Rationality Quotes Thread March 2015

It seemed rather short

Misao Okawa, the world's oldest person, when asked "how she felt about living for 117 years."

One kid said to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?” I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.” He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush (or something). Your father doesn’t teach you anything!” But it was the opposite. My father had taught me, looking at a bird, he says, “Do you know what that bird is? It’s a brown-throated thrush. But in Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida; in Italian, a Chutto Lapittida." He says, "In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda, et cetera." He says, "Now you know all the languages you want to know what the name of that bird is, and when when you’re finished with all that," he says, "you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. Well," he says, "let’s look at the bird and what it’s doing."

--Richard Feynman, source. Full video (The above passage happens at about the 7:00 mark in the full version.)

N.B. The transcript provided differs slightly from the video. I have followed the video.

Related to: Replace the Symbol with the Substance

[Transcript from video, hence long and choppy]

I think the way the battle lines are drawn in the world we live in, the battle lines typically fall in terms of 'what are your conclusions?' Like: are you a republican; are you a democrat; are you a libertarian; are you a socialist? And the more I think about it, this strikes me as extremely odd.

Why should the battle lines be drawn in terms of conclusions? Another way of drawing the battle lines would be, say, in terms of how people think. So if I take someone like Matt [Yglesias?], who's one of the commenters - I read Matt's blog all the time. Matt, I think, would agree that he and I disagree on a lot of issues. Not on everything, but we disagree a lot. We disagree every day. We sort of write back and forth to each other and to others, and even if we don't call each other by name, we're, like, disagreeing in public every day.

But at the same time when I read Matt I have this feeling like 'if I were a progressive, this is the argument I would make'. I feel that way when I read Matt. There's other writers, like when I read Paul Krugman, I don't feel that way. I don't think if I were progressive I would argue like Paul Krugman.

So this method of thinking in common, there's this question, should I be emotionally, intellectually, whatever, more allied to people with whom I share conclusions, or with whom I share a certain method of thinking? And when I disagree with Matt, which is frequently, I feel like I can always figure out very quickly where we disagree. There's something about the framework we have in common. And that, to me, seems like a powerful commonality. So in general I'm interested in getting people to explore, or re-explore, what are our true commonalities with other people?

-- Tyler Cowen from a talk on on neurodiversity

One problem is that most people think we are always in the short run. No matter how many times you teach students that tight money raises rates in the short run (liquidity effect) and lowers them in the long run (income and Fisher effects), when the long run actually comes around they will still see the fall in interest rates as ECB policy "easing". And this is because most people think the term "short run" is roughly synonymous with "right now." It's not. Actually "right now" we see the long run effects of policies done much earlier. We are not in an eternal short run. That's the real problem with Keynes's famous "in the long run we are all dead."

Scott Sumner

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea if it's the only one you have.

-- Émile Auguste Chartier, Propos sur la religion, 1938

Because it is often easy to detect the operation of motivated belief formation in others, we tend to disbelieve the conclusions reached in this way, without pausing to see whether the evidence might in fact justify them. Until around 1990 I believed, with most of my friends, that on a scale of evil from 0 to 10 (the worst), Communism scored around 7 or 8. Since the recent revelations I believe that 10 is the appropriate number. The reason for my misperception of the evidence was not an idealistic belief that Communism was a worthy ideal that had been betrayed by actual Communists. In that case, I would simply have been victim of wishful thinking or self-deception. Rather, I was misled by the hysterical character of those who claimed all along that Communism scored 10. My ignorance of their claims was not entirely irrational. On average, it makes sense to discount the claims of the manifestly hysterical. Yet even hysterics can be right, albeit for the wrong reasons. Because I sensed and still believe that many of these fierce anti-Communists would have said the same regardless of the evidence, I could not believe that what they said did in fact correspond to the evidence. I made the mistake of thinking of them as a clock that is always one hour late rather than as a broken clock that shows the right time twice a day.

