It’s always seemed bizarre to me how disconnected from the philosophical discourse the sequences are. It’s a series of philosophical positions articulated in ways that make naming them, and thus exposing oneself to the counter-arguments to them, and the ongoing discussions they are a part of, EXTREMELY difficult. If someone would just go through the sequences and label the ideas with their philosophical names and cite some of the people they are associated with in the larger philosophical discourse it seems like a lot of the discussion here could be short-cutted by simply exposing the community to the people who have already talked about this stuff.
I am not sure how one would do this, or what this would even mean. It’s not like anyone can agree on what “philosophical correctness” is; the Sequences, after all, contain various philosophical arguments, with which one may certainly disagree, but “checking” them for “correctness” seems like a dubious suggestion.
In contrast, checking to see if some study has replicated (or failed to do so), or whether some cited source even says what it’s claimed to say, etc., are tasks that can yield uncontroversial improvements in correctness.
If the correct metaphilosophy is that there is no way of assessing object level philosophical arguments, then any confident assertion of a philosophical claim is metaphilosophically wrong. And there are plenty of confident assertions of philosophical claims in the sequences. In Torture versus Dust Specks and the Free Will sequence, for instance, there is supposed to be a 100% correct answer, not an argument for your consideration.
What if we disagree on whether “the correct metaphilosophy is that there is no way of assessing object level philosophical arguments”?
Look, I’m not saying that the Sequences are, philosophically speaking, pure and without sin (I give the opposite of Eliezer’s answer in “Torture vs. Dust Speaks”, and consider the free will sequence to be unpersuasive and confused). But suppose some other Less Wrong commenter disagrees with me; what then? We just get mired in philosophical arguments, right? Because that’s the only way to “resolve” these disputes: arguments. There’s nothing else to appeal to.
It’s just a fundamentally different situation, totally unlike the question of study replication or “does paper X actually mention topic Y at all” or anything else along these lines.
What if we disagree on whether “the correct metaphilosophy is that there is no way of assessing object level philosophical arguments”?
If the correct metaphilosophy is that you can assess object level arguments …then you can assess the object level arguments in the sequences....contra your original claim.
But suppose some other Less Wrong commenter disagrees with me; what then?
Then you can’t assess object level correctness. But you can still fix the overconfidence.
You have the option of rewriting the sequences to withdraw or tone down the disputed claims.
It looks like there is even less interest in checking the Sequences for philosophical correctness.
It’s always seemed bizarre to me how disconnected from the philosophical discourse the sequences are. It’s a series of philosophical positions articulated in ways that make naming them, and thus exposing oneself to the counter-arguments to them, and the ongoing discussions they are a part of, EXTREMELY difficult. If someone would just go through the sequences and label the ideas with their philosophical names and cite some of the people they are associated with in the larger philosophical discourse it seems like a lot of the discussion here could be short-cutted by simply exposing the community to the people who have already talked about this stuff.
If the technology is there, the motivation is presumably missing.
In the days of High Rationalism, the very idea that the sequences would need fixing, or could be fixed by ordinary PhD’s would have been laughable.
I am not sure how one would do this, or what this would even mean. It’s not like anyone can agree on what “philosophical correctness” is; the Sequences, after all, contain various philosophical arguments, with which one may certainly disagree, but “checking” them for “correctness” seems like a dubious suggestion.
In contrast, checking to see if some study has replicated (or failed to do so), or whether some cited source even says what it’s claimed to say, etc., are tasks that can yield uncontroversial improvements in correctness.
If the correct metaphilosophy is that there is no way of assessing object level philosophical arguments, then any confident assertion of a philosophical claim is metaphilosophically wrong. And there are plenty of confident assertions of philosophical claims in the sequences. In Torture versus Dust Specks and the Free Will sequence, for instance, there is supposed to be a 100% correct answer, not an argument for your consideration.
What if we disagree on whether “the correct metaphilosophy is that there is no way of assessing object level philosophical arguments”?
Look, I’m not saying that the Sequences are, philosophically speaking, pure and without sin (I give the opposite of Eliezer’s answer in “Torture vs. Dust Speaks”, and consider the free will sequence to be unpersuasive and confused). But suppose some other Less Wrong commenter disagrees with me; what then? We just get mired in philosophical arguments, right? Because that’s the only way to “resolve” these disputes: arguments. There’s nothing else to appeal to.
It’s just a fundamentally different situation, totally unlike the question of study replication or “does paper X actually mention topic Y at all” or anything else along these lines.
If the correct metaphilosophy is that you can assess object level arguments …then you can assess the object level arguments in the sequences....contra your original claim.
Then you can’t assess object level correctness. But you can still fix the overconfidence.
You have the option of rewriting the sequences to withdraw or tone down the disputed claims.