… having wasted substantial amounts of time reading those parts that should not be read of philosophy, and not intending to do the same mistake in other areas, I ask you to publish a selection of readings in your area of expertise, The Sequences are a major rationality shortcut, and we need more of that kind.
Wow! Thanks for doing this regarding Computationalism. I don’t really have an area of expertise such that I could produce a list like yours, but I can think of some areas where such a list would be very helpful (to me, at least).
How not to be a Naive Consequentialist: The ethical thinking here is a bit … hmmm, lets say … parochial because it has never confronted the best thinking of other schools of ethics (i.e. deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and contractarian ethics). Neither has it really addressed foundational issues within consequentialism itself—issues addressed by people like Sen and Harsanyi. It would be best if we could discuss our own ethical viewpoints in terms that other people can understand.
How not to be a Naive Evolutionist: Apart from some overenthusiasm for the just-so-stories of the less reputable parts of evolutionary psychology, LessWrongers seem to have a fairly good grasp of the philosophical implications of Darwinian evolution. But I have noticed some lack of awareness of some of the recent political/intellectual history of the field, plus a bit of the usual difficulty that outsiders have in separating the headline-grabbing pop science from the real science.
How not to be a Naïve Realist/Reductionist: This one is probably controversial, but what I have in mind here is not to overthrow realism and reductionism, but rather to provide some exposure to the saner criticisms of these philosophical doctrines. What naturalism meant before Quine. What emergence means to Philip Anderson. What is meant by scientific anti-realism and why it isn’t a totally insane viewpoint.
How not to be naive about logic, models, and proof theory—particularly as they relate to proving program correctness and program equivalence. The importance of these topics to the topic of FAI are obvious. Yet a basic knowlege of the techniques and terminology of this field are sorely lacking in many of us. It is not rocket science.
We could probably also use such reading lists in the fields of machine learning, game theory, and Bayesian statistics. Perhaps also GOFAI. And at least one reading list on practical rationality.
Wow! Thanks for doing this regarding Computationalism. I don’t really have an area of expertise such that I could produce a list like yours, but I can think of some areas where such a list would be very helpful (to me, at least).
How not to be a Naive Consequentialist: The ethical thinking here is a bit … hmmm, lets say … parochial because it has never confronted the best thinking of other schools of ethics (i.e. deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and contractarian ethics). Neither has it really addressed foundational issues within consequentialism itself—issues addressed by people like Sen and Harsanyi. It would be best if we could discuss our own ethical viewpoints in terms that other people can understand.
How not to be a Naive Evolutionist: Apart from some overenthusiasm for the just-so-stories of the less reputable parts of evolutionary psychology, LessWrongers seem to have a fairly good grasp of the philosophical implications of Darwinian evolution. But I have noticed some lack of awareness of some of the recent political/intellectual history of the field, plus a bit of the usual difficulty that outsiders have in separating the headline-grabbing pop science from the real science.
How not to be a Naïve Realist/Reductionist: This one is probably controversial, but what I have in mind here is not to overthrow realism and reductionism, but rather to provide some exposure to the saner criticisms of these philosophical doctrines. What naturalism meant before Quine. What emergence means to Philip Anderson. What is meant by scientific anti-realism and why it isn’t a totally insane viewpoint.
How not to be naive about logic, models, and proof theory—particularly as they relate to proving program correctness and program equivalence. The importance of these topics to the topic of FAI are obvious. Yet a basic knowlege of the techniques and terminology of this field are sorely lacking in many of us. It is not rocket science.
We could probably also use such reading lists in the fields of machine learning, game theory, and Bayesian statistics. Perhaps also GOFAI. And at least one reading list on practical rationality.