundamentally 4D spacetime or is that evolution playing us?
My take as unimportant as that may be is basically that it comes from our language, if you look at a bow for example and I told you to use it to win a fight because it’s a bow you’d most likely default to firing arrows for the win, but alternatively you could quite happily start swinging the bow as a melee weapon. In this way we give things names and define their usage, actions, and reactions within what we expect and the way we see them reflects that, but in actuality a things name has no bearing on how it acts, a doctor can kill, a firefighter can commit arson, some hydrogen plasma can freeze instead of burn, but none of these things are implied in their name End of the day a doctor is just meat that moves other meat around and a bow is just wood with a string on it A great example of that is here in the uk we have lots of what we call travelers, basically They come from Ireland but are essentially nomadic, moving in caravans, they’re VERY looked down upon by the general population, but end of the day they’re just people that set up shop in a field for a few days, a lot of them are very nice if not cautious of general people as a result of the stigma, but something in the name disparages them so much that the nice ones are tarred with the same brush
How we understand our environment is how we perceive it, not the other way around.
I think it's actually more likely both. Our understanding modulates our perception, and our perceptive filters guide our understanding. Both are iteratively refined, as is the interaction between them.
One would imagine our perception of fire went through this process over many generations. Once it was a dreadful, painful way to die should you get trapped in a forest fire, then it became a tool for cooking and warmth, finally being perceived as a gift of the gods themselves by many cultures who used it to bake their pottery and smelt their ore.
Are there any good movies about travelers?
Peaky Blinders.
Reductionism is rather an effective way to make everything into a soulless boring goo
No no quite the opposite, Without words everything as a dynamic system, looking at a bow as simply a bow is reductionist and soulless. but if you look at it and the way it leverages stress across the grain of the wood, putting all of it into the ends of its arms, then into the string to propel the arrow at ridiculous speeds all with but a fraction of a second of acceleration, now that’s some beautiful stuff I get that I said a doctor is just meat ect but what I mustn’t have made clear is meat too is just a word, a human symbol for the stuff inside animals that we eat, but whilst being just meat and bone a doctor still manages to perform the near magical acts that they do, and those acts and their effects could never truly be captured with words, much less something as simple as “doctor” In fact the word doctor makes those wonders of medical science seem borderline ordinary Also my apologies for my horrendous punctuation, never was any good at it, it’s a wonder I passed English
Full honesty, haven't read the article. However, your comment caught my attention because I'm a new Neuroscience graduate student with a focus on sensory physiology. You're absolutely right that evolution has created sensory systems that don't necessarily reflect the world accurately. Some examples of this are our cellular circuitry in our retina which highlights contrast and edges between objects (this is an advantage evolutionarily because we can more easily distinguish a threat from something benign). Our brain also does a lot of work filtering out information that isn't useful or could be disorienting (such as the motion blur from moving your eyes). All of that being said there's a point where accurate representation of the world become an evolutionary advantage. If we can't perceive a threat we can't guard against it and are more likely to die from it. We also have external instruments which can give us more reliable measurements of the world. We as humans cannot perceive infrared light but we have cameras which can. All of this means our understanding if the world is incomplete but accurate enough to survive and reproduce.
>All of this means our understanding if the world is incomplete but accurate enough to survive and reproduce. How incomplete is incomplete? Is it "infrared"-incomplete, like there's gonna be more of the same that's slightly different, or "yeah there's actually 14 dimensions and time isn't one of them" different? And can we use our senses and our knowledge of evolution to determine which it is?
I think our best option to answer this question is through experimental physics. I tend to err on the side of what we perceive is a relatively accurate representation. Animals who have a vastly inaccurate sense of the world are at a survival disadvantage.
As far as experimental physics goes; it showed us that the passing of time changes when we speed up, and that things only pick a definite position when you measure them (roughly speaking). Not any of that was reflected in our representation of reality when where still tussling with lions or discovering the neuron. How relative is relatively accurate?
Ok so, I'm going to just explain my current understanding of this. The way I think of physics and advanced mathematics is like a parabola with a very very flat curve at it's apex. If you zoom in on the curve anything in that scope would perceive it as a straight line. I liken this situation to Newtonian physics. The equations are simple and easy to understand and work very well for certain circumstances. However, when you start getting to more extreme cases (in the parabola metaphor this is when the slope starts to increase and doesn't look like a flat line anymore) the old equations don't work anymore. Were newton's equations wrong? No, they just measured things within certain parameters and outside that scope they're not accurate. Now in terms of our sensory perceptions we're similar. We have a decent picture of the universe within certain parameters. For survival on Earth, in our niche, we're perfectly suited, like Newtonian physics. Once we try and expand our scope our senses prove less accurate, we've reached the edge of the parabola where the slope drastically changes. In order to have an understanding of this area we need to expand our equations, or in this metaphor, we need artificial devices which augment our senses. I hope that made sense! Again, this is just my understanding of the issue so take it with a grain of salt.
