Are beliefs like clothes? (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Are beliefs like clothes? (2015)

mason.gmu.edu

39 pointsherbertl53 comments

Paul Graham talks about "moral fashions": http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

> Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. And we had no idea how silly we looked. It's the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the same way the movement of the earth is invisible to all of us riding on it.

> What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they're much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed.

I may be starting a longer debate here (and I hope not to), but at least the beauty of moral objectivism is that there would be an independent basis for right/wrong even if the moral “fashions” change.

I try to put this objectivism into practice by defining a goal and deciding whether actions are meeting the goal or not (i.e good or bad), but of course that’s a more pragmatic take than what moral objectivism really is.

A belief in moral objectivism makes fashionable beliefs more dangerous, because those within a given fashion would think they were objectively right. It's the "this time is different" of morality.

> those within a given fashion would think they were objectively right

You seem to have just described subjectivism though.

I think the point is that as humans we have limited perspectives and most of us aren't even aware of those limitations. It is likely not possible for us to come up with any moral rules that are in any way objective. Anything that we come up with is influenced by out human perspective and therefore nothing is truly objective.

I think moral fashions tend to pertain to especially indirect and tenuous consequences. The morality of the supposed consequences themselves aren't usually at issue, it's the causation.

Problem is determining what that independent basis is, and how to derive moral objective truths from it.

I was hesitant to use the phrase “moral objectivism” because what I’m talking about is more moral pragmatism where a goal is defined and good or bad is objectively measured against that goal. What I’ve learned from experience is that where a goal is defined, there is very rarely any confusion about what is a good/bad action. Of course as applied to society where multiple cultures and large nation-stayes exist, we’ll have disagreements about what the goal of cooperation is, but that seems more to me a discussion about politics and conflict instead of ethics itself.

As an example: if we agree that the goal of our species is to live for as long as possible and we look specifically at the threat of climate change, then based on that goal, we could immediately identify whether any given economic activity is good or bad based on its effects on the environment, which would be based on empirical data.

Some people may deny the truthfulness of the data (which then creates “climate change deniers”), but at the core of the people who disagree isn’t so much about doubting the facts, but really, they just disagree that the goal of our species is to survive for as long as possible, and it’s likely that they believe that our goal is to use up as much of the earth as possible within every single person’s lifetime.

> a goal is defined and good or bad is objectively measured against that goal

This seems like standard rational empiricism? Employing reason and observation to benchmark things against predefined values. The difficulty of course is in determining those values in the first place.

This is close to utilitarian ethics. The problem is that, taken to the extreme, it is easy to yield obviously wrong moral decisions.

For example, if we define 'survive as long as possible' as having 1+ humans alive, we might decide we should kill 1/2 of the population (Thanos did nothing wrong).

But that's not obviously wrong, if the alternative really is human extinction with 100% probability.

The true difficulty with utilitarianism is properly defining the metric to be optimized.

Slightly related: I'm always off-put by American arrogance. North American talk and behave like only they have some universal source of truth, like someone gave them the right to decide what's right and what's wrong.

Especially annoying when Americans talk about the rest of the world. E.g. when I read or hear what Americans think they know about history or culture or current events in my country (Russia), it makes my hair stand, because most of the time it's complete bullshit, stupid stereotypes and exaggeration. All generations at least in the last 100 years read from the early years only highly intensive rusophobic propaganda (even when it came directly from Russians, like famous liar Solzhenitsyn). And reading western media, especially social networks (reddit /r/worldnews, for example) I can only see that it intensifies and becomes more and more aggressive and absurd.

Also, Americans are highly intolerant to other cultures, despite all the PC craziness.

Just a few weeks ago I read that some reader of HN wants to see Disneyland in Iraq. This is so awful. Americans came and destroyed the culture that was several times older than theirs to create fake Disneyland in its place... They would want to put their awful Disneylands everywhere because consider all other nations and cultures inferior.

I continue to read few sources in English and mostly look at it with disgust because of the arrogance, ignorance and extreme aggressiveness of Americans.

While I wouldn't disagree entirely (I've been surprised in more recent years how deeply russophobic ideas have been ingrained in me, and this is after years of working with Russian colleagues), consider that your own perspective is limited as well, apparently mostly to typical media outlets that portray a warped view of the world.

When you get off the internet and just go interact with people one-on-one in person, you'll find although these sorts of stereotypes might apply to some portion of the group they apply to, everyone's a lot more nuanced than comes across in various media sources.

