Resist the Happy Death Spiral

So it turns out that all you have to do is overcome bias? I confess I was hoping for something a little more specific than that.

I think it's time to take a step back and re-evaluate the purpose of this bully pulpit, because it's not fulfilling its stated goal, and I don't think it's even fulfilling its unspoken and more-pragmatic goals.

Pointing out situations where eliminating bias is all well and good, but that's not difficult. It's not needed, because we can do it ourselves easily. What we need are elegant instructions on HOW to avoid types of bias, and this site doesn't seem to have had anything substantial to say on that topic.

See Addendum 2.

I think "cancer paper writing journal papers isn't going to experience a miraculous remission" should read patient instead of the first paper. Although, I would think if we had the kind of sophisticated AI that would allow papers to write papers we would probably be well on the way to curing cancer...

Maksym, fixed.

The rationalist checked his gun - a repeated, almost compulsive gesture before the coming battle, even though he already knew the weapon better than himself. He was running out of Burdensome detail bullets, but still had enough Causal Chain Specifics to pepper the Big Thingy with. He gingerly fingered the Non-Rehearsed Evidence hanging from his belt - he hoped he wouldn't have to use them, they were dangerous and exploded all over the place.

Maybe this wouldn't be so tough after all... There was no reason to suspect this Big Thingy would be a strong one, was there? Happiness mounting from this unprovable claim, he quickly swallowed a rational combat pill to keep it at bay. Reason returned, and he chanted the mantra against unreason: "I will not fear, I will not doubt, but I will not refuse to admire. When the refusal to admire is gone there will be nothing; only I will remain." He readied his weapons...

And he hoped, above all else, that this Big Thingy had already been cut into manageable pieces. Because if it hadn't, if it was huge and whole, then there was nothing for it: he'd have to deploy illegal BNPS (biased negative points searches), or even call down the big safe box...

Stuart, very cute. :)

IIRC, the core of Marxism is historical materialism. But that doesn't mean anything to me. Is it more than the sum of Armstrong's independent parts?

Should really ask crooked timber or somewhere. Very good post.

I'm afraid Francis Bacon cribbed essentially all of his scientific method from an Iraqi usually called "Ibn al Haytham" (or "Alhacen", or "Alhazen", in different contexts).

Al Haytham invented modern science as an adjunct to studying (i.e., creating the field of) optics, about a thousand years ago. Appealingly, instead of simply advocating the method, he demonstrated using it to investigate natural phenomena, and explained, alongside his results, how the method offered the reader both confidence in his results and a means to correct his errors.

Bacon deserves some credit for bringing al Haytham's insights to the English-speaking public, centuries later. He didn't pretend to originality, but the English at the time weren't very interested in what an Iraqi had done 500 years earlier.

Feyerabend, as Greg Egan put it, "the basis of science is just systematic honesty, and there's nothing we can't be honest about". Of what use are "alternative approaches", I wonder!

But personally, I doubt life has any meaning in the context of infinite universe, where every possible history is guaranteed to exist or even already exists in some way, as I understand it.

Stuart, very cute. :)

Thanks :-)

I felt Eliezer's project has reached a point where some drama would be required.

Artyom, that is a predictable non-response. Why it is about science that grants it a monopoly on systematic honesty? Why is systematic honesty the relevant procedural virtue with regard to this question? Why do you seem so sure that only science is capable of producing worthy answers to such questions?

This blog is the most cringe-inducing example of Plato's Cave I have seen in a long, long time.

The value of a mode of inquiry lies as much in the value of the questions it generates as in the answers. Science sets a high threshold for answers, but a good question can be worth much more than any answer.

What is important in life? Meaning. Life still seems important to me though I think it quite possible it's all absurd. Reactions may vary.

Why do you seem so sure that only science is capable of producing worthy answers to such questions? Science works. It gives us cool things like rocketships. What have your alternative approaches ever given us?

For those unfamiliar with Feyerabend's namesake, treat yourself to some David Stove.

Why it is about science that grants it a monopoly on systematic honesty?

You have failed your attempt at reading comprehension. Further attempts at conversing with you will not be fruitful.