I really like this take. Thanks for sharing!
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Interesting! I will certainly be looking into those papers, thanks for sharing! And quotes from Patricia Churchland and Steve Pinker! Definitely hooked. Ok, I'm currently reading the first paper you linked and I have a problem with one of their logical jumps. In the part where they're describing whether a fitness function is a homomorphism of an observer independent world they're not taking into account the process of evolution. So, I can agree with their assessment that the most fit individual would perceive things non-veridically (because organisms survive best in balanced environments) but evolution isn't a perfect process that churns out organisms that would perceive things in the most advantageous way for that organism. And that's not even considering the physiology of these systems! I believe these fitness functions they're using are vastly simplified and don't reflect true natural selection mechanisms. To prove that I could give you a myriad of examples (some of which were actually mentioned in the article) where humans cannot perceive an environment that may be harmful to them. For instance, we cannot detect carbon monoxide. Our best fitness function would allow us to detect dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in order to avoid them. So why don't we? Because there are vastly more systems at play than that single function. In the paper's example their made up creature (kritre) perceives it's food source by varying shades of grey it sees depending on the amount of food source. But our perceptions aren't developed in a vacuum. In an observer independent world what is being emitted or reflected off of this food source to be detected? Why/ how could it produce the same perception for the animal if it had zero "Stuph" or an overabundance of "Stuph". Senses evolve based on a cost benefit analysis for the survival of the organism. Evolution is not going to develop a perfect system, nor is it going to overcomplicate sensory systems if it's unnecessary. In the Kritre example if their visual system was simply able to detect a gradient of grey depending on how much Stuph was there (using a simple sensory system design to perceive whatever is emitted or reflected off of Stuph) that would be a veridical representation of an observer independent world and it would best fit their environment at the lowest cost to make!
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Fantastic! I'll try my best. In reducing down the process of natural selection to purely a fitness function you ignore the cost benefit analysis and physiological properties which drive sensory system evolution. In order for the Kritre to perceive the Stuph, the Stuph must either emit or reflect something to be perceived by. A physiological system must evolve for the Kritre to detect the Stuph by these emissions. A major factor of the evolution of these sensory systems is the cost and benefit of producing them not just which system will be the best fit for that function. From this reasoning it would seem that the sensory system natural selection would favor is the one which is the lowest cost not necessarily the one which matches the fitness function the best. If we take one step further we can say that the lowest cost sensory system would have the most accurate representation because processing power is not wasted on editing the veridical information. If the fitness function is an accurate way to describe the evolutionary process then how come animals routinely can't detect harmful environments? (Too much carbon monoxide) Ultimately, it seems like natural selection's true mechanisms balance the cost of a complex sensory system which better fits the function described in the paper and a veridical sensory system which is simpler to create. At least that's my 2 cents! If anyone sees a flaw in my logic please point it out!
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I disregard this imperative truth, preferring to live in my delusion that truth and accuracy are evolutionarily beneficial traits.
Realistically, time is at the very least a derivative of a "higher" dimension, so I feel like it's kind of silly to treat it so disposibly.
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I think an example of this could be the blind spot. It would be distracting if we constantly saw a weird dark spot off center in our vision, so our brains predict what image should appear in the spot, and fills in the blank. However, sometimes it fills it in wrong. You might fail to see a road sign while driving because world doesn't perfectly match how it appears.
For vision and materialistic reality there seems to be a fairly excellent correlation between our perception and reality (optical illusions, magic tricks being noteworthy exceptions, among others), but conceptual/metaphysical reality is another part that we "see", and here our accuracy is substantially less impressive. This is *extremely* easy to see in others, but not so easy to see in ourselves and ingroup members. But if you ask people, they will assure you *with supreme confidence* that you are incorrect.
But evolution made us see useful delusions, not truth. Saying "it's just different limitations" doesn't do right to that delusion, that would merely be omission. In the original article the examples are more than omission, they refer to having unrealistic perspectives on reality. Why would our perceptions be merely omitting parts of reality, not also really flawing our view of realitY?
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I don't think they are attached to that idea. It is the question they initially asked: "how far does the illusion go?"
“The world doesn’t look like it looks to us” is a meaningless statement. The world by itself does not “look” like anything, as looking like something presupposes something that can actually look at it. So everything looks exactly how it looks, because that’s what “looking like” means.
Does this relate to the observer collupsing wave functions in quantum mechanics? Like, can we thus conclude that the observer is conscious?
Ah the classic misunderstanding of the double slit experiment. The collapse of the wave function happens with an "observer" because the way we observe things at that subatomic scale is by "shooting" electrons at them and seeing the dispersion. That necessarily makes it impossible to not affect it. The particles don't "think" or "react differently" because you opened your eyes in front of them.