There's a big difference between Americans and me: I can read in English, watch TV news in English, listen to podcasts from USA.

Population of the Western world is limited to the distorted view that is presented through the prism of their media (which is considered "unprecedentedly honest", hahaha). In the best case what USA citizen may say is: "My neighbour emigrated from USSR and he says that party bosses ate toddlers!"

When I meet westerners face-to-face I'd say that they have all the usual stereotypes. E.g. first thing they'll say to you is "Na zdorovie!" (95% of persons met by me) and will ask you something like "Would you like to drink vodka today?". And it's better not even start talking about politics, although sometimes such conversations are really funny.

Just a few weeks ago I read that some reader of HN wants to see Disneyland in Iraq.

Here is the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27340031

I think you are mis-representing what they said.

Thank you for finding this. Mis-representing, but only by a tiny bit.

"wants to see" seems quite different to what was actually said.

A more generalized version is that beliefs can be used by other beliefs as a resource. Thus beliefs, especially persistent ones, are often minimally about their truth value, and more about their role in the mind's structured web of beliefs.

There is this weird sense in which people expect beliefs to quickly flip, in themselves but especially in others. Choice is a very hopeful word, but sometimes a weapon for terrible scar. Some beliefs are deeply embedded in people's minds that to forcibly remove them is to, well, leave the person so dysfunctional that it's not worth it.

And it's interesting that most beliefs of note are problematic beliefs (e.g. political, philosophical), and these are most difficult to "fix". So when one starts looking into one's own mind in search of some kind of integration of different narratives, the problem that inspired the introspection in the first place may be the last problem that gets solved.

So yes, beliefs are like clothes, but not in the bad way. Utility of beliefs beyond their truth value should not be underestimated (at least our mind, in its subconscious, actively utilizes beliefs in this way).

I disagreed with most of it, and actually I think that the basic premise expresses a very nefarious and misguided opinion, but almost at the end, it gets to an interesting observation:

> Just as it seems that teenage smoking can't be reduced much without giving teenagers good substitute ways to show their independence and worldliness, the social costs of mistaken beliefs about politics and UFOs probably can't be reduced much without giving people good substitute ways to show their concern and independence. But it is hard to create substitutes for things before you understand in some detail the functions they now perform.

I think it is wrong to accept that beliefs are just fashion or identity facets with no other connection with reality or facts and that this should be fought.

That said, the article proposes an angle that can be used to limit the damage of the most insane beliefs. However, I think that fighting propaganda with propaganda is not sustainable nor democratic.

The core solution is not in designing warm bikinis but in convincing arctic fashionistas that it is ok to not wear a bikini on the ice-sheet.

The scary thing to me is that sometimes someone gets so gripped by a belief, it becomes impossible to imagine you are wrong. It feels like you believe something obvious and those who don’t are just fools or have malicious motives. And that assumption of malice is used as justification for dehumanizing people, while believing that you have some moral high ground.

The way to change peoples prejudice is by either experience or stories. The east calls it Karma. We could call it re-programming. Just like a computer doesn't change by force or by giving it the desired outcome. Neither does the brain.

Do you have a belief like this? What should be done when one has a belief like this?

This article is a very shallow take on an old question.

I mean, clearly, yes, authority (and marketing) influence people's beliefs. Beliefs are hard to change in others and in yourself.

But the core question of epistemology is very well-trod ground. Going back to Socrates and his distinction between true beliefs and knowledge, the idea that beliefs are things we wear like clothes has been dismissed for millennia.

Changing your own beliefs is quite easy. At any moment you can simply choose to believe something else.

Changing other people's beliefs is more challenging, but so is changing other people's clothes.

How do you choose to believe something else? Belief doesn't seem like a conscious choice to me. I can choose to seek out things which might challenge my belief in X, and ultimately this may lead to a belief in Y instead, but I can't go from X to Y from merely willing to do so.

Choosing to seek out changing your belief by seeking contrary evidence is a form of choosing to change it. You can also do it while skipping that step, though it takes some practice. If you say something to yourself enough times, eventually you will believe it is true.

Ultimately many beliefs are just selective readings of available evidence. Once upon a time, there was a viral meme featureing a striped dress that was either white and gold or blue and black depending on who you asked. People became very attached to their interpretation of the illusion and I saw a lot of very fierce argument. With a bit of practice, however, it isn't actually that hard to hold both interpretations simultaneously and choose between them at will.

