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Humans are not naturally rational creatures.
It isn't just hard to be perfectly rational…. it is computationally impossible.
Everyone who took a semester of statistics in college knows that Bayes’ Theorem gives a mechanism to update our beliefs in the presence of new evidence.
But what if we have a network of interrelated beliefs (a “Bayesian Net”)? Luckily, while a bit more obscure, it turns out that Bayes' Theorem also prescribes a unique answer. Unluckily, it turns out that working out that answer is NP-hard. It is computationally intractable to calculate the single data point that should flip our worldview, despite our ability to prove its existence.
You can read all the lesswrong you want. You can masturbate to Thinking, Fast and Slow and learn why we fail as we do. But the one thing that you cannot do is have the smarts required to actually BE rational.
The effort of doing better is still worthwhile. But the goal itself is unachievable.
Read MoreThis is why, despite occasionally using the term "rational" in its colloquial sense, and using formal language tools such as math and logic, I would describe myself as an "anti-rationalist".
In general, communities of thinkers that describe themselves as "rational", or "rationalist", or "skeptical, tend to overestimate the usefulness of formal computation tools, because they underestimate the difficulty of translating real world problems into formal systems.
Always, we end up introducing some subtly wrong premise. Always, we end up assuming the chicken is a sphere to make the math easier. Which is where the need for empirical testing of ideas comes in.
People who pride themselves on "rationality", or people who spend excessive amounts of time with formal systems, tend to be seduced by the siren song of the easiest part of the problem. If only we could write everything in some LISP-derived language, and eliminate testing and bugs forever by formally proving our programs correct! If only we could conduct our political debates by diagramming everything out in first-order logic!
But no actual practitioner of building shit and getting shit done actually takes this seriously, because he knows that any formal-language representation is, at best, an oversimplified and inaccurate representation of the world, and that the real bugs lie not in the code, but in the gaps between the code and the problem description.
In my opinion, formal systems are best regarded as generators of hypotheses, not theories.
Which is why I'm using logic with this young fellow I'm trying to reason with right now. We haven't gotten to the stage of discussing whether his hypothesis is correct, because we haven't gotten to the stage of stating what his hypothesis even is.
Neither, I suspect, has he.
Which is why it's rather cruel of you to bring up complexity theory and polynomial time... others around here are still struggling with the concept of inverse, converse, and contrapositive.
We all know you're smart, already. Siddown and have a beer.
Read MoreYa know, it always annoys me when people tell me how talented I am when I bust out some Chopin in a hotel lobby or whatever because it understates the 10,000 hours I spent sitting in front of my black Baldwin growing up.
I know I’m smart. I don’t need to hear it from you, and frankly it makes me uncomfortable because I work with people who are actually next-level smart. It was nice to hear when we started talking 5-6 years ago but I’ve learned that natural intelligence isn’t anything to be proud of any more than is being tall, and it also only gets you so far.
FWIW I made a pretty good joke about the hairy ball theorem in that math thread, but it got pruned for being uncivil. I’m the new fish so I’ll leave it at that.
In my opinion, formal systems are best regarded as generators of hypotheses, not theories.
Your opinion mirrors history.
Aristotle was the author of one of the earliest recorded theories of motion, one that was accepted widely for over 1,500 years. It is clear that he (like many theorists since) was not one to let experiments results get in the way of his theorizing. His “scientific method” was to let logic and common sense direct theory; the importance of experimentally validating the resulting theory only developed recognition centuries later.
Cynically, we can note that while the influence of Aristotle’s ideas have waned, since Galileo and Kepler did not leave much to the imagination, his method has not, and it continues to prevail in areas where the scientific method yields unpopular results.
Indeed, employing the modern day version of the scientific method and publishing the results can be thought of as a “Dick move”.
Read MoreI’ve found a safe way to achieve the desired result is to lay on top of her when entering from behind and put one hand in her hair — light pull from the roots, etc. — and the other coming up under her stomach/tits, placed on her neck. No actual squeezing in the hands, just the arms.
It gives her that feeling of being “enveloped” by you, which is what many of them actually want, with a minimal application of force.
I agree with you about natural intelligence. It's only useful for one thing... learning. That may sound obvious, but many smart people don't realize the important implication of this... the fact that intelligence only facilitates the acquisition of relevant knowledge and expertise, it does not substitute for it.
Smart people only make better decisions when they have good information to study, and time to study it. When they are ignorant, they're as dumb as anyone else, and often functionally dumber because they do not realize they are dumb.
Also, even when they are well-informed, they can be functionally dumb in their intersection with a group, because they may have great difficult with knowledge transfer to other group members. Some of them may actually be so poor at that they increase people's hostility to their proposed course of action, effectively steering the group in the opposite direction.
The effective intelligence of a group or organization often has little to do with the sum of individual talents, and much to do with how people are wired together in the decision making process, something I learned to my great frustration while working in the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem.
This effect is even more pronounced in Washington DC.
Read MoreI'm not sure why you don't generalize psychopathy -- under your definition -- to explain the symptoms of high intelligence more generically. If you think in a way similar to others, if only because you are of similar intelligence, then you will appear to be naturally empathetic. To what you are saying, if you do not think in a way similar to others, but are smart enough to fake it, then you will appear to be naturally empathetic. It is the valley in the middle that is problematic: too smart to feel it, not smart enough to figure it out.
I lose the thread when you talk about mirror neurons -- is this just a succinct way of articulating the point of "feeling your way to a successful vibe"? If so, you've kind of made psychopathy a natural consequence of intelligence. An ability to mask the symptoms doesn't make the symptoms go away.
I take an interest because this really speaks to me. It takes me an enormous amount of effort to "vibe" with others -- to the extent that I believe I have some kind of high functioning autism -- but when I get in state I am extremely socially successful. I don't know that this is due to a lack of mirror neuron function (not clear on this -- see above), it's more that there is an extra bash script bolted onto the social protocol that hogs a disproportionate percentage of the CPU.
I just wish I knew how to consistently perform. Some days are better than others. Some days I know just what to say, and how to say it, and others... not so much. I've decoupled it from physical state -- being well rested, hydrated, fed, etc. doesn't really correlate. Curious if this is something you are familiar with and/or you have some insight.
But I would say that most antisocial acts committed by psychopaths originate in loneliness, and the resentment brought on by perceived rejection, since psychopaths have the same emotional needs as others, but many low-functioning psychopaths are unable to get those needs met due to decreased mirror neuron function, which both makes them unable to successfully interact with others in certain ways, and makes them unable to feel emotional support when it is actually directed their way.
So what happens then? What is the advice you would give to such a person?
Read MoreAutism's relationship to psychopathy is a hell of an interesting subject. I haven't figured it our yet. But it is certain that some forms of autism are the opposite of psychopathy.
The psychopath is interested in asserting control, not in connecting with others per se. The psychopath has an extreme fast life strategy: other people's bullshit waste his time because he could be having fun. The autist has an extreme long life strategy: other people's bullshit waste his time because he could be building things.
You bring up an interesting point which I don't fully agree with, but I want to steer the conversation away from classification (for the moment -- we can unwind the stack in a bit if you'd like to circle back).
I don't really care if some behavior is autistic in contrast with psychopathic. I am more interested in strategies to manage particular symptoms, regardless of how they are classified.