The Pessimism Principle

[FoolKiller]

What on earth did you just write? I can't figure out what you are talking about... Sorry, mate.

 

[Doclector]

If I'm reading this right, you think pessimists will, upon being given positive information, disregard it as false.

Quite simply not true. To be pessimistic is to expect the worst, but when something good does happen, pessimists do not simply deny it happened. That's an idiot. Not a pessimist.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Is this entire thread just you coming up with a definition for pessimism?

 

[9Darksoul6]

Is this entire thread just you coming up with a definition for pessimism?

If I'm reading this right, you think pessimists will, upon being given positive information, disregard it as false.
Quite simply not true. To be pessimistic is to expect the worst, but when something good does happen, pessimists do not simply deny it happened. That's an idiot. Not a pessimist.

So what you were trying to say is "The world could be better"? I still feel like you haven't really clarified a lot, even though you observed that basically nobody here understood what you were trying to say. Also, while you're at it, could you explain why you feel that whatever your principle is, is true?

I'm giving it one last shot.
To put it simply:
- Person A makes an hypotesis.
- Person A would be happier ff this hypotesis would be true.
Therefore:
- This hypotesis is most likely not true.

"Why?" is explained in the first post through 3 major points.

 

[Anarchemitis]

You'll change your perspective once you realize how awesome things will get for Optimists like me.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

I'm giving it one last shot.
To put it simply:
- Person A makes an hypotesis.
- Person A would be happier ff this hypotesis would be true.
Therefore:
- This hypotesis is most likely not true.

"Why?" is explained in the first post through 3 major points.

I like to think that the best hypothesis' are made by logic with little emotional imput, if your theory is true then they are just making up shit to appease what they hope is true. And you're not taking into account people who are making hypothesis' based on grim ideas they probably hope isn't the truth. People don't study things and conjure ideas for the sole purpose of getting the satisfaction of being right.

As an optimist I find your ramblings a bit confusing and long-winded, but at the same time I have a glimmer of hope that you can write something better next time

 

[Jordi]

So what you were trying to say is "The world could be better"? I still feel like you haven't really clarified a lot, even though you observed that basically nobody here understood what you were trying to say. Also, while you're at it, could you explain why you feel that whatever your principle is, is true?

I'm giving it one last shot.
To put it simply:
- Person A makes an hypotesis.
- Person A would be happier ff this hypotesis would be true.
Therefore:
- This hypotesis is most likely not true.

"Why?" is explained in the first post through 3 major points.

I read those three major points like "clarifications" on some things in your thesis, not reasons/arguments (although they didn't really clarify anything either).

I still can't really follow it though. 1) and 2) seem to say that getting pleasure from something is really unlikely. So should we conclude from that that if that is true, it is pretty damn suspect if you get pleasure from your hypothesis?
I think I understand 3) a little bit better. You're saying that the possible gain will cloud the mind, right? So because someone wishes something to be true, he is going to believe that it is true (i.e. have a hypothesis about it)? And because then his hypothesis is only based on wishful thinking, it is probably false?

That last thing I can see happening. Although even a biased person with things to gain from their hypothesis being true can "guess" right.

But even more importantly, I think that if what you're saying as your main principle would mean that no hypothesis can ever be true if anyone at all benefits from it. According to your principle person A can come up with a true hypothesis H as long as he doesn't benefit from it. But the truth of an hypothesis is completely independent of who came up with it. So if person B (who does benefit) had come up with it, it would have still been just as true.
Also, in order for your principle to be true, nobody could have ever come up with a true hypothesis if he benefited from it. Looking at the history of time, do you honestly believe that that is the case?

 

[Hyperthetical]

What about counter-intuitive happiness? i.e. I hypothesize that the world ends tomorrow, but the consequences of making the hypothesis (i.e. attention, self-importance, feeling of purpose) make me happy, while if the hypothesis itself contained any truth, it should make me sad.

Additionally, you postulate rests upon the enumeration of a possibly infinite set of possibilities, it would be foolish then, to claim that it is clear that the enumeration must favour one state over the other without more compelling evidence.

 

[9Darksoul6]

I still can't really follow it though. 1) and 2) seem to say that getting pleasure from something is really unlikely.
So should we conclude from that that if that is true, it is pretty damn suspect if you get pleasure from your hypothesis?