Jon Elster, Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 136-137, n. 16

When you see a good move, look for a better one.

Emanuel Lasker

Always take into consideration the fact that you might be dead wrong

--Sam Vimes, Jingo, Terry Pratchett

The vanity of teaching often tempteth a Man to forget he is a Blockhead.

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Reflections

The mistakes are there, waiting to be made.

Savielly Tartakower, on the starting position in chess. Source.

- Tyler Cowen

You cannot change and yet remain the same, though this is what most people want.

--Patrick J. MacDonald

Having got on well by adopting a certain line of conduct, it is impossible to persuade men that they can get on well by acting otherwise. It thus comes about that a man's fortune changes, for she changes his circumstances but he does not change his ways.

-Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses

Any model makes some inaccurate predictions but models can retain utility despite significant propensities for inaccuracy. Inaccurate predictions aid the choice of models for future predictions. Because of this, the central scientific problem in the computational study of the MBH mechanism is not the inaccuracy of the predictions. Rather, it is the absence of any particular prediction at all.

--R. Erik Plata and Daniel A. Singleton, A Case Study of the Mechanism of Alcohol-Mediated Morita Baylis-Hillman Reactions. The Importance of Experimental Observations.

"The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well."

• Ursula k. Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea

When writing the history, the writer is sitting outside the time, in Olympian detachment, surveying what was said and done, with the knowledge of what overhyped fads will fall by the wayside, and what ignored actions will prove to be crucial. He hasn't got that for the present era; the writer is still meshed in the circumstances that lead to the hyping and the ignoring. Not to mention that he is very likely to be a partisan in the matter -- most who write histories of a thing are passionately attached to the thing itself. Which can also lead to a shocking change in tone in the last chapter too, as the calm recitation of facts gives way to the sound of axes grinding, even if the writer manages to make interesting observations.

The irony is that anyone who's done the history of things will have read, in his research, many, many, many writers making idiots of themselves because they do not realize they are enmeshed in their era, and yet this does not stop doing the same thing over again.

Mary Catelli

"Politics selects for people who see the world in black and white, then rage at all the darkness" -- Megan McArdle

Anger is an evolutionary strategy that helps us deal with threats. It focuses our mind on the target, suppresses our fear and drives us to attack.

Anger is not evolution's answer to generic "threats." You don't get angry at the saber-toothed tiger charging you. Rather, it is a response to threats to social cohesion. People who break the rules make us angry even when they don't directly harm us. It's why people find themselves yelling at pedestrians who cross against the light even when the delay to the driver is a matter of seconds.

That's why politicians are angry: because they are trying to artificially create a sense of social cohesion in their coalition of voters.

Rob Lyman, in a discussion of why so many politicians have an angry persona.

“Things are not as they seem. They are what they are.” ― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

But, above all, there is the conviction that the pursuit of truth, whether in the minute structure of the atom or in the vast system of the stars, is a bond transcending human differences.

-- Arthur Eddington, "The Future of International Science", as quoted in An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War: the 1919 Eclipse Expedition and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer

Gordon [Tullock] was on my dissertation committee. After reading all 252 pages of my dissertation within twelve hours of my submitting it, Gordon caught me in the Public Choice hallway at Virginia Tech to give me his assessment: "Minimal but acceptable." To which I replied, "Optimal. Done!"

-- Richard McKenzie, quoted on Econlog

As to a "science" of human conduct, I have mentioned some difficulties, notably that one of the most distinctive traits of man is make-believe, hypocrisy, concealment, dissimulation, deception. He is the clothes-wearing animal, but the false exterior he gives to his body is nothing to that put on by his mind.

Frank Knight, "The Role of Principles in Economics and Politics" p.11

Probably not found anywhere online, my favorite college professor, Ernest N. Roots, used to say, " Things that are simply remarkable, become remarkably simple, once they are understood". This has been my personal defense against arguments from ignorance ever since.

