I think this post is missing the major part of what “metarational” means: acknowledging that the kinds of explicit principles and systems humans can hold in working memory and apply in real time are insufficient for capturing the full complexity of reality, having multiple such principles and systems available anyway, and skillfully switching among them in appropriate contexts.
This sounds to me like a semantic issue? Metarational isn’t exactly a standard AFAIAA, (I just made it up on the spot), and it looks like you’re using it to refer to a different concept from me.
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).
This sounds to me like a semantic issue? Metarational isn’t exactly a standard AFAIAA, (I just made it up on the spot), and it looks like you’re using it to refer to a different concept from me.
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).