Self-deception

[ciphergoth]

Is self-deception always bad? Are there any beliefs so dear to you that, in a world where they weren't true, you would prefer to go on believing them?

Update: very interesting answers so far, I hope I get to hear from lots more of you!

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I think I'd prefer to believe that the majority of people were basically decent and good-intentioned, even if it were shown to not be so (though in fact, the evidence bears it out), because believing so, and encouraging other people to believe so, might contribute to change.

Oh - and also, I believe I have free will, even though I suspect I probably don't, because believing (and behaving as though) I don't would be impossible because I would have no sense of the ' autonomous I' that was doing the believing.

[despina.livejournal.com]

Totally. Without "everything will be alright in the end", well, I dunno but it wouldn't be good. I keep believing it even though it is manifestly bollocks in this world.

some thoughts

[booklectica]

I think some self-deception is essential in the sense that some things are true but you don't necessarily want to be aware of them all the time. Death being the obvious example.

Like Karen, I choose to believe most people are good FSVO good, even though I don't know if it's true or not. If it was absolutely proved not to be true, I suppose I'd stop believing it, because I don't think I can really believe things I *know* aren't true. But absolute proof seems unlikely so as long as there's wiggle room I'd try to keep believing.

I have a belief that things turn out for the best in the end, but I don't believe it's objectively true as such, it's just something I feel comforted by. But it seems good for my mental health to have that belief.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I think I'm just repeating what other commenters have said, but there's a class of beliefs that could be described as unwarranted optimism, where the action of belief can sometimes alter the truth value, and the cost of believing falsely is lower than the expected payoff of that alteration.

[yoyoangel.livejournal.com]

What they all said, really.
I choose to believe that everybody is nice and well-intentioned. This may or may not be true, but I (really, logically) believe that in this case, holding the belief makes it more likely to be true in practice. People's behaviour is affected by my expectations.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I think belief in free will has to be top of the list.

There are other beliefs - mostly, but not only, religious ones - where I could entirely accept intellectually that they were false (and do, in fact, accept that they may be) - but whatever happened, the effect they have on my behaviour would largely persist.

[hukuma.livejournal.com]

I generally try to believe I'm unlikely to die. It's a Pascal's wager type of thing: if I'm right, I planned things the right way, and if I'm wrong, it probably won't matter too much.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

I have to act as if I have free will, so that's a one. And as Katy says I chose not to be aware of certain unpleasant facts 24/7. but I wouldn't want to believe they were false.
I wouldn't want to know if there was literally no point in staying alive, but I don't actually believe that that sort of thing is susceptible to disproof, so that's OK :-)

[ludy]

in my more cynical moments i think that's how Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (in full to avoid the dodgy acronym) works

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Interesting, say more? What beliefs does it encourage people to deceive themselves about?

Also, I'm keen to know whether you think there are occasions where people *should* deceive themselves - thanks!

[ludy]

The basic premise of CBT is that all problems are down to a person's negative thoughts. There's no room for looking at the social structures that have (at least partially) shaped those thoughts. And if it's done badly (which happens a lot now it's very fashionable and most practitioners have minimal training) it actively discourages people from letting them selves feel feelings like grief or anger at being wronged
CBT seems to be helpful for a lot of people so that's a good thing. But i think ultimately it would be better to change the world (if that was possible)

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

In my case I am looking at CBT because my emotional reaction to things is to buy stuff and acquire stuff to the point where I'm nearly buried by clothing, old computers, bits of HiFi, CDs, guitars etc.

CBT may allow me to find why I give items such an emotional value and allow me to face the world better.

Changing the world won't fix that I believe.

[ludy]

O i'm not saying CBT is a bad thing - just that sometimes it can be done badly. I know a lot of people find it very helpful - which makes it a good thing. I hope it helps you.
But i don't think that stops it from being a kind of chosen self-deception.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely - I second that. But then I am cynical most of the time.

A CBT practitioner needs to be very careful not to impose his/her views on the subject. In some ways I see it as self brain washing. I choose not to feel like this when that happens because I am thinking something. I am going to try to think something else and hopefully feel different.

Sadly we cant always change the world - and when the problem is the people in it you rarely cant.

[ludy]

true. And it's good that people are as mentally healthy as possible in an imperfect world. I just get grumpy at how CBT gets pushed as an answer to pretty much everything without there being very much critical thinking around it.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I'm still not satisfied with my original comment. What I failed to explain is that CBT is largely about identifying your own unhelpful beliefs and replacing them with more helpful beliefs.

Is either belief self-deception? I dont know.

[duranorak.livejournal.com]

I don't think self-deception is bad if you are aware that you're doing it, or that there's a strong possibility that that's what you're doing? I think it's bad if it's a deception that happens without your awareness, or is somehow extrapolated from beliefs that are pushed on you as a child, or similar, but if first you have analysed things down into the ground as much as seems to be possible, I don't see anything inherently bad about then building yourself a few beliefs to make the world a better place for yourself/those around you. Though it might depend on what those beliefs are and what you do with them, I guess.

