2min chapter

Minds Almost Meeting cover image

Why is Truth Good? (Robin Hanson & Agnes Callard, with William Eliot)

Minds Almost Meeting

CHAPTER

The Utility Function and the Truth in Life

I care a lot about things that are true but I have to question why and it may just be because I have like Robin the utility function that just wants to operate rationally. If I want the best life and I need to accept falsehoods to get there then I would do that, he says. The truth is this hidden instrumental thing that you're privately using to calculate what to do in our social world we have various truths that we agree on or fight out or a sent to. It's not just a hidden set of tools we use to achieve other things they are central objects of our many games that we fight over.

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