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.)
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.)