I already answered those points to both SwimmingRock and TheAmazingHobo, respectively.
Since you seem a bit skeptic about 1) 2) let me repost this example:

Of all the combinations of sounds someone [other than you] can make in (let's say) 2 minutes, only a small part of those fit in the 'coherent speech' category; only a small part of this 'coerent speech' as meaning; only a small part of 'coherent speech with meaning' has any effect on you; only a small part of the previous category is something that will please you.

Second, I don't get pleasure from my hypotesis; why would I?

That last thing I can see happening. Although even a biased person with things to gain from their hypothesis being true can "guess" right.

If course it can. It's just completely improbable, to a near-impossible point. ("[its] probability is almost infinitesimal").

According to your principle person A can come up with a true hypothesis H as long as he doesn't benefit from it. But the truth of an hypothesis is completely independent of who came up with it. So if person B (who does benefit) had come up with it, it would have still been just as true.

It doesn't work like that. It's not cause/effect but logic whe're talking about. Saying "[it's] true (...) as long as he doesn't benefit from it" makes no sense here.

Let me rework it:
Person A comes up with an hypotesis and he doesn't benifit from it (note: then, at this point, it's not necessarily true, false, likely, or unlikely; it doesn't work the other way arround, right?).
Person B comes up with the same hypotesis, and benifits from it.
Ergo,
Both A and B are wrong.

Also: The probablity of it being true is not independent from the fact that what we like is a minority compared to what's possible. That said, it's not completely independent from the subject itself, for instance, the same way the number of faces a dice has is not completely independent from the number it will show after rolling.

 

[BGH122]

This is a personal 'theory' and I'd like to know your opinion about it:

"If an hypothesis would, if true, bring any kind pleasure/enjoyment to the subject who conceived it (the hypothesis), then it's certainly* not true."
*note: I am using 'certainty' as 'strong belief' here.

1) 'pleasure/enjoyment' is strict to a point equivalent as saying (taking any subject) of all things logically conceivable, there is less things that would bring pleasure/enjoyment to the subject, than things that wouldn't bring pleasure/enjoyment to the subject.

2) considering all things logically conveivable, this strictness must be very high, to a point equivalent as saying the probablity of things that bring pleasure/enjoyment is almost infinitesimal.

3) In addition, if the hypotesis was conceived by a subject, and it would bring him/her pleasure/enjoyment, his/her egoism could misdirect his/her intellectual process; there's no possible human factor (aside from intellectuality itself) that would balance this.




What do you think of it?

I think you and Jared Lee Loughner would make great friends.


Now that cruel joke is finished (those are my speciality) I'll rewrite these axioms and you can tell me if they mean what you meant them to mean:

"If a hypothesis would, if true, bring any kind pleasure to the subject who conceived of it, then the hypothesis is highly unlikely to be true."

1) Pleasure is strict to a point: of all things logically conceivable, there are less things that would bring pleasure to the subject than things that wouldn't bring pleasure to the subject.

By wouldn't bring pleasure, do you mean would bring displeasure?

2) Considering the number of things that are logically conceivable, this strictness must be very high, to a point equivalent to saying the probability of things that bring pleasure/enjoyment is almost infinitesimal.

Axiom 2 seems unnecessary as it's just a restatement of axiom 1 with the included clause that 'there are a lot of things that are logically conceivable'.

3) In addition, if a hypothesis is pleasurable it will necessarily misdirect the perceiver's intellect through invocation of egoism. This is necessarily true, as only intellect itself can prevent the invocation of egoism.

It seems that you're trying to say in axiom 3 that pleasure-bringing hypotheses cripple intellect and therefore become impossible to logically assess?

 

[9Darksoul6]

I think you and Jared Lee Loughner would make great friends.

Are you kidding? I love this dude xD.

"If a hypothesis would, if true, bring any kind pleasure to the subject who conceived of it, then the hypothesis is highly unlikely to be true."

Yes.

1) Pleasure is strict to a point: of all things logically conceivable, there are less things that would bring pleasure to the subject than things that wouldn't bring pleasure to the subject.

More or less. The "strict" part doesn't make much sense here.

By wouldn't bring pleasure, do you mean would bring displeasure?

No. The opposite of 'pleasure' can be 'displeasure'; however the contrary of 'pleasure' is not 'displeasure'. By 'wouldn't bring pleasure' I mean exactly what it says.

2) Considering the number of things that are logically conceivable, this strictness must be very high, to a point equivalent to saying the probability of things that bring pleasure/enjoyment is almost infinitesimal.