No, science is not a set of answers; it is a procedure.

Nassim Taleb

Eric S. Raymond: "Interesting human behavior tends to be overdetermined."

Example sources:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4213

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?m=20020525

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6599

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

Richard Feynman, What is Science?

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

-Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

Facts push other facts into and then out of consciousness at speeds that neither permit nor require evaluation.

Neil Postman from Amusing ourselves to Death, p 70

Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is "wishful thinking." You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself.

-- C. S. Lewis

History teaches us, gentlemen, that great generals remain generals by never underestimating their opposition.

Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna: The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (1987) (TV)

The history of human thought would make it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all the facts are on the table.

--Isaac Asimov, "How Do People Get New Ideas?"

Social problems are not only hard but finally insoluble. Yet many of them will inevitably get some kind of "treatment"; it is a question of better or worse, or of making things better, more or less, or making them worse than before, even to downright disaster. As I remember hearing "Tommy" Adams say in a classroom, we must not call any problems insoluble which must be solved in some way and for which some solutions are better, or worse, than others.

Frank Knight, "The Role of Principles in Economics and Politics" p.19

His claim of the insolubility of social problems is not a note of hopeless despair but should be understood in the context of his argument that free association and cooperation are the best and really only way to solve social problems, but pushed to their limit the result would be intolerable.

Think "Tommy" Adams refers to Thomas Sewall Adams.

I never was good at learning things. I did just enough work to pass. In my opinion it would have been wrong to do more than was just sufficient, so I worked as little as possible.

Manfred von Richthofen

Scott Adams posted his "My best tweets" collection. About half of them are examples of instrumental rationality in action, and most are worth a laugh. Some of my favorites from the Arguing with Idiots section are in the repiies.

This is Hari's business. She takes innocuous ingredients and makes you afraid of them by pulling them out of context.... Hari's rule? "If a third grader can't pronounce it, don't eat it." My rule? Don't base your diet on the pronunciation skills of an eight-year-old.

From http://gawker.com/the-food-babe-blogger-is-full-of-shit-1694902226

[S]tupidity is one of two things we see most clearly in retrospect. The other is missed chances.

Stephen King, 11/22/63

“My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don't expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.” ― Diane Setterfield

The context for this quote is a Hansonian post emphasizing that rationality has costs, and someone who wishes to seek truth must be prepared to accept them: http://lesswrong.com/lw/j/the_costs_of_rationality/ ​

The particular example chosen in the quote is not the best since non-existence of ghosts is not a lie. Nonetheless, the point is well-taken. As a short-term comforting strategy (say to comfort a five year old), it is preferable to say ghosts were destroyed by Zeus or something, than to say that it is highly unlikely that ghosts ever existed because no ghost stories have had a reasonably credible source etc.

The Bible says that God made the world in six days. Great Uncle Charles thinks it took longer: but we need not worry about it, for it is equally wonderful either way

-- Margaret Vaughan Williams

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

[F]ingertips without maps are empty; maps without fingertips are blind.

-- Paul Churchland, chapter 2 of Plato's Camera

I know a man who, when I ask him what he knows, asks me for a book in order to point it out to me, and wouldn't dare tell me that he has an itchy backside unless he goes immediately and studies in his lexicon what is itchy and what is a backside.

-Montaigne, On Pedantry

This argument also relies on a ridiculous definition of rational.

Whilst rational economic actors do attempt to maximise their profit, the argument ignores that this takes place in the context of varying time windows. In effect it argues that it’s “rational” to take a tiny increase in profit today even if that destroys your business and all the potential long term profits you could obtain tomorrow and the day after. This definition is absurd and no actual business works that way.

Mike Hearn, Replace by Fee, a Counter Argument

Drug is not a habbit, habbit could be a drug (Maahir) http://here4share.com/inspirational-quotes

Ethics from first principles is as useless and frivolous as physics from first principles.

"Mai La Dreapta," commenting at SSC.