If you want to start a discussion about the weaknesses of rationality based on the assumption that understanding reality is the correct thing to value, I recommend you just do that.
Asking me what my goals are in the context of insisting that my goals ought to be to understand reality, just confuses the issue. Coupled with your insistence that you’re just asking questions and all this talk about winning and crushing dissent and whatnot, the impression I’m left with is that you’re primarily interested in winning an argument, and not being entirely honest about your motives.
no—im not saying your goals ought to be anything, and i’m not trying to win an argument, but appreciate you will interpret my motives as you see appropriate.
let me try this differently—there is an idea on LW that rationality is a “good” way to go about thinking [NOTE: correct me if i’m wrong]. By rationality, I mean exactly what is listed here:
Epistemic rationality: believing, and updating on evidence, so as to systematically improve the correspondence between your map and the territory. The art of obtaining beliefs that correspond to reality as closely as possible. This correspondence is commonly termed “truth” or “accuracy”, and we’re happy to call it that.
Instrumental rationality: achieving your values. Not necessarily “your values” in the sense of being selfish values or unshared values: “your values” means anything you care about. The art of choosing actions that steer the future toward outcomes ranked higher in your preferences. On LW we sometimes refer to this as “winning”.
My question relates to putting these two ideas/points into context, but with more of a focus on epistemic rationality (because it seems you need to know the world (i.e. context) in which you’re making decisions before you apply instrumental rationality) -- is epistemic rationality practiced through a methodology? (probability theory/decision theory/something else?) or is the description above just an idea that is to be applied generically, e.g. just taking into account cognitive biases? If its just a description of an idea, then does that mean you cannot really “apply” it, you more just try to keep the general tenets in mind when thinking about things?
if theres a methodology (or multiple) to be used to practice epistemic rationality, does that methodology(ies) apply to help understand all aspects of “reality” (again, keying off EY’s definition)? [NOTE: It seems reality, if it could be understood, would mean the broadest understanding of who we are, why we are here, and how our world works day-to-day. Is LW using a different definition of reality?] If more than one methodology could apply depending on the situation, how do you distinguish between those methodologies?
If the “chosen” methodology(ies) for epistemic rationality is NOT appropriate for certain decisions, what alternatives are to be used? Also, how do you describe the distinction between the decisions for which the chosen methodology(ies) works and those decisions for which it does not?
To be clear, I’m asking to get context for how rationality fits within the larger picture of the universe, including all of its uncertainty. I realize you may not have answers to all these questions and that there may not be consensus about any of it—thats more than fine since all i’m looking for is responses, i don’t care what they actually are. for example, you or others may make certain assumptions for certain of the questions to make necessary simplifications/etc. - all of that is fine, I just think the questions need to be considered before you can credibly apply (or seek to apply) rationality, and want to see if you’ve thought about them and if so, how you’ve handled them. If I’m being unreasonable or missing something with my questions, so be it, but i’d be interested in your thoughts.
A lot depends on how broad a brush I understand the word “methodology” to cover, but if I’m correctly understanding what you mean by the term, no, there’s no particular methodology for how to practice epistemic rationality; it’s more like what you refer to as “trying to keep the general tenets in mind while thinking about things”.
That said, I suppose there are common practices you could call endorsed methodologies if you were in the mood.
For example, attaching confidence intervals to estimates and predictions is a practice you’ll see a lot around here, with the implied (though not formalized) associated practice of comparing those estimates/predictions with later measurements, and treating an underconfident accurate prediction as a failure of prediction (that is, an event that ought to trigger recalibration).
Great, thanks, this is helpful. Is the answer to the above questions, as far as you practice rationality, the same for instrumental rationality? it is an idea—but no real methodology? in my mind it would seem decision theory could be a methodology by which someone could practice instrumental rationality. To the extent it is, the above questions remain relevant (only in the sense they should be considered,
I now have an appreciation of your point—I can definitely see how the question “what are the flaws with epistemic rationality” could be viewed as an meaningless question—I was thinking about epistemic rationality as more than just an idea—an idea WITH a methodology. Clearly the idea is unassailable (in my mind anyway), but methodologies (whether for rationality or some other purpose) could at least in concept have flaws, or perhaps flaws in that they cannot be applied universally—it was this that I was asking about.
