There are use cases (plans) that distinguish LW from mainstream philosophy that make philosophy less useful for those plans. There are other use cases where philosophy would be more useful. Making an overall judgment would depend on which use cases are important.
The concept of “useful” that leads to a classification which marks philosophy “not useful” might be one you don’t endorse, but we already discussed a few examples that show that such concepts can be natural, even if you’d prefer not to identify them with “usefulness”.
A double standard would filter evidence differently when considering the things it’s double-standard about. If we are talking about particular use cases, I don’t think there was significant distortion of attention paid for either case. A point where evidence could be filtered in favor of LW would be focus on particular use cases, but that charge depends on the importance of those use cases and their alternatives to the people selecting them. So far, you didn’t give such a selection that favors philosophy, and in fact you’ve agreed on the status of the use cases named by others.
So, apart from your intuition that “useful” is an applicable label, not much about the rules of reasoning and motivation about your claim was given. Why is it interesting to discuss whether mainstream philosophy is “useful” in the sense you mean this concept? If we are to discuss it, what kinds of arguments would tell us more about this fact? Can you find effective arguments about other people’s concepts of usefulness, given that the intuitive appeals made so far failed? How is your choice of concept of “usefulness” related to other people’s concepts, apart from the use of the same label? (Words/concepts can be wrong, but to argue that a word is wrong with a person who doesn’t see it so would require a more specific argument or reasoning heuristic.)
Since there seems to be no known easy way of making progress on discussing each other’s concepts, and the motivation seems to be solely to salve intuition, I think there is no ground for further object-level argument.
Why is it interesting to discuss whether mainstream philosophy is “useful” in the sense you mean this concept?
I love to read and write interesting things—which is why I take to heart Eliezer’s constant warning to be wary of things that are fun to argue.
But interestingness was not the point of my post. Utility to FAI and other Less Wrong projects was the point. My point was that mainstream philosophy sometimes offers things of utility to Less Wrong. And I gave a long list of examples. Some of them are things (from mainstream philosophy) that Eliezer and Less Wrong are already making profitable use of. Others are things that Less Wrong had not mentioned before I arrived, but are doing very much the same sorts of things that Less Wrong values—for example dissolution-to-algorithm and strategies for overcoming biases. Had these things been written up as Less Wrong posts, it seems they’d have been well-received. And in cases where they have been written up as LessWrongposts, they have been well-received. My continuing discussion in this thread has been to suggest that therefore, some useful things do come from mainstream philosophy, and need not be ignored simply because of the genre or industry they come from.
By “useful” I just mean “possessing utility toward some goal.” By “useful to Less Wrong”, then, I mean “possessing utility toward a goal of Less Wrong’s/Eliezer’s.” For example, both reflective equilibrium and Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment possess that kind of utility. That’s a very rough sketch, anyway.
But no, I don’t have time to write up a 30-page conceptual analysis of what it means for something to be “useful.”
But I think I still don’t understand what you mean. Maybe an example would help. A good one would be this: Is there a sense in which reflective equilibrium (a theory or process that happens to come from mainstream philosophy) is not useful to Eliezer, despite the fact that it plays a central role in CEV, his plan to save humanity from unfriendly AI?
Another one would be this: Is there a sense in which Eliezer’s writing on how to be aware of and counteract common cognitive biases is useful, but the nearly identical content in Bishop & Trout’s Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (which happens to come from mainstream philosophy) is not useful?
I don’t think there is double standard involved.
There are use cases (plans) that distinguish LW from mainstream philosophy that make philosophy less useful for those plans. There are other use cases where philosophy would be more useful. Making an overall judgment would depend on which use cases are important.
The concept of “useful” that leads to a classification which marks philosophy “not useful” might be one you don’t endorse, but we already discussed a few examples that show that such concepts can be natural, even if you’d prefer not to identify them with “usefulness”.
A double standard would filter evidence differently when considering the things it’s double-standard about. If we are talking about particular use cases, I don’t think there was significant distortion of attention paid for either case. A point where evidence could be filtered in favor of LW would be focus on particular use cases, but that charge depends on the importance of those use cases and their alternatives to the people selecting them. So far, you didn’t give such a selection that favors philosophy, and in fact you’ve agreed on the status of the use cases named by others.
So, apart from your intuition that “useful” is an applicable label, not much about the rules of reasoning and motivation about your claim was given. Why is it interesting to discuss whether mainstream philosophy is “useful” in the sense you mean this concept? If we are to discuss it, what kinds of arguments would tell us more about this fact? Can you find effective arguments about other people’s concepts of usefulness, given that the intuitive appeals made so far failed? How is your choice of concept of “usefulness” related to other people’s concepts, apart from the use of the same label? (Words/concepts can be wrong, but to argue that a word is wrong with a person who doesn’t see it so would require a more specific argument or reasoning heuristic.)
Since there seems to be no known easy way of making progress on discussing each other’s concepts, and the motivation seems to be solely to salve intuition, I think there is no ground for further object-level argument.
I love to read and write interesting things—which is why I take to heart Eliezer’s constant warning to be wary of things that are fun to argue.
But interestingness was not the point of my post. Utility to FAI and other Less Wrong projects was the point. My point was that mainstream philosophy sometimes offers things of utility to Less Wrong. And I gave a long list of examples. Some of them are things (from mainstream philosophy) that Eliezer and Less Wrong are already making profitable use of. Others are things that Less Wrong had not mentioned before I arrived, but are doing very much the same sorts of things that Less Wrong values—for example dissolution-to-algorithm and strategies for overcoming biases. Had these things been written up as Less Wrong posts, it seems they’d have been well-received. And in cases where they have been written up as Less Wrong posts, they have been well-received. My continuing discussion in this thread has been to suggest that therefore, some useful things do come from mainstream philosophy, and need not be ignored simply because of the genre or industry they come from.
By “useful” I just mean “possessing utility toward some goal.” By “useful to Less Wrong”, then, I mean “possessing utility toward a goal of Less Wrong’s/Eliezer’s.” For example, both reflective equilibrium and Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment possess that kind of utility. That’s a very rough sketch, anyway.
But no, I don’t have time to write up a 30-page conceptual analysis of what it means for something to be “useful.”
But I think I still don’t understand what you mean. Maybe an example would help. A good one would be this: Is there a sense in which reflective equilibrium (a theory or process that happens to come from mainstream philosophy) is not useful to Eliezer, despite the fact that it plays a central role in CEV, his plan to save humanity from unfriendly AI?
Another one would be this: Is there a sense in which Eliezer’s writing on how to be aware of and counteract common cognitive biases is useful, but the nearly identical content in Bishop & Trout’s Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (which happens to come from mainstream philosophy) is not useful?
(I edited the grandparent comment substantially since publishing it, so your reply is probably out of date.)
Okay, I updated my reply comment.