"If you try to sever science from e.g. parental love, you aren't just denying cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. You're also denying Martine Rothblatt's founding of United Therapeutics to seek a cure for her daughter's pulmonary hypertension. (Successfully, I might add.) Science is legitimately related, one way or another, to just about every important facet of human existence."

Well, no. No one in their right mind makes the argument that "scientists can't love their children" or "a scientific enterprise cannot be motivated by love.".

The phrase "Science has nothing to say about a parent's love for their child" means only that there is no "scientific explanation" for a parent's love. This may or may not be entirely true, but right or wrong, it has nothing to do with (as you rather confusingly put it) "denying" Martine Rothblatt seeking a cure for her daughter's pulmonary hypertension. That search is an act of love, motivated by love, not an explanation for why the love is there in the first place.

I'm not sure whether this is redundant , but keep an eye out for Goodhart's Law. Does a particular thing which is claimed to be wonderful actually share the virtues of some wonderful thing that it resembles?

This post made me think of this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html

My own cure for the Singularitarian happiness death spiral: Science falls on the just and the unjust alike.

In my humble opinion, one false claim is that science is so wonderful that scientists shouldn't even try to take ethical responsibility for their work, it will automatically end well. This claim, to me, seems to misunderstand the nature of the process whereby science benefits humanity.

Video

Gather ’round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun,
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience.
Call him a Nazi, he won’t even frown,
“Ha, Nazi, Schmazi,” says Wernher von Braun.

Don’t say that he’s hypocritical,
Say rather that he’s apolitical.
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun.

Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples in old London town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.

You too may be a big hero,
Once you’ve learned to count backwards to zero.
“In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I’m learning Chinese!” says Wernher von Braun.

--Tom Lehrer, “Wernher von Braun”

Once you know about affective death spirals, you can use them in tricky ways. Consider for example, that you got into an affective death spiral about capital "R" Rationality which caused you to start entertaining false delusions (like that teaching Rationality to your evil stepmother would finally make her love you, or whatever). If you know that this is an affective death spiral, you can do an "affective death spiral transfer" that helps you avoid the negative outcome without needing to go to war with your own positive feelings: in this case, realise that it's incredibly awesome that Rationality is so cool that it can even help you correct an affective death spiral about itself. Of course, you have to be careful to become actually good at this (but you get Rationality points for realising this, and triple Rationality points for actually achieving it. Awesome!!!). You also get huge Rationality boosts for realising failure modes in your pursuit of Rationality in general (because that's totally Rational too! See how that works?).

Affective death spirals are like anti-akrasia engines, so getting rid of them entirely might be substantially less advantageous than applying some clever munchkinry to them.

This post blew my mind. What a great idea! This great idea idea explains so much. Now I can see why I've naively been a communist my entire life. It makes me feel good to be part of a savagely oppressed minority. Now I see that all of my opinions have this dangerous feedback loop of me believing them. I think god is a myth, because it makes me feel good. I think cheesy bread is unhealthy, it make me feel good. Oh no! The great idea is too powerful. It makes me feel so superior to compare other people's political philosophies to cults. The great idea idea must be a 'great idea' itself! I'm in the death spiral helpppppppppppppp................

This post is ridiculous. Any 'general' theory is far more complicated than presented here. Any real 'general' idea is far more complex both logically and emotionally than presented here. While I'm not against simplification or reduction, this is a strawman of a strawman. The real way to avoid being drawn in to ideological complacency is continued re-examination, reflection and growth of your ideas. In short, to keep thinking and expanding them.

It may be useful to the cause of avoiding one's own potential happy death spirals (HDSs) to actively attempt to subvert the "my ideas are my children" trope. Perceived ownership of an idea or mental tool may be a prime contributor to HDS thinkery, giving rise to the kind of protectiveness we humans tend to provide our offspring whether or not they deserve it. The fact that our child started the fight with another child doesn't prevent us from stepping in on OUR child's side; the fact that our child is demonstrably average doesn't prevent us from telling complete strangers how intelligent, sweet, talented, beautiful, etc. OUR child is, was, and shall always be, forever and ever, amen.

