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VAuroch comments on Epistemic Viciousness - Less Wrong
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I don't know much about American professional sports--even less about pro sports in other countries--for that matter, I don't know much about martial arts. But as far as I do know, pro sports have none of these problems. Athletes do all sorts of outrageous things; coaches, athletes, and strategies are chosen on merit; absurdly detailed statistics are collected. Baseball players admire Babe Ruth but they don't idolize him. The analogy between pro sports and martial arts isn't perfect, but neither is the analogy between martial arts and rationality.
So, what do pro sports have to "keep them honest", that martial arts don't?
Teams of athletes compete in tournaments that directly demonstrate their skills at their sport. In theory, the sport of martial artists is hand-to-hand combat, but martial arts tournaments never allow eye-gouging, biting, and so on. The further the distance between the tournament rules and reality, the less useful the tournament will be. Fortunately, I don't think there's a rationalist equivalent of eye-gouging, so setting up tournament rules should be relatively easy.
An athlete or coach who gives up a pet technique for one that works better will be rewarded with status and money. The culture of pro sports permits athletes to train in entirely different ways from one season to the next, and coaches to change their playbooks whenever they like. Martial arts schools are stagnant by comparison. The money in pro sports comes from fans (directly through sales or indirectly through advertising) and it would take a lot of effort to raise awareness for rationality. But if rationality masters were really so awesome they'd have no trouble getting the money, right?
Pro sports aren't considered a "way of life" the way martial arts are. Athletes move from one team to another and it's not a big deal, but if Bruce Lee had given up Jeet Kune Do during his life, and taken up Shotokan Karate instead, the martial arts world would still be talking about it. It would be like the Pope converting to Wicca. Readers of OB will probably agree with me that rationality should be a way of life; but I hope they'll also agree that no particular school of rationality should be.
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In the most obvious ways to test rationality, which is by debate, the various Dark Arts are something similar.
Wait, what?
I can't quite tell if this is meant ironically.
Debate is far from the most obvious way to test rationality.
The most obvious way to test which of a group of people has more correct beliefs is by convincing others to adopt your more-correct beliefs.
OK, I'm now pretty sure you're serious.
So, let me make sure I understand your position. If you believe A, and I believe NOT-A, then on your account all of the following is true:
- The most obvious way to test whether A or NOT-A is by having us debate.
- If you convince me that A, then you have the more correct belief, and are therefore more rational.
- Thus, debate is the most obvious way to test rationality.
Have I understood your position correctly?
These parts are wrong. Debate is not for testing whether A or NOT-A is true, it is for testing what the most accurate posterior for Pr(A) is, given the evidence available, and who had better-assigned priors.
The reason debate is the most obvious test of rationality is Aumann's Agreement Theorem. If we debate beliefs, and we are both perfectly rational, we will agree on all beliefs debated by the end of the debate. The person whose beliefs pre-debate most closely match the beliefs post-debate, if the debate was strictly rational (rather than using Dark Arts), was the more rational on those issues, and can be presumed to still be more rational on other issues.
OK, thanks for clarifying your position.
So... if you and I debate issue X, and at the end of that debate your beliefs are completely unchanged, whereas mine have changed slightly, then we've determined that you are more rational than I with respect to X, and therefore probably more rational than I with respect to other issues... provided that the debate itself is "strictly rational."
Yes?
If so, two questions:
If the debate was not strictly rational, does the debate tell us anything about which of us is more rational?
Can you point me at an actual example of a strictly rational debate?
As previously mentioned, there are many other things which are better for being convincing but not rational, so an actual rational debate is pretty much an idealized thing. Some of the early Socratic dialogues probably count (I'm thinking specifically of the Euthyphro). I haven't read the Yudkowsky/Hanson AI FOOM debate, it might as well.
Ah, gotcha. Now that I understand what you meant by "debate", your position is clearer. Thanks.