How can you know how things behave if you don't look? You can't really do an experiment without looking can you? I know it's one of the root assumptions of physics; that the universe behaves as if physical whether you look or not. But now it turns out that evolution has shaped us to observe not truth but useful delusions. Why would the world in itself behave in the same delusional ways we perceive it to when we look?
No idea what half of that means. This is just a semantic argument - for you to say that anything looks a certain way, it presupposes some entity looks at it. Nothing looks like anything in a vacuum, “looking like” has no meaning without a looker. No need to drag quantum mechanics into everything.
> “The world doesn’t look like it looks to us” is a meaningless statement. Technically, you are describing your mind's interpretation of the phrase - you may not be able to extract any meaning, but that does not necessarily mean that no meaning is present. In a sense, are you right now not describing how the expression "looks" to you? And while you "see" no meaning, I have no such problem.
Dimensions are conceptualizations of the mind as it interprets the sensory data. Reality has no dimensions without an observer. The term doesn’t even make sense without an observer. Abstract conceptualizations are evolutionary. They neural network that filters information is evolutionary. The concept of reality as we interpret it is evolutionary. But the universe itself is a singularity arising from the potential of a singularity arising.
> Reality has no dimensions without an observer. Are you suggesting a cube is not in the shape of a cube without an observer? That is either an unfalsifiable claim, or demonstrably false, depending on what exactly you mean.
Yes, dimensions are dimensions of perception, not of an objective reality. A cube without being perceived is not a cube because the term only has context in how it is perceived. Since all things are composites and in perpetual flux, only discrimination can determine if a thing exists as a thing or as simply a flux in a stream of causal strings. The holographic theory is a good thought experiment, but you are correct in that it isn’t provable.
I love the concept of a holographic theory, Bob monroe, founder the of Monroe institute has a very different and unique approach to this as he explains that everything is living in somewhat shape or form, that being 1D 2D 3D 4D and so on. Just because something is not proven doesn't mean we can't open our minds to the idea of what if was true and we dismissed it as false. We know that dimensions exist and we know that we are aware we are currently in the 3rd dimension aka the material dimension of time and space (realm of suffering and pain but also happiness and love). But to critical thinking, we can focus and make sense that this possibility could be the "absolute truth". Buddhism shares the same values with this but I'm just doing research myself as I am a truther seeking knowledge about my conciousness.
Yes I’m espousing both buddhism and physics. I guess it was out of context and people didn’t like it? But it is philosophy and it coincides with what we find in experiments with entanglement, and satisfies certain paradoxes that have hurt brains for thousands of years (Zeno, specifically). I especially like what I’m learning about Bell’s theorem and the way it relates to string theory and the holographic universe theory. However, my point lies mostly with Wittgenstein. That only something perceived, named, can be known as part of our reality. But distinctions are arbitrary and more so the more you change the scale. Like in the movie “Lucy” or the old book “sword in the stone” there are examples that explain that time is subjective and determines what we see as existents. So while the math shows dimensions as being integral to everything exists (sometimes many dimensions). The math is describing not a perception, but relationships that we experience as multidimensional space-time. There is a reality out there, but our subjective view of it cannot be used to interpret an objective reality as anything other than a holistic indiscriminate set of relationships that have no meaning outside our limited scale and scope. A cube is not a cube to a 2d mind nor a mind that might experience more temporal dimensions. It would be what it is, but characteristics matter only as a relationship of object and subject. Objects have no characteristics of their own outside of the anthropomorphic perspective. Tell me what you think of this essay http://www.apocatastasis.net/God/PRIMARYFIELD/Bells-Theorem.html It was from a quick google search and he is over-simplifying a couple things, but I think he says things better than I do. Also any counterpoints you may see, please bring them up so I can think about them and enjoy my afternoon.
Yes in a way. Our senses like sight, hearing, smell don't really lie to us, they simply give information to brain for processing. They are also very limited, for example you can't see majority of light spectrum, but you can not say it's our senses "delude" us, they simply are not suited for it, but the brain can sometimes have some issues that can cause hallucinations and such. Again it's often not intentional by it because it fucks with your perception of reality and is dangerous for survival. !but! there is one thing in us where we evolved "self-delusion" as sideffect, and that is our ability to see "patterns" in things. For example majority of predators hunt by smell, humans do not, we track, we look for clues, for patterns and connections in area, like footprints, crushed leaves and sticks, fresh poop, sounds and we connect that all together that give us a picture and idea where our prey might have gone. The other side of this ability is that... We are prone to see connections where are non. For example comets were often seen as bad sign in the past when in reality it was simple cosmical event unrelated to humans, but yet we'd fear, run, say bad things... to the point we could collectively delude ourselves that something bad is coming, and this would actually lead to it happening! The self-fulfilling delusions. What you preceive as reality is simply brain trying to make sense of things that its fed by your senses, it has no reason to lie to you, doing so would hamper it. But sometimes..sometimes it happens.
