jacoblyles comments on Why Our Kind Can't Cooperate - Less Wrong

132 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 March 2009 08:37AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (186)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: jacoblyles 20 March 2009 05:53:49PM *  2 points [-]

"Except that we are free to adopt any version of rationality that wins. "

In that case, believing in truth is often non-rational.

Many people on this site have bemoaned the confusing dual meanings of "rational" (the economic utility maximizing definition and the epistemological believing in truth definition). Allow me to add my name to that list.

I believe I consistently used the "believing in truth" definition of rational in the parent post.

Comment author: conchis 20 March 2009 06:48:31PM *  4 points [-]

I agree that the multiple definitions are confusing, but I'm not sure that you consistently employ the "believing in truth" version in your post above.* It's not "believing in truth" that gets people into prisoners' dilemmas; it's trying to win.

*And if you did, I suspect you'd be responding to a point that Eliezer wasn't making, given that he's been pretty clear on his favored definition being the "winning" one. But I could easily be the one confused on that. ;)

"In that case, believing in truth is often non-rational."

Fair enough. Though I wonder whether, in most of the instances where that seems to be true, it's true for second-best reasons. (That is, if we were "better" in other (potentially modifiable) ways, the truth wouldn't be so harmful.)