RichardKennaway comments on Compartmentalization in epistemic and instrumental rationality - Less Wrong

77 Post author: AnnaSalamon 17 September 2010 07:02AM

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Comment author: pjeby 20 September 2010 08:15:30PM 2 points [-]

It looks like a stretch to me, to call this a belief.

At which point, we're arguing definitions, because AFAICT the rest of your comment is not arguing that the process consists of something other than "forming a mental image which you are not designating false, and acting as if it is true." You seem to merely be arguing that this process should not be called "belief".

What is relevant, however, is that this is a process of compartmentalizing one's thinking, so as to ignore various facts about the situation. Whether you call this a belief or not isn't relevant to the main point: decompartmentalization can be hazardous to performance.

As far as I can tell, you are not actually disputing that claim. ;-)

Comment author: RichardKennaway 20 September 2010 08:36:16PM *  4 points [-]

You can't call black white and then say that to dispute that is to merely talk about definitions. "Acting as if one believes", if it means anything at all, must mean doing the same acts one would do if one believed. But you explicitly excluded betting on the outcome, a paradigmatic test of belief on LW.

Aiming at a target is not acting as if one were sure to hit the target. Visualising hitting the target is not acting as if one believes one will. These are different things, whatever they are called.

Comment author: pjeby 20 September 2010 08:44:45PM -1 points [-]

You can't call black white and then say that to dispute that is to merely talk about definitions.

Even if you call it "froobling", it doesn't change my point in any way, so I don't see the relevance of your reply... which is still not disputing my point about compartmentalization.