What are the weirdest things a human may want for their own sake?
post by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-20T11:15:09.791Z · LW · GW · 9 commentsThis is a question post.
Contents
Answers 6 AspiringRationalist 4 Dagon 1 Gunnar_Zarncke None 9 comments
I'm especially interested in examples of more or less psychologically healthy and otherwise (neuro)typical people having very weird[1] desires/values that we would characterize as intrinsic in the sense of being wanted for their own sake, even if we could explain their development as linked to a more typical human drive.
But I'm also somewhat interested in examples of very out-of-distribution desires/values in very [otherwise psychologically out-of-distribution] people.
Some intermediate cases that come to my mind; I'm centrally interested in things weirder than that:
- Paul Erdös's obsession with mathematics is probably an intermediate case, i.e., it's just an extreme case of "a normal human passion".
- Some fetishes, e.g., what's the deal with feedism or dirtiness? (See also this podcast episode for an evopsych explanation of BDSM.)
- Maybe there would be some cultures that install very weird terminal values. I was somewhat surprised that some South Pacific cultures viewed heterosexuality as sinful.
- ^
Obviously, this is a parochial criterion in that the values that seem "weird" to us would seem "normal" to the people who have those values. That's fine.
Answers
Spicy food. Plants evolved capsaicin production in order to deter mammals from eating them, yet many humans (myself included) like eating plants specifically because they contain capsaicin.
↑ comment by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-21T04:35:10.314Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yeah, that's interesting... unlike fetishes and math, this is something other animals should (?) in principle be capable of but apparently it's a uniquely human thing.
How do you define/measure "weird" (and strength of "want", for that matter)? There are VERY strong selection effects against the vast majority of human-action space. I'd argue that almost zero human behavior is all that weird in an absolute sense, though with enough dimensions of difference, almost all behaviors are weird in a relative sense. Sexual or sensual preferences are diverse, but all in a pretty small portion of desire-space, so I don't consider them weird.
To try to give a concrete answer, I'd say suicide by an otherwise-healthy human is the weirdest desire I know of. Much more common, but equally weird in terms of mapping to a rational goal framework, is consumption of alcohol and non-zootropic drugs.
↑ comment by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-20T18:25:19.954Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
How do you define/measure "weird" (and strength of "want", for that matter)?
I don't have anything more concrete than "seemingly not in the category of things humans tend to intrinsically want". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To try to give a concrete answer, I'd say suicide by an otherwise-healthy human is the weirdest desire I know of.
Yeah, that's a good example and brought to my mind obvious-in-retrospect [body integrity dysphoria]/xenomelia where (otherwise seemingly psychologically normal?) people want to get rid of some part of their body. (I haven't looked into it that much but AFAIR it's probably something going somewhat precisely wrong with the body schema?)
Here is a long list of fetishes together with their tabooness:
https://aella.substack.com/p/fetish-tabooness-vs-popularity
↑ comment by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-20T12:04:45.231Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yeah, I linked a new version of this plot in the OP.
Replies from: Gunnar_Zarncke↑ comment by Gunnar_Zarncke · 2024-03-20T16:20:11.109Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Sorry, I didn't realize that link was already included.
9 comments
Comments sorted by top scores.
comment by the gears to ascension (lahwran) · 2024-03-20T18:34:59.557Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
how's my short utopia fantasy [LW(p) · GW(p)]?
Replies from: mateusz-baginski↑ comment by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-20T18:58:27.342Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Nah, IMO it's a straightforward extrapolation of some subset of normal human values; not that different from what I would do
Replies from: lahwran↑ comment by the gears to ascension (lahwran) · 2024-03-21T08:45:00.222Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
fair enough, happy to hear it haha. I've definitely encountered people who thought it was unfathomably weird!
comment by Gunnar_Zarncke · 2024-03-20T11:57:34.887Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Can you make more precise what you mean by "for their own sake"?
Replies from: mateusz-baginski↑ comment by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-20T12:03:58.454Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Something like "terminal"/"intrinsic", i.e. not in service of any other desire.
ETA: the terminal/instrumental distinction probably doesn't apply cleanly to humans but think of the difference between Alice who reads book XYZ because she really likes XYZ (in the typical ways humans like books) and Bob who reads the same book only to impress Charlie.
Replies from: Gunnar_Zarncke↑ comment by Gunnar_Zarncke · 2024-03-20T16:35:08.356Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
In the end, all behaviors are grounded in the brain's steering systems evaluation. The neocortex and the other parts of the brain can't optimize the steering system's implicit function directly, but only explore the search space incrementally from where it starts (as a baby). There are all kinds of attractor states and local maxima[1] that in human lifetime you likely can't reach anything close to optimum (not even considering the changing environment).
Whatever we call "terminal" can only be names for common[2] attractor states that people do not get out during the time of observation.
- ^
Not strictly local maximal because the search space is very high-dimensional and there are likely no local maxima, but the gradient out can still be through a very narrow "ravine".
- ^
in our larger social environment; at other times the states may have been different.
↑ comment by Mateusz Bagiński (mateusz-baginski) · 2024-03-20T17:45:09.444Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I tentatively agree with this view.
This still leaves open the question: "What are some uncommon/peculiar attractor states corresponding to [people seemingly terminally valuing 'weird' things]?".
comment by Shankar Sivarajan (shankar-sivarajan) · 2024-03-20T18:51:10.051Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
some South Pacific cultures viewed heterosexuality as sinful.
That sounds like Margaret Mead's work.
Replies from: Viliam↑ comment by Viliam · 2024-03-22T08:41:46.614Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Maybe just "original research" of some Wikipedia editor? Wikipedia page says "clarification needed".
Or maybe some important context is missing, for example that young boys were socially discouraged from having sex with girls, which would make sense from the selfish perspective of the older men (for whom having heterosexual sex was considered okay, because [insert culturally approved rationalization]).