Interestingly, your response raises a different question. If epistemic rationality is an idea, and not a methodology, rationality (as it is discussed here) leaves open the possibility that there could be a methodology that may apply/help with practicing epistemic rationality (i.e. consistent with the IDEA of rationality, but a methodology by which you can practice it).
As I think most appreciate, ideas ( not necessarily with respect to rationality, but generally) suffer from the fact that they are general, and don’t give a user a sense of “what to do”—obviously, getting your map to match reality is not an easy task, so methodologies for epistemic rationality in the abstract could be helpful so as to put the idea to practice.
This is particularly important if you’re practicing instrumental rationality—This type of rationality is practiced “in the world,” so having an accurate (or accurate enough) model is seemingly important to ensure that the manner in which you practice instrumental rationality makes sense.
Thus, a possible shortcoming of instrumental rationality could be that it depends on epistemic rationality, but because there isn’t a clear answer to the question of “what is real,” instrumental rationality is limited to the extent our beliefs regarding “what is real” are actually correct. You could say that instrumental rationality, depending on the circumstances, does not require a COMPLETE understanding of the world, and so my observation, even if fair, must be applied on a sliding scale.
Agreed that it’s a lot easier to talk about flaws in specific methodologies than flaws in broad goals.
Agreed that a decision theory is a methodology by which someone could practice instrumental rationality, and there’s a fair amount of talk around here about what kinds of decision theories are best in what kinds of scenarios. Most of it goes over my head; I don’t really know what it would mean to apply the different decision theories that get talked about here to real-world situations.
Agreed that there could be a methodology that may apply/help with practicing epistemic rationality. Or many of them.
Agreed that in the absence of complete information about the world, our ability to maximize expected value will always be constrained, and that this is a shortcoming of instrumental rationality viewed in isolation. (Not so much when compared to alternatives, since all the alternatives have the same shortcoming.)
If you want to start a discussion about the weaknesses of rationality based on the assumption that understanding reality is the correct thing to value, I recommend you just do that.
Asking me what my goals are in the context of insisting that my goals ought to be to understand reality, just confuses the issue. Coupled with your insistence that you’re just asking questions and all this talk about winning and crushing dissent and whatnot, the impression I’m left with is that you’re primarily interested in winning an argument, and not being entirely honest about your motives.
no—im not saying your goals ought to be anything, and i’m not trying to win an argument, but appreciate you will interpret my motives as you see appropriate.
let me try this differently—there is an idea on LW that rationality is a “good” way to go about thinking [NOTE: correct me if i’m wrong]. By rationality, I mean exactly what is listed here:
My question relates to putting these two ideas/points into context, but with more of a focus on epistemic rationality (because it seems you need to know the world (i.e. context) in which you’re making decisions before you apply instrumental rationality) -- is epistemic rationality practiced through a methodology? (probability theory/decision theory/something else?) or is the description above just an idea that is to be applied generically, e.g. just taking into account cognitive biases? If its just a description of an idea, then does that mean you cannot really “apply” it, you more just try to keep the general tenets in mind when thinking about things?
if theres a methodology (or multiple) to be used to practice epistemic rationality, does that methodology(ies) apply to help understand all aspects of “reality” (again, keying off EY’s definition)? [NOTE: It seems reality, if it could be understood, would mean the broadest understanding of who we are, why we are here, and how our world works day-to-day. Is LW using a different definition of reality?] If more than one methodology could apply depending on the situation, how do you distinguish between those methodologies?
