Will_Newsome comments on Branches of rationality - Less Wrong

75 Post author: AnnaSalamon 12 January 2011 03:24AM

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

Comments (64)

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

Comment author: Will_Newsome 13 January 2011 11:26:15AM 1 point [-]

I think there are many important unsolved problems in the theoretical/philosophical parts of rationality, and this post seems to under-emphasize them.

Agreed to an extent, but most folk aren't out to become Friendliness philosophers. One branch that went unmentioned in the post and would be useful for both philosophers and pragmatists includes the ability to construct (largely cross-domain / overarching) ontologies out of experience and abstract knowledge, the ability to maintain such ontologies (propagating beliefs across domains, noticing implications of belief structures and patterns, noticing incoherence), and the disposition of staying non-attached to familiar ontologies (e.g. naturalism/reductionism) and non-averse to unfamiliar/enemy ontologies (e.g. spiritualism/phenomenology). This is largely what distinguishes exemplary rationalists from merely good rationalists, and it's barely talked about at all on Less Wrong.