I don’t even know where to begin imagining what a lack of objective reality looks like
Well. Now you have stumbled upon another standard fallacy, argument from the failure of imagination. If you look up various non-realist epistemologies, it could be a good start.
I think I’m doing better and being more rational than most God-believers. That’s why I consider myself a pretty skilled rationalist!
Uh. Depends on how you define being rational. If you follow Eliezer and define it as winning, then there are many believers that are way ahead of you.
Uh. Depends on how you define being rational. If you follow Eliezer and define it as winning, then there are many believers that are way ahead of you.
If you aren’t controlling for confounding factors, like being born into an extremely rich family, and instead just compare the most successful believers and the most successful rationalists (or, in this case, Liron in particular), of course we’re going to get blown out of the water. There are how many rationalists, again? The interesting thing is to ask, if we control for all relevant factors, does rationality training have a good effect size? This is a good question, with quite a bit of previous discussion.
If you’ll allow me to guess one potential response, let’s suppose there’s no effect. What then—are we all being “irrational”, and is the entire rationality project a failure? Not necessarily. This depends on what progress is being made (as benefits can be nonlinear in skill level). For example, maybe I’m learning Shaolin Kenpo, and I go from white to yellow belt. I go up to a buff guy on the street and get my ass kicked. Have I failed to learn any Shaolin Kenpo?
>> I don’t even know where to begin imagining what a lack of objective reality looks like
Well. Now you have stumbled upon another standard fallacy, argument from the failure of imagination. If you look up various non-realist epistemologies, it could be a good start.
Of course, I wasn’t trying to argue the claim, I was just reporting my experience.
Well. Now you have stumbled upon another standard fallacy, argument from the failure of imagination. If you look up various non-realist epistemologies, it could be a good start.
Uh. Depends on how you define being rational. If you follow Eliezer and define it as winning, then there are many believers that are way ahead of you.
If you aren’t controlling for confounding factors, like being born into an extremely rich family, and instead just compare the most successful believers and the most successful rationalists (or, in this case, Liron in particular), of course we’re going to get blown out of the water. There are how many rationalists, again? The interesting thing is to ask, if we control for all relevant factors, does rationality training have a good effect size? This is a good question, with quite a bit of previous discussion.
If you’ll allow me to guess one potential response, let’s suppose there’s no effect. What then—are we all being “irrational”, and is the entire rationality project a failure? Not necessarily. This depends on what progress is being made (as benefits can be nonlinear in skill level). For example, maybe I’m learning Shaolin Kenpo, and I go from white to yellow belt. I go up to a buff guy on the street and get my ass kicked. Have I failed to learn any Shaolin Kenpo?
Of course, I wasn’t trying to argue the claim, I was just reporting my experience.
Great! Well done! Noticing your own emotions is a great step most aspiring rationalists lack.
Thanks