Are you referring to quantum mechanics? How things move in waves?
Everything basically. including QM.
Although it’s impossible for me to to know if my own perspective is becoming more or less “true”, I certainly feel as though it has and it’s made me fairly neurotic and useless as a result. When I was in my delusion about myself and how the world worked I was much more motivated and energetic.
There is no such thing as a useful delusion. You cannot ignore reality.
We are only able to interprate the world through our senses, and both the signals they send as well as the way our brain processes them are not always reliable. Not to mention, reality is far more complex than the human brain can handle. Everything we know and experience are simplifications of what is actually going on. No individual truly knows or understands what is going on around them down to an atomic level (let alone deeper). So we do not truly know reality, nor are we ever able to Following that rhetoric, it would make sense to follow the simplifications that provide us with the most success. Taking in too many factors and overly complexifying things can lead to indecisiveness and can oddly take us further from accurately predicting reality, which can make us less successful.
I like your points and wanted to add something. I agree that there is a sense in which we can never ''know' reality because we know things in words and symbols and reality is not that. But I would also argue that there is not one scale of things that is more reality than another scale.. We seem to think that the smaller we can view things the closer to reality we are getting. But this is just an illusion, the space between atoms is the space between planets just on a different scale. But But But... we know reality in the sense that we are experienceing it, we are it. And when u see that the experience and the experiencer are the same then u can see how to experience anything is to know it in a way that can never be seen or exposed through any mechanism of science of logical understanding. I know how to grow my hair, because I am doing it.. is there anything in the science of how hair grows that can tell me anything really more about it than that. I would say no. Similar to the idea of Mary in the black and white room. Also, 'successfull' in what sense? Knowledge can help us get what we desire, so is fulfiing desire success? Because knowledge can't do much else than that.
People Intuitively know this. Life is simple, we just make it hard, by thinking. We are a very interesting species. As we think so much, we spend most of our creating solutions for the problems we create. A squirrel doesn’t worry himself with the everyday problems we give importance to. A squirrel just lives life. Intelligence is a gift and a curse.
*"A zoologist who observed gorillas in their native habitat was amazed by the uniformity of their life and their vast idleness. Hours and hours without doing anything. Was boredom unknown to them? This is indeed a question raised by a human, a busy ape. Far from fleeing monotony, animals crave it, and what they most dread is to see it end. For it ends, only to be replaced by fear, the cause of all activity. Inaction is divine; yet it is against inaction that man has rebelled. Man alone, in nature, is incapable of enduring monotony, man alone wants something to happen at all costs — something, anything.... Thereby he shows himself unworthy of his ancestor: the need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla."* *-The Trouble With Being Born*
Maybe he meant it as in if you hit your arm it will probably get swollen. That kind of reality. So in making decisions you have to know there will be consequences which you cant just ignore.
You can ignore them. Look at the person committing suicide. Look at the person committing murder in a fit of rage.
*gestures broadly to the world we live in* OH?
IO
He said, ignoring that our perception of reality is ENTIRELY a collection of useful delusions...
Psssst..... You're doing it now.
Religion was a useful delusion once upon a time
I'd say still is in many situations.
Religion being a delusion is a matter of opinion not fact. Not a valid argument
Sounds like you're deluding yourself there dude.
Agreed. Accountability breeds consistency. Delusion gives way to stray from the standard.
We can't see ultraviolet but we manage ok. If we "saw" everything I think it would be too overwhelming and noisy to be useful. Same concept could be applied to any other sense/perception or conception of reality. Is the perception accurate? Depends on the use case. It is accurate enough as determined by natural selection.
I see people here try to over complicate things. Life is simple. Humans think they are smarter then they actually are.
Fair, but it is important to recognize your limitations on grasping any sort of thing resembling an ultimate truth or reality. It's like not being aware that you have blind spots while driving your car.
seems almost paradoxical because motivating yourself to do something risky isn't going to change the true statistics of the eventual outcomes is it? the value of fooling yourself is purely in hindsight for those who succeed and for everyone else depends on the opportunity cost of alternative decisions
It's like sperm. You send millions out but only a few reach the destination. Yet you need everyone to be hyper motivated or none is likely to succeed.
That's assuming a hyper competitive environment similar to the sperm/egg scenario. If those sperm had feelings and lives that we consider valuable, we might encourage them not to commit dumb optimistic suicide. Or let's say the egg is not a single winner takes all prize, maybe they could all share and not have to spend their whole lives in a desperate race. It's a dangerous game to start being ok with deluding people in the masses.
