Rationalists: If you write your bottom line first, it doesn’t matter what clever arguments you write above it, the conclusion is completely useless as evidence.
Post-rationalists: Actually, if that bottom line was inherited from your ancestors, who inherited it from their ancestors, etc., that is evidence that the bottom line is useful. Otherwise, this culturally transmitted meme would be outcompeted by a more useful meme.
Robin Hanson: Actually, that is only evidence that writing the bottom line is useful. Whether it is useful to actually believe it and act accordingly, that is a completely different question.
Rationalists: If you write your bottom line first, it doesn’t matter what clever arguments you write above it, the conclusion is completely useless as evidence.
The classic take is that once you’ve written your bottom line, then any further clever arguments that you make up afterwards won’t influence the entanglement between your conclusion and reality. So: “Your effectiveness as a rationalist is determined by whichever algorithm actually writes the bottom line of your thoughts.”
That is not saying that “the conclusion is completely useless as evidence.”
Rationalists: If you write your bottom line first, it doesn’t matter what clever arguments you write above it, the conclusion is completely useless as evidence.
Post-rationalists: Actually, if that bottom line was inherited from your ancestors, who inherited it from their ancestors, etc., that is evidence that the bottom line is useful. Otherwise, this culturally transmitted meme would be outcompeted by a more useful meme.
Robin Hanson: Actually, that is only evidence that writing the bottom line is useful. Whether it is useful to actually believe it and act accordingly, that is a completely different question.
The classic take is that once you’ve written your bottom line, then any further clever arguments that you make up afterwards won’t influence the entanglement between your conclusion and reality. So: “Your effectiveness as a rationalist is determined by whichever algorithm actually writes the bottom line of your thoughts.”
That is not saying that “the conclusion is completely useless as evidence.”