& yes, there are things I believe/believe in that I wouldn't stop believing even if they were proved beyond all doubt to be false, because they are nice things, and they make my world nicer. I know what they are, though, and where the edges are, a bit like deliberately putting a nice painting over a stain on the wall. You know the stain is there, and that you put the painting there to cover it up because you can't do anything about the stain, but that doesn't make it wrong to enjoy looking at the painting.

[yoyoangel.livejournal.com]

I really like the stain/painting analogy. Thank you.

[djm4]

The free will one is one we've discussed before, and I see many other people have already mentioned it. But that's a bit of a cheat, because I already believe it not to be true.

There are a few things that I tend to act as though they were true, while not really believing them. Karma is one; I don't really believe it, but it provides a handy narrative for me to follow. I could be persuaded that that's wrong-headed thinking, and that it's better to be purely rational on that one, but so far I haven't been.

If it turns out that one particular strand of the human race (blacks, straight people, blue-eyed people) is statistically a genetic liability, I'm not sure I want to know about it. That's possibly more of an ethical question than one of fact, though; I might acknowledge the fact, but take the view that I'm not going to let it affect my decisions.

[olethros.livejournal.com]

I do have a category in my mind of "Things I will think about in a bit but not right now." I talk about it as good, healthy denial. If there's something I'm having trouble handling or accepting, the procedure - and I'm fully conscious of this - goes "not happening not happening not happening not happening OMGSCARY ok, that's done now" over some lengthy period of time. It is strictly time limited, and I know it's going to terminate in some reasonable time, but it's a way to get to it when I'm good and ready.

[martling.livejournal.com]

I certainly know of people for whom this is true, specifically for religious beliefs which they have grown up with and devoted a large portion of their life to.

As for myself, I try to keep a distinction between believing things to be true, and acting as if they were. In general I tend to be optimistic about people, plans, etc: not because I actually, seriously believe things will always turn out well, but simply because I find it a more pleasant way to go through life. The positive results of the few long shots which pay off outweigh the negative results of the majority which don't, in the final subjective impression.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

this.

[martling.livejournal.com]

On further thought, I'm going to elaborate on this a bit, because it's an interesting tangent. ciphergoth, I would be interested in your thoughts & any references on this area.

Firstly: "being optimistic" does not mean I act as though a positive outcome is certain. Rather, I would say that when choosing what to do and how to prepare for the possible results of my actions, I bias my efforts towards enabling the most positive outcomes, and preventing the most disastrous, largely ignoring the space of harmless failures in between.

I think the reasons for this weighting tie in closely with the behaviour of human memory: similar, largely uninteresting memories tend to overlap and merge, whilst what stands out in the mind over the long term are the high points and low points. Hence, by maximising the highs and minimising the lows, the subjective quality of experience in one's subsequent memory of a period can be optimised, even perhaps at the cost of the actual average happiness experienced moment-to-moment over the whole period.

For a concrete example, take my main hobby: gliding. I started in 2001 and have since racked up some ~200 hours in ~400 flights. The vast majority of those hours were probably actually pretty dull, and they make up only a fraction of the actual time spent on the sport, which largely consists of days and days of faffing around on airfields plus a fair chunk of travel time getting to and from them. On average, it's really quite crap.

But looking back, I forget all that and just remember the epic flights, the awesome moments, the hilarious stories - and a few scary moments. And so, when preparing to fly I put time into two things: avoiding disaster, and making sure I have everything prepared so that a great flight is never curtailed by stupid problems like dodgy equipment, a lost sunhat, lack of sandwiches or a bottle to piss into. In the vast majority of cases this is a waste of time, because the flight turns out not to be so great. I could put that time into avoiding non-disastrous problems instead: fixing our unreliable vehicles that could leave me stuck in a field for a few hours after landing out, for example. But I don't, because ultimately I will forget such minor inconvenicences. Doing so would perhaps increase my average enjoyment over time, but I'm more interested in the peaks.

I suppose this can be applied forwards as well as backwards: the expectation of future highs keeps people going through the lows. This is, I think, why people will happily buy lottery tickets even though their price is well above the expected value of the ticket; they are paying simply for winning to exist as a possibility.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I think I'd rather only believe things that are true (and for that reason, I rather hope that the small 1960s study that Ben Goldacre sometimes cites on the placebo effect, which suggested that it might work even without deception, turns out to be right.)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Of course, it might work without deception precisely because of the existence of that study :-)

[lizw.livejournal.com]

*grin* Perhaps it's fortunate that the study hasn't had much press - it should be easy enough to recruit a control group who haven't heard of it.

[dreamsewing.livejournal.com]

I use self deception as a tool; mainly that I can/will be able to deal with whatever happens in life. Even when I am clearly not dealing *well*, I still cling to thought I can and will be able to eventually.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I consider this a very healthy attitude most of the time.

I hope you dont use your self deception to avoid dealing with your problems, but believing you can is good.

