I’ve recently written up an overview of my naturalism project, including where it’s been and where it’s headed. I’ve tried this a few times, but this is the first time I’m actually pretty happy with the result. So I thought I’d share it.
*
In the upcoming year, I intend to execute Part Three of my naturalism publication project.
(Briefly: What is naturalism?
Naturalism is an investigative method that focuses attention on the points in daily life where subjective experience intersects with crucial information. It brings reflective awareness to experiences that were always available, but that our preconceptions inclined us to discard; it thereby grants us the opportunity to fold those observations into our stories about the world. It is a gradual process of original seeing, clarification, and deconfusion. At its best, naturalism results in a greater ability to interact agentically with the world as it is, rather than fumbling haphazardly through a facade of misapprehensions.)
Part Zero of the project was developing the basic methodology of naturalism, on my own and in collaboration with others. If you start counting at my firstessays on “tortoise skills” and “noticing”, it took about six years.
In Part One, I tried to communicate the worldview of naturalism. In a LessWrong sequence called “Intro to Naturalism”, I picked out the concepts that seem foundational to my approach, named them, and elaborated on each. The summary sentence is, “Knowing the territory takes patient and direct observation.” Creating the sequence wasn’t just a matter of writing; in search of an accurate and concise description, I continued running and revising the curriculum, worked things out with other developers, and ran an experimental month-long course online. Part One took one year.
In Part Two, I tried to communicate the methodology of naturalism, in the relatively linear and self-contained form of a curriculum. (The actual practice is messier than that.) After a lot of testing and revising, I published a second sequence called “The Nuts and Bolts of Naturalism”.
Part Three will demonstrate the method. I will choose a topic to be the subject of a naturalist study (probably something from the Sequences or the CFAR handbook, to start), learn what I can about it over the course of one week to three months while taking many notes, and compose an account of the process and my findings. I expect that each piece will be similar to my post “Investigating Fabrication”, but better.
Then, I will choose a new subject, and do it again. I’ll continue until I’ve covered a range of topics and shown several ways of wrestling with relevant challenges, then I’ll tie everything into another LessWrong sequence on naturalism. In addition to generating some real-life, detailed, concrete examples of every part of the naturalist methodology, I hope that this part of the project will provide a few valuable companion pieces to existing writings on applied rationality.
(I also have a bit of a hope that I’ll get others to join me for some of these studies and to publish their own accounts.)
Although I hope that the direct products of Parts One through Three are worthwhile in themselves, I do not consider any of them to be complete. I think that the philosophy, methodology, and demonstration are all essential to mastering naturalism, so my ultimate goal with this project is Part Four: A comprehensive manual of naturalism that weaves together the previous parts. I may attempt to publish Part Four in print, and not just as a LessWrong sequence.
I’m interested in a couple of things from people who have read the Sequences (or AI to Zombies) and have thought a lot about applied rationality.
1) I would like to hear what you think it might be especially valuable to study in this way. Which Sequence posts (or other existing resources) seem really important, but also lack crucial info about what exactly the concrete skill is or how to gain it? Also, what parts of rationality seem important to you but just do not seem to have been explored much from an application perspective? What do you think are some open problems in applied rationality?
2) Do you want to form an adventuring party? In what area/around what question or topic?
I’ve recently written up an overview of my naturalism project, including where it’s been and where it’s headed. I’ve tried this a few times, but this is the first time I’m actually pretty happy with the result. So I thought I’d share it.
*
In the upcoming year, I intend to execute Part Three of my naturalism publication project.
(Briefly: What is naturalism?
Naturalism is an investigative method that focuses attention on the points in daily life where subjective experience intersects with crucial information. It brings reflective awareness to experiences that were always available, but that our preconceptions inclined us to discard; it thereby grants us the opportunity to fold those observations into our stories about the world. It is a gradual process of original seeing, clarification, and deconfusion. At its best, naturalism results in a greater ability to interact agentically with the world as it is, rather than fumbling haphazardly through a facade of misapprehensions.)
Part Zero of the project was developing the basic methodology of naturalism, on my own and in collaboration with others. If you start counting at my first essays on “tortoise skills” and “noticing”, it took about six years.
In Part One, I tried to communicate the worldview of naturalism. In a LessWrong sequence called “Intro to Naturalism”, I picked out the concepts that seem foundational to my approach, named them, and elaborated on each. The summary sentence is, “Knowing the territory takes patient and direct observation.” Creating the sequence wasn’t just a matter of writing; in search of an accurate and concise description, I continued running and revising the curriculum, worked things out with other developers, and ran an experimental month-long course online. Part One took one year.
In Part Two, I tried to communicate the methodology of naturalism, in the relatively linear and self-contained form of a curriculum. (The actual practice is messier than that.) After a lot of testing and revising, I published a second sequence called “The Nuts and Bolts of Naturalism”.
Part Three will demonstrate the method. I will choose a topic to be the subject of a naturalist study (probably something from the Sequences or the CFAR handbook, to start), learn what I can about it over the course of one week to three months while taking many notes, and compose an account of the process and my findings. I expect that each piece will be similar to my post “Investigating Fabrication”, but better.
Then, I will choose a new subject, and do it again. I’ll continue until I’ve covered a range of topics and shown several ways of wrestling with relevant challenges, then I’ll tie everything into another LessWrong sequence on naturalism. In addition to generating some real-life, detailed, concrete examples of every part of the naturalist methodology, I hope that this part of the project will provide a few valuable companion pieces to existing writings on applied rationality.
(I also have a bit of a hope that I’ll get others to join me for some of these studies and to publish their own accounts.)
Although I hope that the direct products of Parts One through Three are worthwhile in themselves, I do not consider any of them to be complete. I think that the philosophy, methodology, and demonstration are all essential to mastering naturalism, so my ultimate goal with this project is Part Four: A comprehensive manual of naturalism that weaves together the previous parts. I may attempt to publish Part Four in print, and not just as a LessWrong sequence.
I’m interested in a couple of things from people who have read the Sequences (or AI to Zombies) and have thought a lot about applied rationality.
1) I would like to hear what you think it might be especially valuable to study in this way. Which Sequence posts (or other existing resources) seem really important, but also lack crucial info about what exactly the concrete skill is or how to gain it? Also, what parts of rationality seem important to you but just do not seem to have been explored much from an application perspective? What do you think are some open problems in applied rationality?
2) Do you want to form an adventuring party? In what area/around what question or topic?