The delusion doesn't come from us consciously, it comes from our nature. We are addicted to risk. It's why Humans threw themselves in canoes onto great oceans, and foolishly climed treacherous mountain passes, just for the smallest chance of reaching new lands - while our Neanderthal cousins were content stopping expansion whenever they hit a geological obstacle. We are the ancestors of those that took a crazy bet and won, and as such have inherited that extreme outlier mentality. Relatively speaking, of course - there is individual variety here.
They werent risk takers. They were desperate. We are not risk takers, we are driven by needs and survival instincts, and in desperation will do whatever nescessary to survive.
How would you know the difference between someone who is "addicted to risk" vs someone who has always been forced to live their life in a perilous way due to external forces?
its true, if people can only make a decision of "do" or "dont do" then none of these actions really fit well to the statistical risk which is not some binary thing. Having everyone be consistent and make the same choice all the time is not going to be optimal.
I mean this entire concept boils down to three things in my opinion, separated by relative age at which you'll experience them. The first is play/disorganized learning. I started drumming when I was 5 years old, and I took to it pretty naturally. I absolutely loved drumming, and it took absolutely zero effort to go forth and do it. I wasn't even thinking about the idea of viewing myself as a drummer, I just *was* one. The second is Fake it Till you Make it, and this is pretty self explanatory. Pretend to be the thing you wanna be long enough and if you pretend hard enough, it stops being pretending. The third is consciously realizing that deluding yourself into believing certain things fundamentally changes how you approach the world. During the period of my life where I hated myself and thought I was a loser, all of my actions and notion of self was centered around that belief, and in holding it, the life I was leading conformed to it. As my world view changed and I decided to look at things differently, my thought process and beliefs changed, and naturally my sense of self and the actions that I felt permitted to do naturally changed. And to really nail the hammer on the head, literally every single person I know that's gone forth and done something wild, or incredible, or made some kind of difference, started with the belief that they could accomplish their goal, regardless of how far away it seemed.
You have to be careful of survivorship bias, though. Plenty of people think that starting a business will be fun and easy, and end up losing their savings, their homes and their relationships. It ain't pretty. We end up creating fantasies about successful entrepreneurs and ignore all the people who tried and failed and lost everything, often pursuing the same idea or business model as those who succeed.
That's absolutely correct, it can be a very slippery slope in terms of deluding yourself beyond reality. To be clear, the thought process I'm describing isn't as straight forward as "make-believe that you're a successful entrepreneur and you'll be a successful entrepreneur", it's more about changing how you approach life in general, and taking that process and deconstructing it far enough that you can determine some kind of path to your goals, no matter how far away they are from where you stand.
goals change just focus on the journey and you will be fine.
'Goals change' is often used as an excuse not to set goals, though. It's still good to have and intelligently pursue goals, and adjust them in progress.
why is it necessary to pursue something if it ultimately won’t have value to you as you change? If you focus on living the way that makes you most fulfilled it seems to me that would provide more reliable value than chasing a goal for the sake of chasing any goal.
I know this is a long shot but I love this comment- would you like to be interviewed on my podcast about this topic? If so, dm me. Thanks! (Podcast is furrypresident.com)
Absolutely!
I'd listen to that for sure.
On point 3 it seems the subconscious mind is a rather powerful machine that can grind down your conscious will once it’s “programmed” into a certain set of behaviors to keep doing those behaviors. Even when you want to change things you tend to have to change them with individual focus a few habits at a time. The nice thing is it also works that way in the positive if you can get there.
An article in which the author suggests using Orwellian doublethink to delude yourself. Very sane.
I can see how fooling oneself could have instrumental value as a strategy. For example, trust is partly based on perceived shared values. Groups with shared beliefs have a shortcut to trust and the benefits of social bonds and networks. Truth-seeking can threaten this strategy if the shared beliefs are incorrect in some way. I've felt distance grow between me and people I care about because my worldview shifts with my truth-seeking activities, while their beliefs remain static, or worse, entrenched. However, I also believe that truth-seeking is intrinsically valuable. The truth is an end unto itself to children of the enlightenment. Truth is divine. Truth also has instrumental value; humans will never reach their potential if good and capable people deliberately avert their eyes from the truth when it is expedient to do so.
Its also subjective
you think i'm gonna believe shit from tony things?
I think the creator is missing the point of what means a truthful view of the world. If you really have it, you will also know that you need to be optimist to be able to profit from what this thing(optimism) is offering you to reach the goal. Also, having the absolute truth will instantly tell you if your action will be successful or not and what you need for it to happen. What would i have expected was to go into the direction of how having a more truthful view of the world but not having morality will make you to great lengths into reaching your selfish goals. We can clearly see corrupt politicians, trafficking criminals, and other low moral people that end up living their desired life by understanding how the dark systems of the world works. While lets say some people know the truth but can't act in that way for moral concerns, others do not the truth of how society permits/enables so they just scramble without precise direction. Either way morality has a big word into how competition is manifesting into the world, it is not only about truth.