Axiom 2 seems unnecessary as it's just a restatement of axiom 1 with the included clause that 'there are a lot of things that are logically conceivable'.

I don't agree with you.
In the first one I say "there are less thing".
In the second one I say "and by 'less things' I mean 'really really really really less things' (to a point equivalent to saying it's probability is almost non-existent)."
It's not really the same thing.

3) In addition, if a hypothesis is pleasurable it will necessarily misdirect the perceiver's intellect through invocation of egoism. This is necessarily true, as only intellect itself can prevent the invocation of egoism.

Not quite. It's more like: "3) if a hypothesis is pleasurable it could misdirect the perceiver's intellect through invocation of egoism; nothing could balance this possible misdirection (aside from, well, his/her intellect itself)."

 

[BGH122]

More or less. The "strict" part doesn't make much sense here.

Ah, in that case I have no idea what you mean by strict. I thought you were defining it as a term within the argument.

No. The opposite of 'pleasure' can be 'displeasure'; however the contrary of 'pleasure' is not 'displeasure'. By 'wouldn't bring pleasure' I mean exactly what it says.

Good, just checking.

I don't agree with you.
In the first one I say "there are less thing".
In the second one I say "and by 'less things' I mean 'really really really really less things' (to a point equivalent to saying it's probability is almost non-existent)."
It's not really the same thing.

It's unnecessary, 'of all things logically conceivable' needs no further explanation. Axiom one already defines that there are less things that bring pleasure than those which bring a lack of pleasure and it already defines that this is true 'of all things logically conceivable', it already follows that the gap between pleasurable things and the opposite is very large given that it applies to everything.

Not quite. It's more like: "3) if a hypothesis is pleasurable it could misdirect the perceiver's intellect through invocation of egoism; nothing could balance this possible misdirection (aside from, well, his/her intellect itself)."

Okay, now we've got that sorted here's our argument, I've added axiom 3 to make the conclusion follow and I've tidied the conclusion up again so that it makes no assumptions:

Axiom 1) Of all things logically conceivable, there are less things that would bring pleasure to the subject than things that wouldn't bring pleasure to the subject.

Axiom 2) If a hypothesis is pleasurable it could misdirect the perceiver's intellect through invocation of egoism; This misdirection could only be balanced by an invocation of intellect.

Axiom 3) In order to assess the truth value of a hypothesis one must invoke intellect.

Conclusion) "If a hypothesis would, if true, bring any kind pleasure to the subject who conceived of it, then the veracity of the hypothesis cannot be assessed."

Right, here's the critique:

A1) This needs proof, here it is stated as if it's an obvious prima facie a priori truth: it isn't. We need a reason to believe, either a priori (deductively true) or a posteriori (experientially true), that it is the case that there are more things that fail to bring pleasure than bring pleasure.

A2) We need to prove that egoism is necessarily invoked by pleasure and that egoism necessarily misdirects intellect.

C) This doesn't invoke axiom 1 in any way, it is purely a conclusion of axiom 2 and 3. If axiom 2 and 3 were shown to be correct then this would be an infallible necessary conclusion of axiom 2 and 3, as we have shown that the following causal chain occurs:

Pleasure -> 'Egoism'
'Egoism' -> Misdirection of Intellect

and that the intellect is necessary to evaluate a hypothesis.

 

[9Darksoul6]

snip

Sorry mate, but it's kinda hard to answer your critique of your version of my version of my idea without sounding a little stupid and not feeling like I've wasted my time; still:

A1) What I wrote may sound like that at first glance, but if you'd read the whole thread you'd I've even posted the same example twice (the speech one). It may not be a deduction but it's rational.

 

[BGH122]

Sorry mate, but it's kinda hard to answer your critique of your version of my version of my idea without sounding a little stupid and not feeling like I've wasted my time; still:

No worries, this is how genuine philosophy works. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: you throw an idea at me, I show how it doesn't work and formulate my response and then you do the same ad infinitum.

A1) What I wrote may sound like that at first glance, but if you'd read the whole thread you'd I've even posted the same example twice (the speech one). It may not be a deduction but it's rational.

It needs to be included in the actual argument to make this philosophically workable. The first rule in a philosophical argument is assume your reader knows nothing other than the meaning of words you've not personally coined (although, now having read over the thread I'm presuming you're studying philosophy given your use of terms like axiom and a posteriori). I think the problem we're having is that axiom 1 doesn't make sense in this argument because it needs to be the conclusion of a separate argument like this:

Argument 1)

Axioms)

Conclusion) Of all things logically conceivable, there are less things that would bring pleasure to the subject than things that wouldn't bring pleasure to the subject.

