Comment by enord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by enord | Hacker News Reader

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The interactionist perspective presented is enlightening. It both motivates and explains many of the classic reasoning snafus that we "suffer" from. In the end our mental artefacts (including beliefs) are just tools, and their value (or "truth") is a function of their utility.

If we were to present a 19th century carpenter with a nail gun he would agree upon demonstration; "that is very nice and all, thanks but i'll stick to my hammer". He would have neither a compressor, gasoline and a long enough hose, nor a wall socket and extension chord. The nail gun has no place in his toolshed because he doesn't have the required infrastructure and context to put it to use, and therefore the utility of the nail gun to him is close to zero.

Beliefs are the same, and a relation to "facts" or "truth" is not a requrement for their utility. When presented with new facts and truths we always evaluate their utility before we ascribe to them. We might fool ourselves that this process is somehow "rational" but rationality is just a social preference with some second-order effects with regards to science and the developement of technology (which indeed has "utility" but is far from the only "utility" beliefs can achieve).

> Beliefs are the same, and a relation to "facts" or "truth" is not a requrement for their utility.

Let's apply a little recursion here, shall we? I gather that you believe what I quoted. But you admit that your belief does not need to have any relation to facts or truth. You believe what you said, because that belief has some utility to you. But why should I believe you?

That is, your view, applied to itself, destroys itself.

I mean... In some circumstances you would be right, but the mind is not a formal system that stands or falls on soundness. If you read it a little more charitably, i said "is not a requirement for", rather than "is completely unrelated to". I'll wager that we are successful _almost because_ our minds function adequately while entertaining "untrue" beliefs in a strict sense.

Very well. If I understand correctly, evolution selects for "good enough answers fast enough" rather than "formally correct reasoning", which I think is what you are saying in your last sentence.

Maybe what I should say is that, if your conclusion is correct, we can never be certain that it is. The "formal system" problem that I pointed out only means that we should maintain a certain level of distrust for the conclusion, rather than proving it incorrect. (At least, that's how it seems to me at the moment. I reserve the right to re-think this.)

> Beliefs are the same, and a relation to "facts" or "truth" is not a requrement for their utility.

Is that statement true?

> When presented with new facts and truths we always evaluate their utility before we ascribe to them.

Did you evaluate the utility of that "fact" before believing it?

I'm not trying to be rude here, but the problem with this sort of postmodern view is that it's ultimately self-refuting.

I cant find when i subscribed to that particular belief in my ledger, it feels self-evident to me at this point. Whether it's true or not is mostly a semantic argument. You might personally define a beliefs "utility" to be strictly tied to its "objective truth" (or whatever epistemic ideal you assume), but the linked article posits a particular intersection of "rationality" and "utility" of beliefs (as far as I read it anyway). I found it agreeable and chose to share my musings on the topic.

I do not agree that the view is particularly post-modern, but since you called it first i guess i must concede. The point was not "all is subjective and nothing is true", rather "whether or not i take on this belief (or fact or whatever) presented to me is a function of the degree to which i understand it combined with my intuition of the ramifications of me holding this belief". We don't have truth-seeking minds, we have "value-" or "utility"-maximizing habits.

We understand things and we underestimate things. We prefer things and we reject things. Not always knowingly and sometimes intentionally.

> Beliefs are the same, and a relation to "facts" or "truth" is not a requrement for their utility.

If your beliefs about the world are entirely false then you are going to have a bad time.

Or a very good time. One's circumstances are seldom that much dependent upon their beliefs about the world.

> One's circumstances are seldom that much dependent upon their beliefs about the world.

You are interpreting belief in a very narrow and mysterious way. If you believe that poison is food, or that bus impacts are healthy, then you are going to have a bad time. There are many beliefs that must be correct in order to ensure survival. It isn't all relative.

>There are many beliefs that must be correct in order to ensure survival

Or you could say, you know, that beliefs must hold some utility. There are a lot of utilities that we need from our beliefs. I believe that the front of the bus is a portal to hell that threatens to damn me to eternal suffering, so I'm quite terrified when it approaches to engulf me. This shares utility with realizing that an impact with a bus can result in awesome momentum transfer, causing a sudden acceleration preventing my soft body from containing my precious bodily fluids. The point is the utility, not the rationalization (this term is loaded pretty heavy at this point, sorry).

>If you believe that poison is food, or that bus impacts are healthy

That's more about being crazy than about having false beliefs in the casual (and not "narrow and mysterious") sense of the word belief.

I would argue that most religious people technically have a belief about the world that is false in the usual definition, and many of them are having a great time, especially since their religion gives them a nice little life manual.

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