For the first time, I was actually able to read an entire article by Eliezer, without being stuck. I read the article “Why Truth” and here I am to write about it.

Everything that is in quotes (“”), is Eliezers words from the article. Everything I write below is my interpretation/paraphrasing if you will. I also will try to add other examples to help me get the meaning out better.

Why Truth?

For me truth is about discovery. What exactly I “want” to do in life as a result of the growing chaos of not being able to make decisions without knowing what to optimize for. The sheer inability to know what is right and wrong in an objective sense, is what discovering the truth stands for me.

Our shaping motivation for configuring our thoughts to rationality, comes from whyever we wanted to find the truth in the first place.

Our shaping motivation for configuring our thoughts to rationality (for example, by writing essays), is as a result of whyever we wanted to find the truth in the first place, in my case to know what is the path I should take.

One reason could be curiosity. Something special to it is that, we tend to prioritize questions according to ones personal aesthetic sense. A trickier challenge with more probability of failure but much more satisfaction on finish, might be prioritized to be solved first as they seem more fun to us.

Emotion that arises from correct beliefs is a “rational emotion” and this somehow allows us to regard calm as an emotional state, rather than a privileged default. When people think of “emotion” and “rationality” as opposed it is suspected that maybe they are making a mistake as a result of Deliberative judgments.

P.S

I am not sure what I am trying to do here. I am trying to figure out what Eliezer is trying to say, but I doubt I am getting far! I am not sure of the format that I should embrace or how to formulate it such that it becomes a decent article at the very least.

Open Issue

Some people, I suspect, may object that curiosity is an emotion and is therefore “not rational”. I label an emotion as “not rational” if it rests on mistaken beliefs, or rather, on irrational epistemic conduct: “If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm.” Conversely, then, an emotion which is evoked by correct beliefs or epistemically rational thinking is a “rational emotion”; and this has the advantage of letting us regard calm as an emotional state, rather than a privileged default. When people think of “emotion” and “rationality” as opposed, I suspect that they are really thinking of System 1 and System 2—fast perceptual judgments versus slow deliberative judgments. Deliberative judgments aren’t always true, and perceptual judgments aren’t always false; so it is very important to distinguish that dichotomy from “rationality”. Both systems can serve the goal of truth, or defeat it, according to how they are used.

I do not understand the iron example and how he concluded from that, that calm is an emotional state rather than a orivileged default.