1 / 14

How You Don’t Tell the Truth Disagreement as Self-Deception about Meta-Rationality

How You Don’t Tell the Truth Disagreement as Self-Deception about Meta-Rationality. Robin Hanson Tyler Cowen George Mason University. From Bias to Self-Deception. “Pretty women are dumb” Some dumb folks sometimes think this Most people tend to think this, but not me

keaton
Télécharger la présentation

How You Don’t Tell the Truth Disagreement as Self-Deception about Meta-Rationality

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. How You Don’t Tell the TruthDisagreement as Self-Deception about Meta-Rationality Robin Hanson Tyler Cowen George Mason University

  2. From Bias to Self-Deception “Pretty women are dumb” • Some dumb folks sometimes think this • Most people tend to think this, but not me • When I’m not careful, I tend to think this • I enjoy believing this about Britney Spears • Pretty Sue’s paper must be wrong; reject it

  3. Basic Argument • Irrational to disagree if both seek truth, not lie • Others’ opinions like sufficient stats of what they know • “Meta-rational” if know of this, seek truth • We think we usually seek truth, not lie, but … • Every pair of us can find many topics disagree on • Even if know each other for years • Even those who accept that disagreeing is irrational • So we all seem self-deceived about truth seeking!

  4. age 7 here age 2 here John estimates old car (age E1[x]) “It wasn’t shiny” “I’ve never been wrong before” “I can still picture it” “It sounded old” “I had a good viewing angle” “Fred said so” “Mary is blind”

  5. age 7 here age 2 here Mary estimates new car (age E2[x]) average age in here is E2[x]

  6. Aumann in ‘76 Common knowledge On exact E1[x], E2[x] That would say next On matter of fact Bayesians Common priors Truth-seeker, not lie Since generalized to Common Belief Of that E1[x] ≥ E2[x] Last E1[x] , E1[E2[x]] Or morality (vs. taste) Wannabe, rational core We Can’t Agree to Disagree

  7. But We Do Disagree • Can predict direction of their next opinion • verified in controlled experiment • Armchair phenomena: • Esp. regarding who able, politics, morality, … • Though not regarding “There’s another tree” • Dismiss dumber, but not defer to smarter • Disagree not embarrass (vs. inconsistent) • Those accept irrational to disagree still do! • How reconcile theory, phenomena?

  8. How Few Meta-Rationals (MR)? • Rational beliefs linear in % MR, % not • MR who meet, talk long, should see are MR • Joint opinion path becomes random walk • We see no virtually such pairs, so few MR! • N each talk 2T others, see ~N*T*(MR%)2 pairs • If MR only at moments, no pattern to which? • Even among accept irrational to disagree • If not lying, self-deceivedif say seek truth!

  9. Self-Deception • We seem self-deceived re our truth-seeking • 94% profs. say better than ave. colleague • Minds unconsciously favor certain beliefs • Selectively disable normal critical abilities • Disagree conscious defense: “I’m less biased” • Evolutionary rationale: • To convince others that able, convince self • Over-confidence can be costly reliable signal

  10. When Justified In Disagree? • Key: relative MR/self-deception, not info • Psych. lit. gives self-deception clues: • Is harder about own overt behaviors • Older kids hide it better than younger • Self-deceivers have more self-esteem, less psychopathology, especially depression • Clues?: IQ/idiocy, self-interest, emotional arousal, formality, unwilling to analyze, ...

  11. Resolutions • Tyler: “I’m split; my truth-seeking part can’t control more; that is human nature” • Robin: “We can do better via improving self-deception clues, better institutions” We appear to agree to disagree! :-) But we accept are not truth-seeking.

  12. Implications • Facts may not resolve poli-econ disputes • Even if we share basic values • Academia models need not be of truth-seek • New institution goal: reduce self-deception • Key to speculative markets aggregate info well? • Self-doubt for supposed truth-seekers • “First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.” Matthew 7:5

  13. Why Common Priors? Prior = counterfactual belief if low same info If seek truth, vs. just max utility: • Same info => same belief, else non-truth base • Implicit in update via Bayes’ rule • If immediate causal ancestors, why not all? • Consider counterfactual where not know prior • We endowed mainly with belief we reason better (vs. endowed with specific opinions)

  14. A gets clue on X A1 = A’s guess of X A told Sign(B2-B1) A2 = A’s guess of X Loss (A1-X)2, (A2-X)2 B gets clue on X B told A1 B1 = B’s guess of X B2 = B’s guess of A2 Loss (B1-X)2, (B2-A2)2 Experiment Shows We Disagree time

More Related