> Changing your own beliefs is quite easy. At any moment you can simply choose to believe something else.

Can you though?

Can you easily change your current belief that it is easy to change your belief? Once you changed that could you easily change it back? If you strongly believe that Elon Musk is a genius/fraud, could you simply flip your belief on a whim?

No. You really can't. In fact, someone with such a weak belief structure would probably have little sense of self.

We all like to image ourselves as rational beings in charge of our own minds while others are adrift on a sea of emotion, but research shows that beliefs change very slowly.

You can't consciously decide to believe arbitrary things.

But most of our beliefs are decided by unconscious processes that decide having a certain belief would be good for us. Another part comes up with a good sounding justification that we can tell ourselves and others.

This is known as Motivated Reasoning, and is far more common than we want to believe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning

Certain schools of philosophy/religion/meditation are devoted to moving past these unconscious processes and making these choices conscious.

If you sit with a bowl of snacks next to you as you work, you may find that your hand wanders by itself over to the doritos and delivers them to your mouth, where you chew and swallow barely even noticing as your keyboard becomes covered in cheese dust and grease. It is also possible to make a conscious decision to do the same thing, or to decide not to eat them at all. An intermediate is to move the snacks away so you can work without wrestling your subconscious. Unconscious choice is very, very common but it does not mean concscious choice is impossible.

Yes, I can.

I choose to continue believing that I can can change my beliefs because it has brought numerous benefits to my life. I did not always believe this: one day I simply decided to start. Picking up or dropping an arbitrary belief about Elon Musk is trivial in comparison.

> In fact, someone with such a weak belief structure would probably have little sense of self.

This is, in fact, one of the explicit goals of several schools of philosophy and meditation. Being in charge of your own mind is extremely liberating, but like controlling any part of the body, precision requires practice.

I can’t change my beliefs. I can seek better information that might cause my beliefs to change. I can apply a filter, like optimism or pessimism, that has the effect of filtering by selective attention more granular beliefs that are nevertheless fixed. I can temporarily try on a perspective to try to understand someone else, but that almost never convinces me of anything except how they see things (a fact about them, not the world).

It's challenging to change a belief if you don't actually want to. Things are usually much easier if you want to do them.

If you flip flop your beliefs, then you don’t believe in anything, just following the trend. Call people “brainwashed” for refusing to change, but at least they have a ground they firmly stay on. Not to mention people finding random articles online and use them to “debunk” other people’s beliefs. If things were that simple, certain beliefs would not had survived through out the years.

Some time ago, there was a story where an alt-right 4chan troll woke up one day, converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State. I'm not sure what trend that flip-flop is following.

Debunking articles exist to reaffirm the beliefs of the debunkers, not to change minds. In the face of a flood, choosing to firmly stay on low ground is a poor choice, but societally we place such a high value on ideological constancy that it often leads to dubious choices.

I can choose my clothes but I can't choose my beliefs

Well, one of "why so you say yo can? or "why do you say you can't" is a good follow-up question to you.

You can very clear choose any of both, but you have methodological and societal restrictions on both, on differing ways so you can't choose either one freely.

Yeah. Beliefs feel more like skin. And acting as if I believe something I don't feels like putting paste on my skin to avoid discrimination. Our skin doesn't get ripped off easily nor without pain - it does get burned, or healed, maybe. That's what I can liken to the sensation of changing beliefs.

> but I can't choose my beliefs

You couldn't be a scientist then, for example. You wouldn't be able to change your beliefs when faced with new evidence. The ability to choose what you believe is a perfectly ordinary requirement we place even on fairly average people.

A scientist believes what the evidence shows. They have no choice what to believe.

You limit them to wild hypothesis.

This would only make sense if one and only one belief was supported by any set of evidence.

How do you think hypotheses are created? An educated guess is a belief that something is the case, which you then test and adjust your world view.

Science itself is a belief (or religion, depending on your epistemology), that the scientific method and associated tools, like the gold-standard double-blind study*, is the most effective way to form a model for reality.

On top of that, experimental results can only inform a subjective model for each individual. For example, children are informed about our solar system in a simple 2d plane, because that's useful enough. We can prove that the solar system has planetary deviation from the generally flat plane (up to 7 degrees) but that more advanced model is something that is generally learned later, out of pragmatism. You can spend a lifetime learning details and data, but you'll still die ignorant because gathering all of human knowledge is impractical at this point.

