As for your question on a meta-epistemy, I think what you said about general approaches mostly holds in this case. Maybe there’s a specific way to classify sub-epistemies, but it’s probably better to have some general rules of thumb that weed out the definitely wrong candidates, and let other ideas get debated on.
I agree. I don’t expect a full-fledged meta-epistemy. Again, “That epistemy can be as simple as some sanity checks”.
I don’t know that defining sub-epistemies is so important. You give a distinction between math and theoretical computer science, but unless you’re in those fields the distinction is near meaningless. So maybe it’s more important to define these sub-epistemies as your relation to them increases.
I agree. I picked that distinction because I assumed many rationalists are in CS or have strong mathematical foundations. It might have been a less precise example.
But there are two answers to your remark :
That people who aren’t in math or theoretical CS and thus can’t distinguish them should not post their related ideas is not a bug, it’s a feature. I have tCS or math aberrations on LW that made the community lose time.
That we shouldn’t lose time defining epistemies on new ideas. I agree, that’s what the “pre-epistemy phase”, and the phase status more generally are meant to convey. But if a group of related ideas gets enough traction (Rationalism, Utilitarianism), defining an epistemy becomes more and more important.
Thanks
I agree. I don’t expect a full-fledged meta-epistemy. Again, “That epistemy can be as simple as some sanity checks”.
I agree. I picked that distinction because I assumed many rationalists are in CS or have strong mathematical foundations. It might have been a less precise example.
But there are two answers to your remark :
That people who aren’t in math or theoretical CS and thus can’t distinguish them should not post their related ideas is not a bug, it’s a feature. I have tCS or math aberrations on LW that made the community lose time.
That we shouldn’t lose time defining epistemies on new ideas. I agree, that’s what the “pre-epistemy phase”, and the phase status more generally are meant to convey. But if a group of related ideas gets enough traction (Rationalism, Utilitarianism), defining an epistemy becomes more and more important.