I first encountered the term from David Chapman’s work (as described in the blog/metabook I linked) and was under the impression he coined the term, so that’s what I assumed you were referring to. If there is another definition you’re using, it might be good to add a note explaining what you mean by it. So yes, there is a semantic issue here contributing to why I misunderstood the post. I don’t quite know what your intended definition is, so take my comments in that context.
In any case, I highly recommend Chapman’s work on metarationality if you’re unfamiliar with it. I think it answers a lot of the questions you raise here. He has noticed the skulls. In light of that, I don’t think there’s just a semantic issue here. I think there is a natural grouping of non-rational natural selection, pre-reational human drives, rational systematic thinking, and meta-rational skillful use of systematic thinking, and that a lot of the discussion in this post goes back and forth between pre-rational and meta-rational without distinguishing between them. This is something that people do all the time, because they do look the same until you’ve actually succeeded in developing the meta-rational skills needed to understand the difference (or until you’ve had the difference pointed out to you, if you developed the skills without needing the ontology).
I first encountered the term from David Chapman’s work (as described in the blog/metabook I linked) and was under the impression he coined the term, so that’s what I assumed you were referring to. If there is another definition you’re using, it might be good to add a note explaining what you mean by it. So yes, there is a semantic issue here contributing to why I misunderstood the post. I don’t quite know what your intended definition is, so take my comments in that context.
In any case, I highly recommend Chapman’s work on metarationality if you’re unfamiliar with it. I think it answers a lot of the questions you raise here. He has noticed the skulls. In light of that, I don’t think there’s just a semantic issue here. I think there is a natural grouping of non-rational natural selection, pre-reational human drives, rational systematic thinking, and meta-rational skillful use of systematic thinking, and that a lot of the discussion in this post goes back and forth between pre-rational and meta-rational without distinguishing between them. This is something that people do all the time, because they do look the same until you’ve actually succeeded in developing the meta-rational skills needed to understand the difference (or until you’ve had the difference pointed out to you, if you developed the skills without needing the ontology).