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This is: Flinching away from truth” is often about protecting the epistemology, published by AnnaSalamon on the LessWrong.
Related to: Leave a line of retreat; Categorizing has consequences.
There’s a story I like, about this little kid who wants to be a writer. So she writes a story and shows it to her teacher.
“You misspelt the word ‘ocean’”, says the teacher.
“No I didn’t!”, says the kid.
The teacher looks a bit apologetic, but persists: “‘Ocean’ is spelt with a ‘c’ rather than an ‘sh’; this makes sense, because the ‘e’ after the ‘c’ changes its sound.”
“No I didn’t!” interrupts the kid.
“Look,” says the teacher, “I get it that it hurts to notice mistakes. But that which can be destroyed by the truth should be! You did, in fact, misspell the word ‘ocean’.”
“I did not!” says the kid, whereupon she bursts into tears, and runs away and hides in the closet, repeating again and again: “I did not misspell the word! I can too be a writer!”.
I like to imagine the inside of the kid’s head as containing a single bucket that houses three different variables that are initially all stuck together:
Original state of the kid's head:
The goal, if one is seeking actual true beliefs, is to separate out each of these variables into its own separate bucket, so that the “is ‘oshun’ spelt correctly?” variable can update to the accurate state of "no", without simultaneously forcing the "Am I allowed to pursue my writing ambition?" variable to update to the inaccurate state of "no".
Desirable state (requires somehow acquiring more buckets):
The trouble is, the kid won’t necessarily acquire enough buckets by trying to “grit her teeth and look at the painful thing”. A naive attempt to "just refrain from flinching away, and form true beliefs, however painful" risks introducing a more important error than her current spelling error: mistakenly believing she must stop working toward being a writer, since the bitter truth is that she spelled 'oshun' incorrectly.
State the kid might accidentally land in, if she naively tries to "face the truth":
(You might take a moment, right now, to name the cognitive ritual the kid in the story should do (if only she knew the ritual). Or to name what you think you'd do if you found yourself in the kid's situation -- and how you would notice that you were at risk of a "buckets error".)
More examples:
It seems to me that bucket errors are actually pretty common, and that many (most?) mental flinches are in some sense attempts to avoid bucket errors. The following examples are slightly-fictionalized composites of things I suspect happen a lot (except the "me" ones; those are just literally real):
Diet: Adam is on a diet with the intent to lose weight. Betty starts to tell him about some studies suggesting that the diet he is on may cause health problems. Adam complains: “Don’t tell me this! I need to stay motivated!”
One interpretation, as diagramed above: Adam is at risk of accidentally equating the two variables, and accidentally assuming that the studies imply that the diet must stop being viscerally motivating. He semi-consciously perceives that this risks error, and so objects to having the information come in and potentially force the error.
Pizza purchase: I was trying to save money. But I also wanted pizza. So I found myself tempted to buy the pizza really quickly so that I wouldn't be able to notice that it would cost money (and, thus, so I would be able to buy the pizza):
On this narration: It wasn't necessarily a mistake to buy pizza today. Part of me correctly perceived this "not necessarily a mistake to buy pizza" state. Part of me also expected that the rest of me wouldn't perceive this, and that, if I started thinking it through, I might get locked into the no-pizza state even if pizza was better. So it tried to 'help' by buying the pizza really quickly, ...
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