Therefore, relying on science alone, is not enough to inform your personal ideas about reality, even if you believe that it's the most reliable way to do so.

eg https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/ <-- no double blind for parachutes, where's the evidence?

I agree with most of what you described but I don't think scientific method should be put together with religion. I think they are orthogonal. For example, the scientists' religion don't really alter the research if they strictly follow the scientific method. In other words what they think won't alter the reality. And imo the most important part is the process of proving itself, rather than the result. Therefore it's perfectly fine to arrive at various conclusions and sometimes 'I don't know' is the best conclusion u can have so far. You don't really have to believe in anything with scientific framework, instead you do best to approximate and emphasize on the process rather than the result. Otherwise it's just magical thinking.

> I don't think scientific method should be put together with religion. I think they are orthogonal.

This is a common belief people hold to protect themselves from altering an existing worldview (or previous statements). I'm not sure how you construct a view that the belief in the scientific method and various derived conclusions (eg atheism or agnosticism) as the "correct" way to explain everything in reality, is not a defacto religion.

> For example, the scientists' religion don't really alter the research if they strictly follow the scientific method. In other words what they think won't alter the reality.

Reality is not altered by any religion. Not sure what this has to do with the belief in the scientific methodology.

> This is a common belief people hold to protect themselves from altering an existing worldview (or previous statements). I'm not sure how you construct a view that the belief in the scientific method and various derived conclusions (eg atheism or agnosticism) as the "correct" way to explain everything in reality, is not a defacto religion.

I didn't say it's correct, I used the word 'approximation'. Because it's never about the result, it's about the process of 'proving' and 'provability'. And in this sense religion and scientific method/framework is orthogonal. Because it doesn't matter what the person's religion is, they carry out the same scientific process, and the answer to their religion/belief is always 'i don't know. not provable'

> Reality is not altered by any religion. Not sure what this has to do with the belief in the scientific methodology.

But that's the fundamental differences. How do you get to know the reality through religions? How do you decide which religion is the truth? If someone forms a religion by Harry Potter just like the Scientology, how do you pick and choose? Suppose religions is a big set, and new religions getting formed, how do you pick? But in the framework of science this kind of result doesn't matter. Because in the scientific methodology you go through the process, and that's the important part. You can choose to believe whatever religion shaped this reality you like and that doesn't affect the scientific method itself. Scientific method is a tool you can use, it doesn't give you answers to all questions(provable), and it doesn't need to.

> Because it doesn't matter what the person's religion is

> But that's the fundamental differences. How do you get to know the reality through religions?

I don't understand your definition of religion. As I understand it, religion is a set of beliefs that allow explains reality and allows you to reason about it. The idea that it inherently includes an omnipotent being is a particular definition that made it into some dictionaries and is now taken (ironically) as gospel. See the wikipedia entry for Religion (disambiguation). Religion is not solely about explaining the source of reality, but can be part of it.

When he was a baby, I had to manually put and remove clothing on my baby boy. Now he is 7 and can dress/undress by himself, I am very proud.

He is learning about the world and for now I am manually putting my beliefs over him so that he can make some sense of the world.

I am going to be proud the day he manages to remove them and and put beliefs in his mind by himself.

In my opinion deconstructing the opinions you were given as a kid is part of the process of growing up. Thing is, it is an optional part and too many people grow up without going through that stage.

I think a lot of people deconstruct the ideas they were given as children, and end up reconstructing parts of them into a bit of a patchwork, later in life.

I hope your boy keeps giving you reasons to be proud of him, whatever kind of proverbial clothes he decides to end up in.

You have the agency to choose your beliefs. The door is open, you simply have to walk through it.

Systematically changing your beliefs takes a lot more work than just stepping through a door. I know people like to say this stuff to give hope, but the illusion does more harm than good imho.

But if you can't choose your beliefs and your beliefs affected your choice of clothes, then ultimately you can't really choose your clothes.

> For subjects where there is little social monitoring and strong personal penalties for incorrect beliefs, we expect the functional role of beliefs to dominate. Beliefs about military missions or engineering projects come to mind. But for subjects with high social interest and little personal penalty for mistakes, we expect the social role of beliefs to dominate.

Why are there so many stories about Japan on the front page today?

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