{"id":51,"date":"2011-11-30T03:59:26","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T11:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/facingthesing.wpengine.com\/?p=51"},"modified":"2014-05-10T14:51:35","modified_gmt":"2014-05-10T21:51:35","slug":"why-spock-is-not-rational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/2011\/why-spock-is-not-rational\/","title":{"rendered":"Varf\u00f6r Spock inte \u00e4r rationell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyv\u00e4rr \u00e4r denna artikel enbart tillg\u00e4nglig p\u00e5 English<\/a>, Fran\u00e7ais<\/a>, \u0440\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439<\/a>, Sloven\u010dina<\/a>, \u4e2d\u6587<\/a> och Italiano<\/a>.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Star Trek<\/em>\u2019s Mr. Spock<\/a> is not the exemplar of logic and rationality you might think him to be. Instead, he is a \u201cstraw man\u201d of rationality used to show (incorrectly) that human emotion and irrationality are better than logic.<\/p>\n

Here is a typical scene:<\/p>\n

Mc<\/span>Coy<\/span>: Well, Mr. Spock, [the aliens] didn\u2019t stay frightened very long, did they?<\/p>\n

Spock<\/span>: A most illogical reaction. When we demonstrated our superior weapons, they should have fled.<\/p>\n

Mc<\/span>Coy<\/span>: You mean they should have respected us?<\/p>\n

Spock<\/span>: Of course!<\/p>\n

Mc<\/span>Coy<\/span>: Mr. Spock, respect is a rational<\/em> process. Did it ever occur to you that they might react emotionally<\/em>, with anger?<\/p>\n

Spock<\/span>: Doctor, I\u2019m not responsible for their unpredictability.<\/p>\n

Mc<\/span>Coy<\/span>: They were perfectly predictable, to anyone with feeling! You might as well admit it, Mr. Spock: your precious logic brought them down on us!1<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, there\u2019s nothing logical about expecting non-logical beings to act logically. Spock had plenty of evidence that these aliens were emotional, so expecting them to behave rationally was downright ir<\/em>rational!<\/p>\n

I stole this example from Julia Galef\u2019s talk \u201cThe Straw Vulcan<\/a>.\u201d2<\/sup><\/a> Her second example of \u201cstraw man rationality,\u201d or Hollywood Rationality<\/a>, is the idea that you shouldn\u2019t make a decision until you have all the information you need. This one shows up in Star Trek<\/em> too. A giant space amoeba has appeared not far from the Enterprise,<\/em> and Kirk asks Spock for his analysis. Spock replies, \u201cI have no analysis due to insufficient information . . . The computers contain nothing on this phenomenon. It is beyond our experience, and the new information is not yet significant.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s rational to seek more information before acting, but sometimes you need to just act on what you think you know. You have to weigh the cost of getting more information against the expected value of that information. Consider another example from Gerd Gigerenzer, about a man considering whom to marry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

He would have to look at the probabilities of various consequences of marrying each of them\u2014whether the woman would still talk to him after they\u2019re married, whether she\u2019d take care of their children, whatever is important to him\u2014and the utilities of each of these. . . . After many years of research he\u2019d probably find out that his final choice had already married another person who didn\u2019t do these computations, and actually just fell in love with her.4<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such behavior is irrational, a failure to make the correct value of information<\/a> calculation.<\/p>\n

Galef\u2019s third example of Hollywood Rationality is the mistaken principle that \u201cbeing rational means never relying on intuition.\u201d For example, in one episode of Star Trek<\/em>, Kirk and Spock are playing three-dimensional chess. When Kirk checkmates Spock, Spock says, \u201cYour illogical approach to chess does have its advantages on occasion, Captain.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

But something that causes you to win at chess can\u2019t be irrational (from the perspective of winning at chess). If some method will cause you to win at chess, that\u2019s the method a rational person would use. If intuition will give you better results than slow, deliberative reasoning, then rationally you should use intuition. And sometimes that\u2019s the case, for example if you have developed good chess intuitions over thousands of games and you\u2019re playing speed chess that won\u2019t permit you to think through the implications of every possible move using deliberative reasoning.<\/p>\n

Galef\u2019s fourth principle of Hollywood Rationality is that \u201cbeing rational means [not having] emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be sure, emotions often ruin our attempts at rational thought and decision-making. When we\u2019re anxious, we overestimate risks. When we feel vulnerable, we\u2019re more likely to believe superstitions and conspiracy theories. But that doesn\u2019t mean a rational person should try to destroy all their emotions. Emotions are what create<\/em> many of our goals, and they can sometimes help us to achieve<\/em> our goals, too. If you want to go for a run and burn some fat, and you know that listening to high-energy music puts you in an excited emotional state that makes you more likely to go for a run, then the rational thing to do is put on some high-energy music.<\/p>\n

Rationality done right is \u201csystematized winning<\/a>.\u201d Epistemic rationality is about having the most probably true beliefs, and instrumental rationality is about making decisions that maximize your chances of getting the most of what you want. So, as Galef says,<\/p>\n

If you think you\u2019re acting rationally, but you keep getting the wrong answer, and you keep ending up worse off than you could be, then the conclusion that you should draw from that is not that rationality is bad. It\u2019s that you\u2019re being bad at rationality<\/em>.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ll return to the subject of the intelligence explosion shortly, but I want to spend two more chapters on rationality. There are laws of thought, and we need to agree on what they are before we start talking about tricky subjects like AI. Otherwise we\u2019ll get stalled on a factual disagreement only to later discover that we\u2019re really<\/em> stalled because we disagree about how we can come to know which facts are correct.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

1<\/sup><\/a>Oliver Crawford, \u201cThe Galileo Seven,\u201d Star Trek: The Original Series<\/em>, season 1, episode 13, dir. Robert Gist, aired January 5, 1967 (CBS).<\/small><\/p>\n

2<\/sup><\/a>Julia Galef, \u201cThe Straw Vulcan: Hollywood\u2019s Illogical Approach to Logical Decisionmaking,\u201d Measure of Doubt (blog), November 26, 2011, accessed November 10, 2012, http:\/\/measureofdoubt.com\/2011\/11\/26\/the-straw-vulcan-hollywoods-illogical-approach-to-logical-decisionmaking\/<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n

3<\/sup><\/a>Robert Sabaroff, \u201cThe Immunity Syndrome,\u201d Star Trek: The Original Series<\/em>, season 2, episode 19, dir. Joseph Pevney, aired January 19, 1968 (CBS).<\/small><\/p>\n

4<\/sup><\/a>Gerd Gigerenzer, \u201cSmart Heuristics,\u201d Edge<\/em>, March 29, 2003, http:\/\/edge.org\/conversation\/smart-heuristics-gerd-gigerenzer<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n

5<\/sup><\/a>D. C. Fontana, \u201cCharlie X,\u201d Star Trek: The Original Series<\/em>, season 1, episode 7, dir. Lawrence Dobkin, aired September 15, 1966 (CBS).<\/small><\/p>\n

6<\/sup><\/a>Galef, \u201cThe Straw Vulcan<\/a>,\u201d italics added.<\/small><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tyv\u00e4rr \u00e4r denna artikel enbart tillg\u00e4nglig p\u00e5 English, Fran\u00e7ais, \u0440\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439, Sloven\u010dina, \u4e2d\u6587 och Italiano. Star Trek\u2019s Mr. Spock is not the exemplar of logic and rationality you might think him to be. Instead, he is a \u201cstraw man\u201d of rationality… continue reading<\/a> »<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intelligenceexplosion.com\/sv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}