The word “moralize” has now been eliminated from the blog post. Apparently putting a big warning sign up saying “Don’t argue about how to verbally define this problem behavior, it won’t be fun for anyone and it won’t get us any closer to having a relaxed rationalist community where people worry less about stepping in potholes” wasn’t enough.
Apparently putting a big warning sign up saying “Don’t argue about how to verbally define this problem behavior, it won’t be fun for anyone and it won’t get us any closer to having a relaxed rationalist community where people worry less about stepping in potholes” wasn’t enough.
I would just like to point out the irony of telling people you’re training to be rationalists not to reason about a concept.
Edit: A better way to express what I find ironic about Eliezer’s statement, is that at least half the people here started their journey into rationalism by ignoring the big bright warning sign saying “Don’t question God!” This fact is useful to keep in mind when predicting their reactions to big bright warning signs.
Rationalists should also strive to be precise, but you should not try to express precisely what time it was that you stopped beating your wife.
Much of rationality is choosing what to think about, We’ve seen this before in the form of righting a wrong question, correcting logical fallacies (as above), using one method to reason about probabilities in favor of another, and culling non-productive search paths. (which might be the most general form here.
The proper meta-rule is not ‘jump past warning signs’. I’m not yet ready to propose a good phrasing of the proper rule.
Just a note relevant for people involved in the discussion on this page regarding upvoting and downvoting. This is a sort of situation in which I might downvote lessdazed’s comment below, simply to increase local contrast between the vote totals of responses to the parent (so long as I did not push the score of the below comment into the negatives). This is true even though I (happen to ;-)) agree with the below comment.
Downvoting is not a personal thing, and if you take it personally, it is probably because it happens to be so for you and you are projecting your voting behavior onto others. In all discussions of voting I’ve seen, people have different criteria.
at least half the people here started their journey into rationalism by ignoring the big bright warning sign saying “Don’t question God!”
Your edit is perfectly sufficient and I have no criticisms of it. However, the point can be expanded upon such that it will seem different and it may appear I am disagreeing.
The metaphorical signs that exist invoke the idea “Don’t question God!”, but in the West, that’s not too close what they actually say. In religious communities at least moderately touched by the enlightenment, enough distaste of signs reading “Don’t question God!” has been absorbed that such signs would be disrespected as low status.
This is something a member of a moderate strain of fundamentalism might pride himself or herself on, as a factor that distinguishes him or her from literalists, perhaps as an important part of his or her identity.
To make someone think “Don’t question God (this time)!”, the sign might say something like “You don’t know what the consequences would have been had those people lived. God does, so rely on his judgment.”
The “this time” will happen to be every time, but the universality of it won’t be derived from so general a rule; it will be a contingent truth but not a logical one exactly.
It’s ironic only to those who have different ideas about what it means to reason. Reason need not be applied indiscriminately. (And it’s not equivalent to arguing.)
This is a very interesting statement (with which I agree). I would also like to see your explanation for when it’s inappropriate to apply reason, I’ll post mine afterwords.
(And it’s not equivalent to arguing.)
I don’t quite see the distinction you’re trying to make. Especially in this context since the posters arguing about morality were certainly trying to reason about it and not just arguing for the sake of arguing.
I (and probably the 2 who upvoted me) misunderstood your use of ‘ironic’. I now see that you probably meant it in the sense of ‘superficially paradoxical or false, but on closer inspection, interesing’. (I thought you meant it more in the sense of ‘incongruous, and consequently suspect’. I.e., I thought you were arguing that it is probably bad pedagogy to advise an aspiring rationalist not to reason about something.)
would also like to see your explanation for when it’s inappropriate to apply reason
It is inappropriate—well, let us say it is a mistake in reasoning—to apply reason to something whenever it is obvious that the time and mental energy are better applied to something else. My point is that I do not see the irony in Eliezer’s advising his readers that some particular issue is not worth applying reason to.
(And it’s not equivalent to arguing.)
I don’t quite see the distinction you’re trying to make.
Can I just declare my statement in parens above to be withdrawn? :)
would also like to see your explanation for when it’s inappropriate to apply reason
It is inappropriate—well, let us say it is a mistake in reasoning—to apply reason to something whenever it is obvious that the time and mental energy are better applied to something else.