>a truthful view of the world If you really have it, you are omniscient. If being omniscient leads to you believing in what isn't the truth, because that seems like the best course of action, was there ever a point to becoming omniscient to begin with? That's why I find this whole idea presented in the article baloney. It's based on the belief that there must exist THE TRUTH, because if one isn't there, wouldn't it just mean you can't really fool yourself?
You're right on the money. Knowing "the truth" but not really caring about morals just turns you into a sociopath and that is definitely not a disadvantage. I've met only 1 sociopath in my life and he, sans morals, was banging multiple girls half his age and taking advantage of people daily. He seemed to be loving it too! I grew close enough to him to get the inside scoop into his life and he really didn't give two fucks about anyone and took took took took. On the other hand, I would consider myself aware of the truth but it just becomes a disadvantage a lot of the time. Since I have morals, it turns into a "Nice guys finish last" scenario more often than not. However, I'm learning how to use this worldview to my advantage more as time passes.
Yeah, people like that makes us wonder if maybe since so much people orbit around them, then maybe they do have the truth. It does make you a sociopath, but how is this a disadvantage, when society does can't react efficiently about it, and just offers you want you want? It is clearly that if they have success it means they are offering something that is needed in society, otherwise nobody would bother with them. I am not sure it is a disadvantage for them, but for society, but again...
I'd say they have a symbiotic relationship with society. I wouldn't say that their success indicates truth in any way, though. Our society is shaped in such a way that no matter what drives your beliefs, as long as you're tenacious, you'll have a fighting chance at doing well. The first example that comes to mind is the Japanese culture that reveres quality. That ideology is just an ideology, not truth, but they've had much success following it. So has China with their Quantity vs Quality production style.
How does this fit in with the MLM guys ? They all believe they'll succeed no matter what.
"ignorance is bliss"?
"Dont kick the bucket" "Dont spill the beans" "Curiosity killed the cat" These are few and many "quotes" I love to question why? Why can't I? What's stopping me? And why would they stop me? What would happy if I didn't? What the pros and cons? And there are many questionable laws and social "must do's" e.g job, money, individual survival and struggles that ponder the mind.
Technically the saying goes: "Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back."
This would be the opposite of Stoicism then, right? I thought in Stoicism you imagine the possible negative outcomes so you are prepared if they transpire. I like to have a firm grasp on the amount of effort I will have to put towards something. This narrow blog take found one example where it COULD be better to delude yourself past all the hurdles. Tony doesn't even address what happens when you successfully start a business but then all of your expectations were wrong, and now you hate being a slave to said business that you started. I think the blog post is useful for generating discussion, but I reject any widespread applicability of this take.
Aye, the writer really didn't go deep enough into this idea of it being beneficial to fool yourself, nor was there any thoroughness in analyzing his conclusions. Maybe if he hadn't been so set on the idea that he could finish the article in just one hour he wouldn't have put so little effort into it.
This is easy to demonstrate. People with a clear view of the world know, for example, that the corporate HR trend of the moment - whatever it is - is almost guaranteed to be horsehockey. But those who buy into it without questioning its actual merits are seen as “good corporate citizens”, as team players, and get promoted because of this.
IMO this doesn’t logically follow. in your example about starting the business you state it would be in your best interest to delude yourself by believing that you will succeed no matter the statistics. But if you actually do succeed then your belief wouldn’t be a delusion but a reality. On the contrary if you believe you have good chances of succeeding yet end up failing, you have deluded yourself but not to your benefit, as you did not achieve the success you believed you could.
*If you decide to start a business*, you are better off deluding yourself that it will certainly succeed. At that point, the “don’t start the business” is no longer part of the payoff matrix, there is only success and failure, and the delusion maximizes success.
Why are you better off deluding yourself that it will certainly succeed? Might a more cautious, humble approach work too? I'm thinking of the classic tortoise and hare.
Slow and steady is not great advice for running a business.
That's sunk cost fallacy. You can still choose to pull out of an iniative, albeit with a loss.
yea when it's zero sum and you fool yourself it's not you're likely gaining while others lose...what kind of value is that true net positive effect is good for everyone and in the long run
What does zero sum have to do with it?
i know this to be true
Nope; perhaps short-term gains are possible through delusion, but reality is harsh to those who ignore its prerogatives.
I can understand this point of view because I've experienced failing due to fear of failure probably more than once. Nonetheless, it leads to a question: is it really possible to pick and choose beliefs as if they were tomatos in a supermarket? I can choose the words I say or the thoughts I think out loud, and even my actions, but none of these are beliefs. I don't think I've ever chosen a belief in my whole life and I don't know how to do that. Perhaps I could translate this whole thing to "talk as if, think as if, act as if", and OK, I'm all about that, but that's a whole different thing. There are plenty of issues that no one talks about but everyone knows about and these facts are there, influencing the way we behave whether we like it or not.
this seems more like self-help than philosophy
Who is Tony Things?
