MOAR PEDANTRY: I always thought we Less Wrongers avoided ‘rationalism’ because it already has a history as a philosophy; one which most Less Wrongers wouldn’t endorse. However, both you and FAWS have used it in this thread, so I’m confused.
Since the word ‘rationalist’ is used everywhere in the OB sequences and in many LW posts, I don’t see why we should have any particular qualms about using ‘rationalism’. If it confuses some people, we’ll just have to specify what we mean by it, which is something we should be doing anyway.
I was actually just thinking about bringing that up in the open thread. Is there a preferred term for the philosophy characteristic of LW? “Rationalism” does indeed have too many irrelevant associations, from the old-timey Platonic philosophy that we can get useful information about the universe without studying the universe, to the philosophy termed “Traditional Rationality” around here (not sure exactly what defines that, but I have a general sense), to those people who spend a lot oftime on reversed stupidity.
If making up a new term is okay (assuming there isn’t a preferred term already), I might suggest “neo-rationalism”. That way, people will know right away that it has something to do with rationality, but they will have to ask what the “neo-” signifies instead of jumping to any conclusions about it.
There is definitely a need for such a term, and no suitable options (descriptive terms not already taken by something else) have been presented before, so I’ll support this one (Neo-Rationalism) unless someone presents an obviously-better alternative very soon. Note that googling indicates that there was also an architectural movement called neo-rationalism om the 1970s, but I don’t think there’s much risk of the two getting confused.
Yeah, I did google “neo-rationalism” before posting that, and I found the architectural movement, but plenty of “isms” (“idealism”, “realism”, “structuralism”, and “modernism” for instance, not to mention “rationalism” itself) have very different meanings in different domains, and it’s easy enough to tell what meaning is intended in context.
I’m not sure, here. Notice I didn’t go for the group-think label (even though apparently I got downvoted much as the original reply got upvoted). Humor will be more relevant post-singularity, but it seems somewhat orthogonal to rationality. Pedantry would be indicating grammar issues—it’s entirely possible steven0461 has multiple female human animals as slaves.
That is a significant claim. Not least because it implies that given that a singularity occurs it will be a singularity that doesn’t suck. (Better as a goal than it is as a prediction.)
Good point. I admit to being confused by the use of “suck” and singularity. But certainly—a dystopian singularity will leave perhaps nothing to laugh at.
You’re confusing rationalism with pedantry and humorlessness.
MOAR PEDANTRY: I always thought we Less Wrongers avoided ‘rationalism’ because it already has a history as a philosophy; one which most Less Wrongers wouldn’t endorse. However, both you and FAWS have used it in this thread, so I’m confused.
Since the word ‘rationalist’ is used everywhere in the OB sequences and in many LW posts, I don’t see why we should have any particular qualms about using ‘rationalism’. If it confuses some people, we’ll just have to specify what we mean by it, which is something we should be doing anyway.
I was actually just thinking about bringing that up in the open thread. Is there a preferred term for the philosophy characteristic of LW? “Rationalism” does indeed have too many irrelevant associations, from the old-timey Platonic philosophy that we can get useful information about the universe without studying the universe, to the philosophy termed “Traditional Rationality” around here (not sure exactly what defines that, but I have a general sense), to those people who spend a lot of time on reversed stupidity.
If making up a new term is okay (assuming there isn’t a preferred term already), I might suggest “neo-rationalism”. That way, people will know right away that it has something to do with rationality, but they will have to ask what the “neo-” signifies instead of jumping to any conclusions about it.
Maybe we should call it “epistemonomy”, because it’s trying to be to epistemology what astronomy is to astrology, sort of.
Or “likelihoodratiomancy”, because it’s the only divination method that actually works.
There’s Bayesianism.
There is definitely a need for such a term, and no suitable options (descriptive terms not already taken by something else) have been presented before, so I’ll support this one (Neo-Rationalism) unless someone presents an obviously-better alternative very soon. Note that googling indicates that there was also an architectural movement called neo-rationalism om the 1970s, but I don’t think there’s much risk of the two getting confused.
Yeah, I did google “neo-rationalism” before posting that, and I found the architectural movement, but plenty of “isms” (“idealism”, “realism”, “structuralism”, and “modernism” for instance, not to mention “rationalism” itself) have very different meanings in different domains, and it’s easy enough to tell what meaning is intended in context.
I’m not sure, here. Notice I didn’t go for the group-think label (even though apparently I got downvoted much as the original reply got upvoted). Humor will be more relevant post-singularity, but it seems somewhat orthogonal to rationality. Pedantry would be indicating grammar issues—it’s entirely possible steven0461 has multiple female human animals as slaves.
That is a significant claim. Not least because it implies that given that a singularity occurs it will be a singularity that doesn’t suck. (Better as a goal than it is as a prediction.)
Good point. I admit to being confused by the use of “suck” and singularity. But certainly—a dystopian singularity will leave perhaps nothing to laugh at.
And a great many Singularity scenarios will just leave nothing to laugh.