[redshira.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's always bad, but I would always rather have truth, no matter how ugly. This probably contributes to the level and constancy of my depression - I favour harsh truth over comfort at all times, and will not allow myself to believe something just because I would prefer it unless I can satisfy myself that it is indeed true.

I feel very strongly about this. I've never been able to self-deceive, possibly as a function of my autism, and I don't understand how anyone can.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I'd like to believe I was a good person, even if I wasn't. Maybe.

If I was to die within a week, it would not do me good to suddenly discover I was a bad person.

If I was to live for several years still, and I found out I was a bad person, then I could change to be a good person before I died. And I could make amends for some of the bad things I must have done. But I would still have to live with the horror of having been a bad person.

[ladycat.livejournal.com]

Yes.

To me beliefs don't necessarily need have to have solid reasoned arguments about why they're true. They're subjective, can often be about feelings, instincts or hunches, and they're your own matter. As long as your beliefs don't upset, bother or ruin the world for anyone else I'm ok with them. It doesn't mean I want to hear about them though - take note Brixton preachers!

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

The main counterexample I was going to mention is one about confidence. Many people struggle with self confidence. (Even quite successful people do).

The trick to self confidence is to pretend that you have it. Eventually this self deception will turn out to become real confidence.

(This is related to artemis' comments about CBT I suppose)


> Are there any beliefs so dear to you that, in a world where they weren't true, you would prefer to go on believing them?

I used to belive that white lies were always bad. Now I am more flexible.

As for beliefs.... I am fairly skeptical anyway and dont really have many beliefs - just working assumptions.

I believe that I am a good person.

[hamsterine.livejournal.com]

A lot of people would say that some of my beliefs were not true, and I would say that about a lot of other people's beliefs. So in a way we all live in a world where some of our beliefs aren't true.

If the world changed in a way that had important implications for any of my important beliefs, I'd want to know about it.

I would rather know the truth about something than kid myself it was ok when it wasn't. I don't think I could make the most effective plans on the latter basis.

[meico.livejournal.com]

Self-deception is always bad! Always I say!! Dammit!!!*

*Even if this isn't true I prefer to treat it as true for myself as it keeps me honest to myself and others...

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

...And the irony in the above is on purpose, right? :-)

[meico.livejournal.com]

Kinda like how I believe people should be intolerant of intolerance... ;P

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

Sometimes. And they should also be tolerant of tolerance towards intolerance (http://lesswrong.com/lw/42/tolerate_tolerance/).

[strangerover.livejournal.com]

An interesting and stimulating topic that could go in so many directions...
The first thing that came into my head was 'personal concept of reality' - where someone's viewpoint of s situation is different from one's own.
Not sure where I first heard the phrase though?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Not sure what you're referring to here - as you say, people sometimes disagree, but I'm not sure what the relationship with self-deception you're highlighting here is, can you say a little more?

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the late response. I do think that, generally, I'd rather know the truth. There might be an exception with some personal things. For instance, if most people actually think I'm horrifically unattractive I'd rather now know!

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Something I just read reminded me of this post, and it occurred to me that you never shared your answer to your own question. Can I ask what your view is?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I might get time to make a post about this at some point, but roughly:

- Self-deception can be dangerous
- There is no way to assess the safety of a proposed self-deception, because in order to do so you'd have to give the truth of the matter an unstinting sober look of the sort that would make future self-deception impossible
- People often think that they self-deceive about X, when in fact what they deceive themselves about is their own belief on X - cf I believe that people are nicer than they really are
- I get from this that a lot of people are harbouring this huge lurking pessimism about humanity, that they don't dare to look at in the face, and so try to convince themselves that they've banished through self-deception, whereas they might actually feel *more* optimistic about humanity if they could look at it square in the face.
- In practice, of course, people self-deceive about far more than the things they've admitted to in this post, and in ways that seem to have much greater potential for harm. I think that allowing the harmless cases people talk about here also bolsters the more harmful cases that we don't admit to when we talk about this.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I've been thinking about this, and wondering exactly what it is we mean by self-deceit, because as Eliezer alludes to, actually believing that which we believe to be false is tautologically impossible.

It seems to me that there are two things we're talking about - one is being mistaken about what we believe about ourselves, which seems to be what you're talking about in your bullet points above, and probably what people are doing when they say they're self-decieving. It seems a bit inaccurate to call it self-deceit though, because the point at which the actual deceit is going on doesn't involve one's own volition or awareness, so really it's just being wrong.

The other thing, which I think is more what I was talking about, is also a bit of a misnomer - acting the way you think you would act if you believed differently, which is in a sense deceiving someone else. Although the more I think about this, the more I realise that that isn't actually what I'm doing. (The example in my head is that I act as though I trust people even when I don't, because being trusted makes people want to live up to that, and the cost of not trusting them is often quite low. But actually what I'm doing deciding that the same action is appropriate whether I trust them or not.)

Actually, yes, I think I'm convinced. Would be good to see a top-level post about it though, as the ideas could do with being spread to a wider audience than me noodling in the comments of a month old thread.