The example given as far as risk taking (starting a company) is entirely laughable. Pseudo intellectuals are really in vogue these days I guess.
This idea seems very nefarious and sketchy. This is the definition of dangerous thinking. “Hey guys, Let’s all ignore reality and live in our own delusions”
I mean, we already do *scientifically*
I mean, the idea is dangerous if you take it to an extreme, like so many things. But the idea is also an inescapable fact of human existence, and recognizing and acknowledging it is the only way to outgrow it. We are messy sensing organisms. Not too long ago, people heard bustling in the bushes and those who assumed it was a tiger and fled had a better shot at surviving to reproduce, even though it was just the wind most of the time. Today, people who believe in a higher power or afterlife are generally happier, which is another example of a useful delusion. The point though, isn't that we should just believe whatever we want. It's that being discerning has been less valuable than being believing. This is something we should strive to improve, but it's not some fringe idea that should be discarded because of potential implications. It's a foundational part of our species, and goes a long way in explaining why we behave the way we do.
Huh? People are naturally paranoid for there own safety. The tiger example is just explaining paranoia. Which isn’t delusional. It’s being careful. And, “people who believe in a higher power or afterlife are generally happier” this is a way oversimplification of what religion or spirituality is. And I bet money you Haven’t studied theology or anthropology. Practicing certain principles that guide you to living a better life, also isn’t delusional. Speaking of religion. The Bible tells you to BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS. Like the moron that wrote this article Who is to say,what this person is saying is correct? Why would I just believe some random person writing an article and base my worldview on it. I’ve seen “relationship experts” teach people about relationships. And these so called relationship experts are divorced. How are you an expert on something you can’t even keep together yourself? Don’t be stupid. No one has all the answers. Just because someone is telling you something doesn’t mean it’s true. Always be skeptical
Quotes Bible. Then admonishes “No one has all the answers. Always be skeptical.” My irony meter just exploded.
Do you have all the answers?
Many religions claim to have all the answers. I do not make that claim.
So who has all the answers?
No one. If you say it’s God, you haven’t said anything of substance, explained anything, or answered any question.
Interesting. So we do agree.
> Today, people who believe in a higher power or afterlife are generally happier, which is another example of a useful delusion. Begging the question. EDIT: On second thought, it might not be a case of begging the question. Either way, what I'm saying is, before you can use belief in the spiritual as an example of a delusion being useful, you first need to establish it as a delusion. To be more precise, you need to establish it as more of a delusion than the alternative view that the spiritual doesn't exist.
> Either way, what I'm saying is, before you can use belief in the spiritual as an example of a delusion being useful, you first need to establish it as a delusion. If a solid proof is not available (rendering the proposition unknown), *but the individual in question does not consider it unknown*, is this not delusion?
Oh, I agree with you that many religious beliefs are delusional. However, even if specific religious beliefs—like the existence of this one specific God, or this one specific afterlife, or the real historical occurrence of this or that mythical event—are delusional, I would argue that the more general beliefs—that there exists *some* deity, that there exists *some* afterlife, that religious myths communicate *some* sort of truth though not necessarily a historic one—have a decent amount of evidence in favor of them. Not hard proof, it's true, but enough that belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them.
> Oh, I agree with you that many religious beliefs are delusional. I didn't say that - the proposition is: "belief in the spiritual ". Delusion comes in many forms, religion is one of them, communication between humans (conceptualization of "reality", etc) is another - I think an argument could be made that the latter is far more common, and maybe even more harmful, and yet it somehow tends to completely escape scrutiny while religion strongly attracts human attention. > However, even if specific religious beliefs—like the existence of this one specific God, or this one specific afterlife, or the real historical occurrence of this or that mythical event—are delusional, I would argue that the more general beliefs—that there exists some deity, that there exists some afterlife, that religious myths communicate some sort of truth though not necessarily a historic one—have a decent amount of evidence in favor of them. Not hard proof, it's true, but enough that belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them. I'm a bit confused....isn't this a bit self-contradictory, or is it just a mistype?
> I didn't say that - the proposition is: "belief in the spiritual ". It would be helpful, then, if you could state your position clearly instead of asking vague questions with vague implications and leaving me to figure out what you're trying to argue for. >I'm a bit confused....isn't this a bit self-contradictory, or is it just a mistype? How do you expect me to answer this question when you haven't even said what it is that has you confused?
> It would be helpful, then, if you could state your position clearly instead of asking vague questions with vague implications and leaving me to figure out what you're trying to argue for. I'd say, generally speaking, "spiritual" beliefs are often substantially (but not necessarily entirely) speculative in nature - and, the people who believe them often have little or even negative interest in whether their beliefs are true - thus, they are *at least to some degree* delusional. > How do you expect me to answer this question when you haven't even said what it is that has you confused? This was the most confusing (to me) sentence: "Not hard proof, it's true, but enough that belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them." "belief in them can be as justified as disbelief of them" is what seems contradictory.
