34 Comments

Ok, I guess that is a variant of the lying answer. We have false beliefs because it is less work to, at some level, believe the claim than to disbelieve it but consciously represent it as true.

That seems like a possible explanation.

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http://falsemachine.blogspo... : the flower of french chivalry> the book in a nutshell: The smartest man in the room gets himself skullfucked because that is what a Knight does.> It unquestionably true that almost no-one in the nobility ever acted like the idealised version of a Knight in their stories but its also unquestionably true that they were all willing to die in order to retain their belief that that is what they were.> And even if they were too dumb to realise they were going to lose, de Coucy wasn't, and he probably knew what was going to happen, and did it anyway, and I think that is Tuchmans point.

don't be like this

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That has yet to be shown. It's important enough to me that I'll fight to do so all the way down.

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you have no way to keep it

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Because motives are so central to our choices.

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arch1, yes I agree. Believably pretending that you're an angel and all your friends are angels makes you a lot more friendable/marriable with maybe just a small amount of cognitive gymnastics required

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Strike that last sentence (I was fooling myself:-)

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Could we have evolved to be disposed to believe certain categories of things about others independent of their truth, because doing so yields a selective advantage (e.g. through the strengthening of relationships by sincerely avoiding bursting others' harmless bubbles) outweighing the cognitive cost? I can imagine how mirror neurons might have played a role in such a scenario.

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But there is a bunch of extra work involved in maintaining the conscious misrepresentation. WHY?

There has to be some kind of functional advantage that we acquire by having incorrect conscious ideas about other people's motivations. The only obvious candidate (to me) seems to be that it allows us to more convincingly/easily lie* about such motivations but it's not clear why that is so important.

*: Not the advantage re: lying isn't merely psychological (that could presumably be evolutionaryily altered) but that it presumably requires actual brain resources to hold one belief in mind while representing the world to be another way making it easier to detect.

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Robin, you know that everyone has many cognitive & perceptual dysfunctions. Why does this particular one (apparently) bug you so much? .

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Robin, your account of motivation runs directly counter to natural intuitions of an integrated self. It's not surprise people don't find it disturbing since most don't really understand it at all.

The fact is it's quite challenging, emotionally and intellectually, for people to internalize the basic neuroscientific framework of the modular brain, with different brain regions doing their own thing and constantly informing other parts about what's going on, weaving together in real-time a coherent narrative fed to more centralized, ego-associated processing areas. My favorite illustration of this are the various conditions of Agnosia, like Anton-Babinksi Syndrome, and the shocking confabulations people resort to. I like to think that everything in our lives, not just our motivations, but our very sense of self, has a confabulatory quality. The only difference between self-understanding and confabulation is that the former tends to help us get function in the world and the latter will tend to get us into trouble.

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I'm obviously using those concepts, though I don't use those names.

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Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

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Agree it is useful info.

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Well, if you really want to know what motivates you, maybe you should ask the people who know you best what they think motivates you. You might not agree with them, but you still might find what they have to say enlightening.

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I wouldn't bet on getting good results.

Ignoring for a minute every possible issue with it, stability etc. etc, I think most people would *also* see the majority of history as being a hell, compared to today. I know I would, and I'd fight to avoid returning to that.

I believe it's you who called current-day society 'dreamtime'. You may be right to call it that, but I think we're right in wanting to keep it.

Showing more details from your world would probably just make me more determined to avoid it.

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