If the “chosen” methodology(ies) for epistemic rationality is NOT appropriate for certain decisions, what alternatives are to be used? Also, how do you describe the distinction between the decisions for which the chosen methodology(ies) works and those decisions for which it does not?
To be clear, I’m asking to get context for how rationality fits within the larger picture of the universe, including all of its uncertainty. I realize you may not have answers to all these questions and that there may not be consensus about any of it—thats more than fine since all i’m looking for is responses, i don’t care what they actually are. for example, you or others may make certain assumptions for certain of the questions to make necessary simplifications/etc. - all of that is fine, I just think the questions need to be considered before you can credibly apply (or seek to apply) rationality, and want to see if you’ve thought about them and if so, how you’ve handled them. If I’m being unreasonable or missing something with my questions, so be it, but i’d be interested in your thoughts.
A lot depends on how broad a brush I understand the word “methodology” to cover, but if I’m correctly understanding what you mean by the term, no, there’s no particular methodology for how to practice epistemic rationality; it’s more like what you refer to as “trying to keep the general tenets in mind while thinking about things”.
That said, I suppose there are common practices you could call endorsed methodologies if you were in the mood.
For example, attaching confidence intervals to estimates and predictions is a practice you’ll see a lot around here, with the implied (though not formalized) associated practice of comparing those estimates/predictions with later measurements, and treating an underconfident accurate prediction as a failure of prediction (that is, an event that ought to trigger recalibration).
Great, thanks, this is helpful. Is the answer to the above questions, as far as you practice rationality, the same for instrumental rationality? it is an idea—but no real methodology? in my mind it would seem decision theory could be a methodology by which someone could practice instrumental rationality. To the extent it is, the above questions remain relevant (only in the sense they should be considered,
I now have an appreciation of your point—I can definitely see how the question “what are the flaws with epistemic rationality” could be viewed as an meaningless question—I was thinking about epistemic rationality as more than just an idea—an idea WITH a methodology. Clearly the idea is unassailable (in my mind anyway), but methodologies (whether for rationality or some other purpose) could at least in concept have flaws, or perhaps flaws in that they cannot be applied universally—it was this that I was asking about.
Interestingly, your response raises a different question. If epistemic rationality is an idea, and not a methodology, rationality (as it is discussed here) leaves open the possibility that there could be a methodology that may apply/help with practicing epistemic rationality (i.e. consistent with the IDEA of rationality, but a methodology by which you can practice it).
As I think most appreciate, ideas ( not necessarily with respect to rationality, but generally) suffer from the fact that they are general, and don’t give a user a sense of “what to do”—obviously, getting your map to match reality is not an easy task, so methodologies for epistemic rationality in the abstract could be helpful so as to put the idea to practice.
This is particularly important if you’re practicing instrumental rationality—This type of rationality is practiced “in the world,” so having an accurate (or accurate enough) model is seemingly important to ensure that the manner in which you practice instrumental rationality makes sense.
Thus, a possible shortcoming of instrumental rationality could be that it depends on epistemic rationality, but because there isn’t a clear answer to the question of “what is real,” instrumental rationality is limited to the extent our beliefs regarding “what is real” are actually correct. You could say that instrumental rationality, depending on the circumstances, does not require a COMPLETE understanding of the world, and so my observation, even if fair, must be applied on a sliding scale.
Agreed that it’s a lot easier to talk about flaws in specific methodologies than flaws in broad goals.
Agreed that a decision theory is a methodology by which someone could practice instrumental rationality, and there’s a fair amount of talk around here about what kinds of decision theories are best in what kinds of scenarios. Most of it goes over my head; I don’t really know what it would mean to apply the different decision theories that get talked about here to real-world situations.
Agreed that there could be a methodology that may apply/help with practicing epistemic rationality. Or many of them.
Agreed that in the absence of complete information about the world, our ability to maximize expected value will always be constrained, and that this is a shortcoming of instrumental rationality viewed in isolation. (Not so much when compared to alternatives, since all the alternatives have the same shortcoming.)