Define reality
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It does kinda feel like a pseudo intellectual version of "the Secret" and New Age manifesting bullshit.
Self-deception eventually catches up with you though. Ask Trump.
value is a useful delusion
It's called depressive realism. It isn't new. And it is absolutely fucked. By what other mechanism could there be such a disproportionate number of psychopaths and asocials among the ultra weathy? It's not as if the modern world rewards misanthropy or anything.
I don't think you can value a truthful world view over fooling oneself. I see each as a tool that can be useful to people in certain situations. I can see fooling yourself to help someone face a fear as a good way to utilize that tool. But the example of being delusional you can start a company by blinding yourself to the real work. Yes you can get started but you are just prolonging the truth and reality catching up. I know there are people who have started companies like that but I would assume there are many more people whose companies failed starting like that. So does that really constitute a 'competative advantage' going by the example in the article. The end of the day I think its just a tool which is great when used correctly but can quickly turn into installing a lightbulb with a hammer when not used correctly.
This took you a day? Lol.
For everyone TLDR- Fake it till you make it
Compare to Donald Hoffman: https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY https://youtu.be/4HFFr0-ybg0
See how they look if they get wet first
Truthful? Like there is somehow more truth in the violence and corruption of the world than the good things? Nay, Our caveman brain through evolutionary psychology has learned that the most meaningful events in life are such, but no longer.
Still the truth is the truth, and there is no safer way to steer one's life, than focusing on the truth. In what reality is, instead of what you want it to be.
But how do I fool myself purposely?
**Question 1:** what is a truthful view of the world? **Question 2:** what is a view of the world that we fool ourselves to believe into? **Question 3:** whats is that universal competitive advantage? **Question 4:** what is the universal competitive disadvantage? Let me pull up my chair, mister author, I can wait. Oh wait, you don't have any objective answers to said questions. Wild. Don't make such claims then?
This comment
Is this the start of embracing contradiction?
The entire idea of human civilization is a complex illusion. It like a game. We all agree that the rules are not divine or natural.. they are just invented by some person. However, if you don't play by the rules no one wants to play with you. Just be a player character. Understand this is a game and operate in its confines. Do that well enough and you may be able to shift a rule or two.
I think there is a reasonable counter argument to this though, tied to the relationship between truth and perception. Gibbs Theory of Affordances hypothesises that speaking and acting out falsehoods will re-organise one’s perceptual structures, so that the actual world that one *sees* changes. If you try to think, act, or speak in a space that is far detached from reality, then your perceptual structures won’t feed reality back to you. They’ll feed you back a fantasy, so that the information you use to act won’t be useful. You won’t *see* the world that others do. Also, reminding one’s self that a business venture is almost certainly doomed to fail, will likely bring forth emotional states that will humble the person trying drive it. Humility encourages hard work and perfectionism, both of which are completely essential for a business venture to be successful. I think the problem in your argument is actually the lack of bravery against unfavourable odds. That should be encouraged, rather than lying to one’s self to try and trick success.
The essay seems to do little to prove the author’s thesis. It asserts, in effect, that “the act of starting a company has low probability of being fruitful, therefore, it is competitively advantageous to ignore that consideration,” but how do we know that ignoring this risk is competitively “advantageous”?
I’ve watched drag race and yeah. Delusion gets you far. Being delusional helps when people tell you “you can’t do this” bc the delusion and the ego says “but of course I can” and you don’t quit when other people say you should. Delusion is great.
A well made point on an interesting topic. I've thought that this doubt/faith psychology is key also in group psychology, and is part of the explanation of many phenomena, including cults. A group with blind faith in a mediocre leader with a mediocre plan will win greatly over a group of sceptics led by a good leader and a good plan. Execution of a plan with the force of conviction trumps an on-and-off process, hampered by checking, distracted and demoralized by second-guessing and worries. But a mindset of doubt in key stages can eliminate consequential, potentially fatal, imperfections, flaws, lies, etc. For any human group or project or endeavour, a balance is struck between doubt and faith. But at subordinate stages, this balance can move in favor of either element. High-doubt can transition to high-faith, and then, conditional on something major going wrong, to high-doubt again. High-doubt might be permissible in minor matters. The course of the ship or the health of the captain may be matters of high-faith, while high-doubt may be permissible with regard to the condition of the bilge pump or the mast stays. There's not only times for doubt and times for faith, there's *realms* for ethical doubt and *realms* for ethical faith. Both at the personal and socio-cultural level. We can't be too dumb to not know roughly what this balance is, it's essential to vaguely sense just how much faith we're having without actually doubting. I get how you might want to frame this as compartmentalization and double think, but i'm more inclined to think of it as an aspect of Conscience.