If we had a complete definition of rationality, we’d be done with creating AI. That is, by and large, what this site is all about—trying to arrive at a complete definition.
I just want to clarify. I am not trying to get a completed definition. That would be good, but I think it would be extremely hard to do. I am just looking for a more useful definition. I think that the current definition may be limited in its usefulness due to the reasons I gave above.
As far as I can tell, no, such approaches just make irrational people irrational in a more sophisticated way. Most people don’t have the flexibility of self to actually -change- those aspects of themselves that are irrational.
This sounds too pessimistic to me. I also don’t buy into the defeatism of the idea that people don’t have the flexibility to become more rational. Perhaps, it’s true that most people aren’t motivated enough or that the best path to becoming rational is not obvious enough which makes it so that people have to spend lots of effort if they wish to become more rational. Both of these issues, I think, would be helped if the approaches I alluded to where described.
they just bury them under increasingly complex rationality models that do nothing but make their rationalizations sound more rational, and anything like calling people on their rationalizations falls into some area of mindkilling or another.
This was described in knowing biases can hurt people. It is why brevity and unapplied knowledge can be dangerous. The biggest problem with the type of person you describe above is that they know about rationality, but are still distorting feedback. It is a case of compartmentalization. Their knowledge of rationality would help them describe why other people are being rational or irrational, but they fail to correctly apply this knowledge to themselves.
If being wrong feels like failure, your failure is deeper than being wrong.
I think we are looking at this in different ways. By becoming less wrong I just mean coming to understand that you are implemented on kludgy and limited wetware (a human brain), which leads you to have certain propensities and tendencies. Through this understanding you can start to debiase, i.e. recognise these propensities and when alternative, non default, methods would better help you to achieve what you desire.
There is no sense of failure in this, though. Perhaps, a better way to phrase it is that I want to become better.
stop caring so much about being less wrong than other people.
This is not a race and I am not comparing myself to other people. Once again, perhaps, becoming better is a more suitable description. This doesn’t necessarily mean better than others. It just means better than you are currently are.
rational (which is, after all, merely a proxy for intelligent) you are.
I disagree with you on that. Extremely intelligent people can still be irrational. Intelligence is basically about cognitive abilities whereas rationality is more about how you reason.
many biases are not very strongly correlated with measures of intelligence (algorithmic capacity). Additionally, there is reliable variance in rational thinking found even after cognitive ability is controlled,
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This website, for many people, is just a way of filling a void in their sense of self-worth, through an addiction to insight, to revelation, to that awe-inspiring feeling of getting smarter, of understanding the universe just a little bit better—without ever actually changing anything. They feel momentarily like smarter people, the feeling fades leaving them empty, and nothing changes.
That sounds similar to all self-help type of stuff. You need to apply it. If you don’t apply what you have learnt, then it is close to useless.
I just want to clarify. I am not trying to get a completed definition. That would be good, but I think it would be extremely hard to do. I am just looking for a more useful definition. I think that the current definition may be limited in its usefulness due to the reasons I gave above.
This sounds too pessimistic to me. I also don’t buy into the defeatism of the idea that people don’t have the flexibility to become more rational. Perhaps, it’s true that most people aren’t motivated enough or that the best path to becoming rational is not obvious enough which makes it so that people have to spend lots of effort if they wish to become more rational. Both of these issues, I think, would be helped if the approaches I alluded to where described.
This was described in knowing biases can hurt people. It is why brevity and unapplied knowledge can be dangerous. The biggest problem with the type of person you describe above is that they know about rationality, but are still distorting feedback. It is a case of compartmentalization. Their knowledge of rationality would help them describe why other people are being rational or irrational, but they fail to correctly apply this knowledge to themselves.
I think we are looking at this in different ways. By becoming less wrong I just mean coming to understand that you are implemented on kludgy and limited wetware (a human brain), which leads you to have certain propensities and tendencies. Through this understanding you can start to debiase, i.e. recognise these propensities and when alternative, non default, methods would better help you to achieve what you desire.
There is no sense of failure in this, though. Perhaps, a better way to phrase it is that I want to become better.
This is not a race and I am not comparing myself to other people. Once again, perhaps, becoming better is a more suitable description. This doesn’t necessarily mean better than others. It just means better than you are currently are.
I disagree with you on that. Extremely intelligent people can still be irrational. Intelligence is basically about cognitive abilities whereas rationality is more about how you reason.
Also, this
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That sounds similar to all self-help type of stuff. You need to apply it. If you don’t apply what you have learnt, then it is close to useless.