Interesting, I had in mind something much stronger. For example, if you attempt to apply too much reasoning to a Schelling point, you’ll discover that the Schelling point’s location was ultimately arbitrary and greatly weaken it in the process.
Another related example, is that you shouldn’t attempt to (re)create hermeneutic truths/traditions from first principals. You won’t be able to create a system that will work in practice, but might falsely convince yourself that you have.
...you shouldn’t attempt to (re)create hermeneutic truths/traditions from first principals. You won’t be able to create a system that will work in practice, but might falsely convince yourself that you have.
I didn’t see any mentions of examples in Szabo’s paper of traditions that have a high instrumental value but can’t be derived from first principles, although he does seem to be saying that they exist. The best example that comes to mind is Jews and Moslems not eating pork, but I eat pork and my family has on both sides for multiple generations, and we haven’t curled up and died yet, so the present instrumental value of that tradition is unclear to me. Do you have any examples in mind?
I can see that the wellbeing of the population that obeys the tradition would contribute to it doing well in cultural evolution, but it’s not at all clear to me that it’s a large enough factor that we’re unlikely to come out ahead by discarding the tradition and designing a new one.
I suppose the claim that a tradition is one of these truths that one cannot usefully rederive from first principles is testable. Go form an intentional community that, say, has an 8 day week, and if they’re still doing well physically and financially in a generation or two, then the 7 day week apparently wasn’t such a tradition.
Well Szabo’s main examples, which he briefly alludes to in this essay, are legal, economic and political systems. He discusses them at length in his otherwritings.
You’ve articulated a couple of ideas that have been lurking in the collective concern of ideas here on Less Wrong, but which, as far as I know, haven’t been made definite. About why some topics shouldn’t have too much light directed at them—ironically, as you originally claim, in the interest of reason. It’s been a very vague concern and precisely because it hasn’t been articulated it persists stronger than it might otherwise. I would encourage development of these points (not specifically by you, or specifically in this thread, but by anyone, wherever) .
The word “moralize” has now been eliminated from the blog post. Apparently putting a big warning sign up saying “Don’t argue about how to verbally define this problem behavior, it won’t be fun for anyone and it won’t get us any closer to having a relaxed rationalist community where people worry less about stepping in potholes” wasn’t enough.
In case it isn’t clear let me say that my reply continues to apply to the current version. I refer to the underlying concept described, not the word so consider my reply to be edited to match.
The word “moralize” has now been eliminated from the blog post. Apparently putting a big warning sign up saying “Don’t argue about how to verbally define this problem behavior, it won’t be fun for anyone and it won’t get us any closer to having a relaxed rationalist community where people worry less about stepping in potholes” wasn’t enough.
I would just like to point out the irony of telling people you’re training to be rationalists not to reason about a concept.
Edit: A better way to express what I find ironic about Eliezer’s statement, is that at least half the people here started their journey into rationalism by ignoring the big bright warning sign saying “Don’t question God!” This fact is useful to keep in mind when predicting their reactions to big bright warning signs.
Rationalists should also strive to be precise, but you should not try to express precisely what time it was that you stopped beating your wife.
Much of rationality is choosing what to think about, We’ve seen this before in the form of righting a wrong question, correcting logical fallacies (as above), using one method to reason about probabilities in favor of another, and culling non-productive search paths. (which might be the most general form here.
The proper meta-rule is not ‘jump past warning signs’. I’m not yet ready to propose a good phrasing of the proper rule.
I thoroughly endorse this comment.
Just a note relevant for people involved in the discussion on this page regarding upvoting and downvoting. This is a sort of situation in which I might downvote lessdazed’s comment below, simply to increase local contrast between the vote totals of responses to the parent (so long as I did not push the score of the below comment into the negatives). This is true even though I (happen to ;-)) agree with the below comment.
Downvoting is not a personal thing, and if you take it personally, it is probably because it happens to be so for you and you are projecting your voting behavior onto others. In all discussions of voting I’ve seen, people have different criteria.
Apologies for metaness and thread hijack.
