cousin_it comments on Time to See If We Can Apply Anything We Have Learned - Less Wrong

1 Post author: MichaelVassar 18 June 2009 10:06AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 18 June 2009 10:10:44PM *  4 points [-]

No, no. You skipped a step. You didn't actually think hard about the implications of the three positions or work out any stark contradictions between them. If you'd done that, you'd have thought up multiple small focused experiments to resolve each individual area of contradiction. Instead you hastily propose one big complex setup that looks more like a contest between three self-help techniques. Whatever the outcome, it won't bring us any closer to the correct constructive theory of human motivation. Yvain has eloquently described the same problem in the thread nearby.

Sorry if this sounded harsh.

Comment author: Drahflow 19 June 2009 01:08:37AM 1 point [-]

No, but a setup which does not try to understand more deeply which parts of which theory contribute to its success still gives pretty useful results about which approach has the highest expected utility.

Comment author: Drahflow 21 June 2009 10:11:35PM 0 points [-]

So, are we going to get this experiment running or not?

Do you have a better proposal?