While writing the about page for the upcoming Whistling Lobsters 2.0 forum, I took a shot at giving a brief history of and definition of rationality. The following is the section providing a definition. I think I did an okay job:
The Rationalist Perspective
Rationality is related to but distinct from economics. While they share many
ideas and goals, rationality is its own discipline with a different emphasis.
It has two major components, instrumental and epistemic rationality. Instrumental
means “in the service of”, it’s about greater insight in the service of other goals.
Epistemic means “related to knowledge”, and focuses on knowing the truth for its
own sake. Instrumental rationality might be best described as “regret minimization”.
Certainly this phrase captures the key points of the rationalist perspective:
Rationality cares about opportunity cost, which is the biggest shared trait
with economics. Rationality is not skepticism, skeptics only care about not-losing.
Rationalists care about winning, which means that the failure to realize full
benefits is incorporated into the profit/loss evaluation.
A rationalist should never envy someone else just for their choices. Consider
Spock, the ‘rational’ first officer of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek. Often
Spock will insist against helpful action because it would “be illogical”. The
natural question is “Illogical to whom?”. No points are awarded for fetishism.
If there are real outcomes to consider, perhaps you hold yourself back for some
social benefit, that is all well and good. But there is nothing noble in doing
things that make you or the world worse off because you’ve internalized fake rules.
Long term thinking. Regret is generally something you start doing after you’ve
had a bit of experience, it’s something you need to think about early to avoid.
You don’t regret wasting your 20′s until you’re in your 30′s. Regret is about your
life path, which is utility vs. time. Most economics focuses on one shot utility
maximization scenarios, or iterated games. But the real world has every kind of
game imaginable just about, and your ‘score’ is how you perform on all of them.
While writing the about page for the upcoming Whistling Lobsters 2.0 forum, I took a shot at giving a brief history of and definition of rationality. The following is the section providing a definition. I think I did an okay job:
The Rationalist Perspective
Rationality is related to but distinct from economics. While they share many ideas and goals, rationality is its own discipline with a different emphasis. It has two major components, instrumental and epistemic rationality. Instrumental means “in the service of”, it’s about greater insight in the service of other goals. Epistemic means “related to knowledge”, and focuses on knowing the truth for its own sake. Instrumental rationality might be best described as “regret minimization”. Certainly this phrase captures the key points of the rationalist perspective:
Rationality cares about opportunity cost, which is the biggest shared trait with economics. Rationality is not skepticism, skeptics only care about not-losing. Rationalists care about winning, which means that the failure to realize full benefits is incorporated into the profit/loss evaluation.
A rationalist should never envy someone else just for their choices. Consider Spock, the ‘rational’ first officer of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek. Often Spock will insist against helpful action because it would “be illogical”. The natural question is “Illogical to whom?”. No points are awarded for fetishism. If there are real outcomes to consider, perhaps you hold yourself back for some social benefit, that is all well and good. But there is nothing noble in doing things that make you or the world worse off because you’ve internalized fake rules.
Long term thinking. Regret is generally something you start doing after you’ve had a bit of experience, it’s something you need to think about early to avoid. You don’t regret wasting your 20′s until you’re in your 30′s. Regret is about your life path, which is utility vs. time. Most economics focuses on one shot utility maximization scenarios, or iterated games. But the real world has every kind of game imaginable just about, and your ‘score’ is how you perform on all of them.