Your edit is perfectly sufficient and I have no criticisms of it. However, the point can be expanded upon such that it will seem different and it may appear I am disagreeing.
The metaphorical signs that exist invoke the idea “Don’t question God!”, but in the West, that’s not too close what they actually say. In religious communities at least moderately touched by the enlightenment, enough distaste of signs reading “Don’t question God!” has been absorbed that such signs would be disrespected as low status.
This is something a member of a moderate strain of fundamentalism might pride himself or herself on, as a factor that distinguishes him or her from literalists, perhaps as an important part of his or her identity.
To make someone think “Don’t question God (this time)!”, the sign might say something like “You don’t know what the consequences would have been had those people lived. God does, so rely on his judgment.”
The “this time” will happen to be every time, but the universality of it won’t be derived from so general a rule; it will be a contingent truth but not a logical one exactly.
Not quite ironic. More just arbitrary.
It’s ironic only to those who have different ideas about what it means to reason. Reason need not be applied indiscriminately. (And it’s not equivalent to arguing.)
This is a very interesting statement (with which I agree). I would also like to see your explanation for when it’s inappropriate to apply reason, I’ll post mine afterwords.
I don’t quite see the distinction you’re trying to make. Especially in this context since the posters arguing about morality were certainly trying to reason about it and not just arguing for the sake of arguing.
I (and probably the 2 who upvoted me) misunderstood your use of ‘ironic’. I now see that you probably meant it in the sense of ‘superficially paradoxical or false, but on closer inspection, interesing’. (I thought you meant it more in the sense of ‘incongruous, and consequently suspect’. I.e., I thought you were arguing that it is probably bad pedagogy to advise an aspiring rationalist not to reason about something.)
It is inappropriate—well, let us say it is a mistake in reasoning—to apply reason to something whenever it is obvious that the time and mental energy are better applied to something else. My point is that I do not see the irony in Eliezer’s advising his readers that some particular issue is not worth applying reason to.
Can I just declare my statement in parens above to be withdrawn? :)
Interesting, I had in mind something much stronger. For example, if you attempt to apply too much reasoning to a Schelling point, you’ll discover that the Schelling point’s location was ultimately arbitrary and greatly weaken it in the process.
Another related example, is that you shouldn’t attempt to (re)create hermeneutic truths/traditions from first principals. You won’t be able to create a system that will work in practice, but might falsely convince yourself that you have.
I didn’t see any mentions of examples in Szabo’s paper of traditions that have a high instrumental value but can’t be derived from first principles, although he does seem to be saying that they exist. The best example that comes to mind is Jews and Moslems not eating pork, but I eat pork and my family has on both sides for multiple generations, and we haven’t curled up and died yet, so the present instrumental value of that tradition is unclear to me. Do you have any examples in mind?
I can see that the wellbeing of the population that obeys the tradition would contribute to it doing well in cultural evolution, but it’s not at all clear to me that it’s a large enough factor that we’re unlikely to come out ahead by discarding the tradition and designing a new one.
I suppose the claim that a tradition is one of these truths that one cannot usefully rederive from first principles is testable. Go form an intentional community that, say, has an 8 day week, and if they’re still doing well physically and financially in a generation or two, then the 7 day week apparently wasn’t such a tradition.
ETA: I suppose the organizational structure of a church is such a tradition.
Well Szabo’s main examples, which he briefly alludes to in this essay, are legal, economic and political systems. He discusses them at length in his other writings.
I agree with your 2 examples.
You’ve articulated a couple of ideas that have been lurking in the collective concern of ideas here on Less Wrong, but which, as far as I know, haven’t been made definite. About why some topics shouldn’t have too much light directed at them—ironically, as you originally claim, in the interest of reason. It’s been a very vague concern and precisely because it hasn’t been articulated it persists stronger than it might otherwise. I would encourage development of these points (not specifically by you, or specifically in this thread, but by anyone, wherever) .
“Moralizing is the mind-killer”?
Nah, just kidding. Making a joke.
No, that’s more or less right. Which is unsurprising since moralizing is just politics.
In case it isn’t clear let me say that my reply continues to apply to the current version. I refer to the underlying concept described, not the word so consider my reply to be edited to match.