Scott Aaronson's "On Self-Delusion and Bounded Rationality"

cousin_it

Poignant short story about truth-seeking that I just found. Quote:

"No," interjected an internal voice. "You need to prove that your dad will appear by a direct argument from the length of your nails, one that does not invoke your subsisting in a dream state as an intermediate step."

"Nonsense," retorted another voice. "That we find ourselves in a dream state was never assumed; rather, it follows so straightforwardly from the long-nail counterfactual that the derivation could be done, I think, even in an extremely weak system of inference."

The full thing reads like a flash tour of OB/LW, except it was written in 2001.

Poignant short story about truth-seeking that I just found. Quote:

"No," interjected an internal voice. "You need to prove that your dad will appear by a direct argument from the length of your nails, one that does not invoke your subsisting in a dream state as an intermediate step."

"Nonsense," retorted another voice. "That we find ourselves in a dream state was never assumed; rather, it follows so straightforwardly from the long-nail counterfactual that the derivation could be done, I think, even in an extremely weak system of inference."

The full thing reads like a flash tour of OB/LW, except it was written in 2001.

That's possible, but so unlikely that it strains credulity (haha). Like I said in my reply to Kaj Sotala, this story is trying to make a point about some humans who live in the real world. Have you ever heard of someone for whom changing from a 'hyper-rationalist' to a deluded fool is easier than to learn to keep one's mouth shut every now and then?

Have you ever heard of someone for whom changing from a 'hyper-rationalist' to a deluded fool is easier than to learn to keep one's mouth shut every now and then?

Yes.

It is also curious to observe that in humans extroversion is strongly correlated with conformism.

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Scott Aaronson's "On Self-Delusion and Bounded Rationality"

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Scott Aaronson's "On Self-Delusion and Bounded Rationality"

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