Map and Territory Quotes

“Humans aren’t rational; but, as behavioral economist Dan Ariely notes, we’re predictably irrational. There are patterns to how we screw up. And there are patterns to how we behave when we don’t screw up. Both admit of fuller understanding, and with it, the hope of leaning on that understanding to build a better future for ourselves.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“When your method of learning about the world is biased, learning more may not help. Acquiring more data can even consistently worsen a biased prediction. If you’re used to holding knowledge and inquiry in high esteem, this is a scary prospect. If we want to be sure that learning more will help us, rather than making us worse off than we were before, we need to discover and correct for biases in our data.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“If you can lighten your burden you must do so. There is no straw that lacks the power to break your back.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“A society well-protected against minor hazards takes no action against major risks,”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“A bias is an obstacle to our goal of obtaining truth, and thus in our way.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“But experience has taught me that if you don’t know, and you guess, you’ll end up being wrong.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“we believe instinctively, but disbelief requires a conscious effort.2”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“Experimental psychologists use two gold standards: probability theory, and decision theory.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“Until then, he had not felt these extra details as extra burdens. Instead they were corroborative detail, lending verisimilitude to the narrative.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory

“Deliberately we decide that we want to seek only the truth; but our brains have hardwired support for rationalizing falsehoods.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, Map and Territory