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Will_Newsome comments on Intelligence Amplification Open Thread - Less Wrong
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I sort of wish it were, but I think only one or two people use it. The problem is that it's not really anything like old-style rationalism and so calling it neorationalism is misleading. 'Bayesianism' is normally taken to be the philosophy, 'rationalist' the adherent. Unfortunately, rationality is more than just Bayesianism, so that too is inaccurate. The whole lack of an -ism thing is kind of a downer. 'Evidentialism' or something might work as a description of our epistemology but it fails to connect to the 'winning' part of rationality. Bayesian decision theory-ism is what we're trying to achieve, I think, but we need something more aesthetic. Suggestions?
The lack of an -ism thing is a strength. -isms are bad thinking.
-isms are bad to identify with, but make philosophies easier to talk about. People here already call themselves aspiring rationalists; they're already identifying with a group. But they're generally smart enough to keep that from crippling their ability to think. Having an -ism would allow 'our movement' to have a Wikipedia page and the like, for instance. It's just a mechanism of nomenclature.
If people here really do call themselves aspiring rationalists, especially elsewhere, that's bad. I really need to finish my post on this.
I heuristically associate people who "reject all labels" or "refuse to be pigeonholed" with a) High Broderism, b) conceited windbaggism, c) lack of intent to communicate clearly and efficiently. I also think "aspiring rationalist" is a perfectly reasonable thing for someone to call herself.
But I do hope you write your post and make your argument - perhaps you don't mean to say anything like the things I am imagining.
They do so rather context sensitively from what I've seen. It seems a not unreasonable name to call one who is aspiring to be more rational. I think that perhaps you're taking it more seriously than most? Two cult koans comes to mind.
I once suggested "optimizer".
But really, I think "rationalist" works just fine. The connection with "rationality" is immediate; as for (Cartesian) "rationalism", that's a historical term applied by academics in the specific context of an obsolete debate between (mostly) dead people that has been utterly superseded by modern concepts such as those discussed here. Does anyone visit LW and seriously come away with the impression that we're "anti-empiricist"? I didn't think so.
Does this count?
Rationalist works fine, but I'm still kinda meh on "rationalism". I guess it's okay...