I just love this quote. (And, I need it in isolation so I can hyperlink to it.)
“When I step back in Newcomb’s case, I don’t feel especially attached to the idea that it theway, the only “rational” choice (though I admit I feel this non-attachment less in perfect twin prisoner’s dilemmas, where defecting just seems to me pretty crazy). Rather, it feels like my conviction about one-boxing start to bypass debates about what’s “rational” or “irrational.” Faced with the boxes, I don’t feel like I’m asking myself “what’s the rational choice?” I feel like I’m, well, deciding what to do. In one sense of “rational” – e.g., the counterfactual sense – two-boxing is rational. In another sense – the conditional sense — one-boxing is. What’s the “truesense,” the “real rationality”? Mu. Who cares? What’s that question even about? Perhaps, for the normative realists, there is some “true rationality,” etched into the platonic realm; a single privileged way that the normative Gods demand that you arrange your mind, on pain of being… what? “Faulty”? Silly? Subject to a certain sort of criticism? But for the anti-realists, there is just the world, different ways of doing things, different ways of using words, different amounts of money that actually end up in your pocket. Let’s not get too hung up on what gets called what.” — Joe Carlsmith
I just love this quote. (And, I need it in isolation so I can hyperlink to it.)
“When I step back in Newcomb’s case, I don’t feel especially attached to the idea that it the way, the only “rational” choice (though I admit I feel this non-attachment less in perfect twin prisoner’s dilemmas, where defecting just seems to me pretty crazy). Rather, it feels like my conviction about one-boxing start to bypass debates about what’s “rational” or “irrational.” Faced with the boxes, I don’t feel like I’m asking myself “what’s the rational choice?” I feel like I’m, well, deciding what to do. In one sense of “rational” – e.g., the counterfactual sense – two-boxing is rational. In another sense – the conditional sense — one-boxing is. What’s the “true sense,” the “real rationality”? Mu. Who cares? What’s that question even about? Perhaps, for the normative realists, there is some “true rationality,” etched into the platonic realm; a single privileged way that the normative Gods demand that you arrange your mind, on pain of being… what? “Faulty”? Silly? Subject to a certain sort of criticism? But for the anti-realists, there is just the world, different ways of doing things, different ways of using words, different amounts of money that actually end up in your pocket. Let’s not get too hung up on what gets called what.”
— Joe Carlsmith