Are you so confident in your perfect, unerring rationality that you’ll consider that particular proposition completely settled and beyond questioning? I’m about as certain that there is no God as one can get, but that certainty is still less than 100%, as it is for virtually all things I believe or know. Part of maintaining a rational outlook toward life, I’d think, would be keeping an attitude of lingering doubt about even your most cherished and long-held beliefs.
AlexU
Karma: 152
The site is about rationality, not dogma—I think. Posts should be judged on the strength and clarity of their ideas, not the beliefs of the individual posters who espouse them. To categorically exclude an entire class of people—some of whom are very good rationalists and thinkers—simply because they don’t subscribe to some LW party line, is not only short-sighted, but perversely, seems to run entirely counter the spirit of a site devoted to rationality.
The consequences, I imagine, would be less interesting, less broad discussion, with a constricting of perspective and a tendency to attract the same fairly narrow range of people who want to talk about the same fairly narrow range of topics. It will select not for good rationalists per se, but some mix of people who overly fancy themselves good rationalists, as well as the standard transhumanism/Singularity crowd that’s here because of EY.
“Still, we can agree that Aumann is not on board with the programme...”
What on earth are you talking about? A legendary rationalist is “not on board with the programme” here at a website ostensibly devoted to the discussion of rationality because he might be a theist? Get a grip. There is no such “programme” that would exclude him.
The site would be helped most not by categorically excluding theists, but by culling out all the blinkered and despicable cult-like elements that seem to worm their way persistently into the manner of speaking around here.
Outreach? For someone who seems so avowedly anti-religious, you seem very eager to appropriate all the trappings of classical, unthinking religion. I’m fine discussing rationality here, but talk of proselytizing makes me nauseous.
This is one of the more asinine things I’ve seen on here. There are many, many brilliant people who happen to be theists, and to categorically exclude their contributions and viewpoints would be doing the community a grave disservice. I’m an atheist myself, but I’ve never thought for a second that “God doesn’t exist” is any kind of fundamental, unassailable axiom of rationality. It’s not.
How is it unfair to him in any way? He’s free to choose whether to debate or not debate you; I doubt any reasonable person would be offended by the mere contemplation of a future debate. And any sort of advantage or disadvantage that might be gained or lost by “tipping him off” could only be of the most trivial sort, the kind any truth-seeking person should best ignore. All this does is make it a bit difficult to talk about the actual substance and ideas underlying the debate, which seems to me the most important stuff anyway.
I agree, but the anthropic principle has always seemed like a bit of cheat—an explanation that really isn’t much of an explanation at all.
Can someone explain why we can’t name the theist in question, other than sheer silliness?
1). There is a lot of, for want of a better term, “mental masturbation” around here: arguing for the sake of arguing, debating insignificant points, flashy but ultimately useless displays of intellect etc. Men tend to enjoy this sort of thing much more than women. Perhaps the female equivalent would be “social masturbation”—endless gossiping about other people’s trivia.
2). There’s a major bias toward discussing math and science topics on here, and objective rather than subjective experience. Rationality, as a meta-construct, arguably isn’t necessarily limited to these domains. I don’t see why it can’t be applied to equally good effect to literature and the humanities, art, interpersonal relationships, etc. Broaden your conversations to include some more of these topics (but, of course, with the same characteristic rational approach) and you may win over more female participants.
“Declare your hidden agendas” is somewhat of an oxymoron—obviously anyone with a true hidden agenda isn’t going to declare it. Seems like this idea of disclaimers in front of LW posts is a non-starter.
Your best guesses seem pretty close to how the terms are used on here; I think the community at large should be wary of appropriating terms that already have long histories in certain fields.
Be careful about how you define those terms, as they may be idiosyncratic. “Rationalism” and “Empiricism” have long philosophical histories, and are typically seen as parallel, not-quite-rival schools of thought, with the rationalists striving to root all knowledge in a priori rational inquiry (Descartes’ Meditations is the paradigm example). I’m not sure it’s wise to flip that on its head by redefining such a common, well-denoted term.
I’m certainly not against using chunked concepts on here per se. But I think associating this community too closely with sci-fi/fantasy tropes could have deleterious consequences in the long run, as far as attracting diverse viewpoints and selling the ideas to people who aren’t already pre-disposed to buying them. If Eliezer really wanted to proselytize by poeticizing, he should turn LW into the most hyper-rational, successful PUA community on the Internet, rather than the Star Wars-esque roleplaying game it seems to want to become.
What the hell are the “dark arts”? Could we quit playing super-secret dress-up society around here for one day and just speak in plain English, using terms with known meanings?
People are irrational largely because they’re stupid. I have yet to be convinced that “rationality” is something entirely distinct from intelligence itself, such that you can appeal to someone to become significantly more “rational” without simultaneously effecting the seemingly tougher feat of boosting IQ a standard deviation or so.
I won’t dispute this. For some people, a calculated decision to remain overweight in today’s world in order to focus on other things may be the best course of action.
Alternatively, if losing weight is that important to you, you can alter your environment so “today’s world” doesn’t make it so tempting to eat crappy foods. Your body can be screaming out “eat more food!” all it wants, but if you’re living in a cabin in some remote corner of Alaska, there’s only so much damage that can do.
Yes, and the 40% or whatever of America that’s obese are all “immune” to exercise. That’s surely it.
Funny how we were just discussing on LW people who self-handicap and make excuses in order to justify their failures. Might a bit of that be going on here as well?
Oh come on. If Eliezer eats fewer calories than he expends, he’s not going to die of hunger. I fully buy that will-power is a legitimate issue, but bringing up extreme cases like this to make your point doesn’t enhance the conversation.
I’m sure you’ve seen the psych research suggesting people have a finite amount of “willpower” they can exercise at a given time. It probably does make sense for some people to worry about hard-thinking (or other endeavors) than staying in top shape.
This is a great post because it shows just how hard one has to stretch the meaning of “win” to find a way in which atheism always “wins.” In the example, it seems that Wedesday “wins” by remaining a Mormon, unless she just happens to place some kind of high personal value on metaphysical truth that can only be satisfied by holding the epistemically correct belief. There’s no reason why that should be for everyone, though—there’s a pretty strong case both for not caring at all about these questions, as well accepting one’s “default” view if it’s too costly to shed. Say Wednesday never becomes a philosopher, but instead, goes into business, or becomes a journalist, or a doctor. It’s difficult to imagine how the “less wrong” position of atheism would help her “win” in any of these endeavors, and, in all likelihood, the practical costs incurred by deconverting would swamp any marginal gains she’d get from changing her metaphysical stance on God.
I think people on LW are very hesitant to admit that their strong attachment to “true” metaphysical beliefs may have nothing to do with “winning,” but rather, could just be an idiosyncratic personal preference (which is perfectly OK).