Some Morals from the Study of Human Irrationality [Link]

XiXiDu

Luke Muehlhauser posted a selection of the “morals” from Stuart Sutherland’s Irrationality.

Link: commonsenseatheism.com/?p=13556

I was wondering if the same could be done for the Sequences and if it would be a good idea or rather hold people off from reading them at full length.

Is it even possible to summarize each post in one sentence? An example would be Belief in the Implied Invisible which could be summarized by a quote from the post Decoherence is Falsifiable and Testable:

If P(Y|X) ≈ 1, then P(X∧Y) ≈ P(X). Which is to say, believing extra details doesn't cost you extra probability when they are logical implications of general beliefs you already have.

One could then compile a quote paper and cite the accompanying posts. As Luke wrote, "If you want to know his reasons for giving all this advice, read the book."

Luke Muehlhauser posted a selection of the “morals” from Stuart Sutherland’s Irrationality.

Link: commonsenseatheism.com/?p=13556

I was wondering if the same could be done for the Sequences and if it would be a good idea or rather hold people off from reading them at full length.

If P(Y|X) ≈ 1, then P(X∧Y) ≈ P(X). Which is to say, believing extra details doesn't cost you extra probability when they are logical implications of general beliefs you already have.

One could then compile a quote paper and cite the accompanying posts. As Luke wrote, "If you want to know his reasons for giving all this advice, read the book."

I'm currently working on a summary of some of the central Less Wrong ideas, with links to the original Sequences posts. First paragraph of the (very) rough draft, currently sans links:

The purpose of beliefs is to correspond with the state of the world and therefore allow you to predict reality. The 'truth' of a belief is therefore how accurately it predicts the world, which means that there can be degrees of truth, not simply a right and wrong answer. The way to arrive at beliefs which predict the world (at true beliefs) is to base your beliefs on evidence -- to entangle yourself with the world, and therefore let the state of the world control the state of your beliefs.

Would this be considered valuable?

0atucker15y

It's definitely valuable, but I feel like it leaves out some ideas (which may or may not be included in your other paragraphs, and if they are you can just interpret this as simple praise). Like, why beliefs need to be entangled with the world. Or the map/territory dichotomy, and how some false things will feel true because of cognitive biases and cognitive dissonance. Or how a lot of times people use beliefs for signaling. Most religious people I talk to actually believe that God exists in the universe, but don't realize how they don't actually anticipate anything different because of him.