So too it seems to be with the ideas we feel we own, particularly the ones we ourselves have generated. This impulse is entirely understandable within the context of a species whose primary survival trait is intelligence, with opposable thumbs taking a distant second. Yet to feel ownership of an idea to the point that we feel protective of it seems rationally contraindicated: an idea - anyone's - should only be valued insofar as it can stand on its own in the uncaring realm of reality... in a making beliefs pay rent kind of way.

So perhaps a good solution to the "How?" of resisting HDSs would be to try to view ideas and mental tools as being both fundamentally borrowed and potentially disposable upon breaking. It's a nice way of avoiding even the temptation to indulge in ad hominem, as well.

Dead link to "scientists shouldn't even try to take ethical responsibility for their work" link is now here [LW · GW]

"You’re also denying Martine Rothblatt’s founding of United Therapeutics to seek a cure for her daughter’s pulmonary hypertension" - if I were defending a mind/science division I would say you are messing up possibilities of science and motivations to do science. She may have been motivated by her parental (ahem, maternal... funny how parental and paternal consist of the same letters...) love to go to seek Science's help but it tells us nothing more about possibilities of science than going to seek a shaman's help would tell about possibilities of shaman rituals.

I just want to call these two paragraphs out as truly exceptional.

The happy death spiral is only an emotional problem because of a perceptual problem, the halo effect, that makes us more likely to accept future positive claims once we’ve accepted an initial positive claim. We can’t get rid of this effect just by wishing; it will probably always influence us a little. But we can manage to slow down, stop, consider each additional nice claim as an additional burdensome detail, and focus on the specific points of the claim apart from its positiveness.

What if a specific nice claim “can’t be disproven” but there are arguments “both for and against” it? Actually these are words to be wary of in general, because often this is what people say when they’re rehearsing the evidence or avoiding the real weak points. Given the danger of the happy death spiral, it makes sense to try to avoid being happy about unsettled claims—to avoid making them into a source of yet more positive affect about something you liked already.

The Happy Death Spiral is a very really thing still 14 years later. In the past I’ve heard similar behaviors called “True Believer Syndrome.” But I can spot many times in my past when an initial positive feeling about something made me too eager to believe other claims in it’s orbit.

I wouldn't say Bacon's scientific method is the only great idea that both promised and delivers on being massively beneficial to all mankind.

There are certain social principles that crop up again and again as well.  For example, the idea that free people making their own decisions and setting their own goals are, in the long run, vastly more efficient at practically everything than top-down, centralized control.  

It works surprisingly well wherever it's tried, consistently out-performs the predictions of the centralizers, and, at this point, we're even starting to understand the logical and mathematical basis for why it works.

And yet, somehow, most of its historical proponents are seen as crackpots or religious nuts.

I find splitting the Great Idea a very useful tool to quantify its relevance ("For how many parts do I feel they are true?"), and this way, to apply falsification (for which I find "If your idea wasn't true, how would you find out? Because if you don't ask, it might be not true, but you didn't find out." to be the most logical and intuitive description. And so in case of splitting, you can say "I would admit my idea was incorrect, if not all its 12 parts felt correct separately. Easy.".).

If you retrieve the standard cached deep wisdom for don’t go overboard on admiring science, you will find thoughts like “Science gave us air conditioning, but it also made the hydrogen bomb” ... But the people who originated such thoughts ... Probably they didn’t like something science had to say about their pet beliefs, and sought ways to undermine its authority.

Among early critics of science making the hydrogen bomb were Einstein, Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Bertrand Russell. They didn't like the risk of mass death, civilizational collapse, and possible human extinction. They weren't trying to undermine the authority of science.

If someone is so deep into a "happy death spiral" about science that nuclear weapons don't make them blink that is a severe case. I think it can be an effective argument for milder cases. Certainly my love for science was held in check by reading about AI extinction risk in 1997.

More generally I think that noticing the skulls of your Great Idea is often a cure. If someone is getting a happy death spiral about the USA, it helps if they notice the slavery. If industrialization, notice the global warming. If Christianity, notice the Inquisition. And so on.