So I was trying to write an entirely different post but kept getting brought out of the flow because I realized a need to provide “background material”, to stay comprehensible. I don’t want to get stuck in a perfectionist trap where I try to be comprehensible, but I’m also a bit interested in writing this post, so I’ll go at it.
This post will be about wisdom, based on John Vervaeke's “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”. This is not The Truth™, it’s a viewpoint that might be worthwhile. But I will present it as The Truth™ because I don’t like to hedge my wording all the time.
The short version: Wisdom is defined as rationality that optimizes itself. Rationality is defined as intelligence that optimizes itself. Intelligence is defined as the fundamental ability to discern what’s relevant.
The longer version
Intelligence
As you navigate the world, what’s relevant is context-dependent. Nothing is intrinsically relevant, relevance is a connection between you and the “relevant” thing.
An example: You have a table with: an apple, a pair of scissors, your headphones, a water bottle. What’s relevant? Depends on your state. If you are starving the apple is highly relevant. If you want to listen to music, the headphones are relevant.
We are agents of intent, able to make choices between different actions. We do this based on the consequences of the choices we make1. The consequences are innumerable, as the forking pathways of the future “explode” into an enormous number of different potential future timelines.
How do we know which consequences are relevant?
How do we know what actions are relevant in terms of reaching a goal?
How do we know which side-effects of what actions are relevant?
We use our capacity for relevance realization to discern what’s relevant and what’s not. Relevance realization is a fundamental aspect of cognition. Better relevance realization means better planning/pattern matching/problem-solving.
Efficient relevance realization == intelligence.
Rationality
We are evolved to fit in an entirely different environment than the one we live in at the moment. Ironically, we as a species have turned the world increasingly foreign to basic human intuitions.
I get overwhelmed when I try to come up with examples as this is territory I’ve been exploring a lot. I’ll just list a few to give an idea of what I’m talking about:
We are constantly exposed to super stimuli optimized to make us addicted. Social media, advertisements, refined sugar, and all manner of services try to get you hooked.
We have built a highly complex world full of interconnected systems and feedback loops. Humans don’t understand exponentials or tail risk. This is where global risk come from, playing with hyperobjects outside of our intuitions.
Our social instincts when it comes to shame is way overblown, acting like we’d get killed if we are excluded from a group.
Rationality in this definition is about trying to see through illusion, compensate for evolutionary maladaptations and train the relevance realization machinery to make better predictions.
This is done through learning about things like biases & basic statistics. If it’s to be effective, it also involves real-life training where you practice acting in accordance with your principles2. Insight is also useful to gain new perspectives and appreciation.
Note - delicate machinery, do not misuse.
Rationality, in its benign form, is an existential process to re-shape how we function on a fundamental level, to better tune into reality. I struggle to avoid reification (see keeping it real) where I do a bait-and-switch, replacing Rationality with {Rationality}
.
{Rationality}
is about status transactions, showing off how many concepts I know, and impressing through an ability to dissect minute philosophical points. This is totally missing the point, turning a transformative existential practice into bullshit.
This bad habit of mine has gotten better over time, through a series of insights I might share later. I’ve gotten a bit wiser, though there’s a long path ahead.
(I wrote “a bit wiser“ instead of claiming to be wise because I thought it sounded wiser and less prone to adverse reactions. And because I feel a bit like a fraud since I’ve started to realize how little I know for certain.)
Wisdom
Wisdom is all about finding a balance in how you are self-improving through Rationality. Many rationalists, including me, go through a phase where they enjoy being better than everyone else by not having strong feelings.
Then comes a realization: The logic, step-by-step mode of reasoning is great when it comes to solving certain problems. But when it comes to radical leaps in one’s existential mode of being, it sucks. This is why highly rational/intelligent people get stuck in “existential traps” such as depression: it’s impossible to reason your way out when you actually need to shift your fundamental mode of being.
A wiser thing to do is to adjust your approach depending on the situation. If you are stuck in a rut, do something to shake things up. I can recommend going to burns, joining weird ceremonies, ecstatic dancing and similar.
Adjusting your approach depending on the situation requires a meta-perspective: this can’t be done while living entirely in the world of propositions & concepts. Instead, you can play with propositions & concepts while keeping track of things like:
How the thinking process affects your emotional state (happy? angry?)
If the reasoning process is likely to have a positive impact on your future self
What perspectives you are holding, and if you are doing this on an experiential/existential level as well as conceptual/propositional.
So, to take my own advice: I’m feeling tired, and it’s 5min past bedtime. I feel a bit like I should polish this up before sending it out, but I’ll ignore that.
Good night!
I still consider myself mostly a virtue ethicist rather than a consequentialist. I will expand on this later. Maybe.
Told you.