Argument 2)

Axiom 1) Of all things logically conceivable, there are less things that would bring pleasure to the subject than things that wouldn't bring pleasure to the subject.

Axiom 2) If a hypothesis is pleasurable it could misdirect the perceiver's intellect through invocation of egoism; This misdirection could only be balanced by an invocation of intellect.

Axiom 3) In order to assess the truth value of a hypothesis one must invoke intellect.

Conclusion) "If a hypothesis would, if true, bring any kind pleasure to the subject who conceived of it, then the veracity of the hypothesis cannot be assessed."

Now we have to turn the following:

I don't think you're getting the idea. As a simple example: Of all the combinations of sounds someone can make in (let's say) 2 minutes, only a small part of those fit in the 'coherent speech' category; only a small part of this 'coerent speech' as meaning; only a small part of 'coherent speech with meaning' has any effect on you; only a small part of the previous category is something that will please you.

Into a form that can be used in Argument 1:

Arg 1)

A1) Of all things that are logically conceivable, only some can be directly experienced.
A2) Of all experience, only a small part is coherent.
A3) Of all coherent experience, only a small part will affect the perceiver.
A4) Of all parts of coherent experience affecting the perceiver, only a small part will affect the perceiver positively.
C) Of all things that are logically conceivable, there are less things that would bring pleasure to the perceiver than things that wouldn't bring pleasure to the perceiver.

Now we have an argument that proves A1 as more than just an assumption, however this argument needs further arguments to prove its veracity. Why should we believe that axiom 2 of argument 1 is necessary? Doesn't all our experience affect us, whether or not we can make sense of it? Don't you feel scared when you walk into certain rooms and not know why you're feeling scared? That's incoherent experience affecting your mood.

Furthermore, is axiom 3 actually true? Doesn't all our conscious experience affect us, if not proximally then distally? Sure, having studied philosophy didn't immediately positively or negatively affect me, but it affected the way I live my life and that affected my end experiences. It seems your argument only focusses on immediate effects. This is problematic because it means that argument 2 doesn't work: we can validly evaluate hypotheses once our immediate effects have worn off.

Still, I think you're owed more credit than The Escapist users (myself included) originally gave you. Your original argument assumed too much knowledge, this is a good habit to break when writing for philosophy. However, Argument 2 still doesn't address axiom 1 in its conclusion. Axiom 1 states, from Argument 1's logic, that most things aren't pleasurable, so the conclusion of Argument 2 needs to address this by stating that most things are knowable since most things don't invoke egoism.

 

[9Darksoul6]

Still, I think you're owed more credit than The Escapist users (myself included) originally gave you. Your original argument assumed too much knowledge, this is a good habit to break when writing for philosophy.

Thanks for the tip and the compliment.

Although, now having read over the thread I'm presuming you're studying philosophy given your use of terms like axiom and a posteriori.

Short answer: I'm not. But I can see why you'd think that.

Now we have an argument that proves A1 as more than just an assumption, however this argument needs further arguments to prove its veracity. Why should we believe that axiom 2 of argument 1 is necessary? Doesn't all our experience affect us, whether or not we can make sense of it? Don't you feel scared when you walk into certain rooms and not know why you're feeling scared? That's incoherent experience affecting your mood.
Furthermore, is axiom 3 actually true? Doesn't all our conscious experience affect us, if not proximally then distally? Sure, having studied philosophy didn't immediately positively or negatively affect me, but it affected the way I live my life and that affected my end experiences. It seems your argument only focusses on immediate effects. This is problematic because it means that argument 2 doesn't work: we can validly evaluate hypotheses once our immediate effects have worn off.

Again, this is your version of my version. xD
I used that example as an easy way for him/them to understand; it's not necessarily the base of my argument.

If you'd like to explore this axiom further (or topics similar to this one), I'd be happy to make another thread.

 

[BGH122]

Thanks for the tip and the compliment.

You're welcome on both counts, I always admire those who haven't studied philosophy but attempt to learn its truths of their own accord. Most people just follow the norm without any attempt to critique the norm's view.

Again, this is your version of my version. xD
I used that example as an easy way for him/them to understand; it's not necessarily the base of my argument.

So refine my argument until it better represents what you were aiming for, or else I can't help.