[SEQ RERUN] The Martial Art of Rationality

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[SEQ RERUN] The Martial Art of Rationality — LessWrong

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[anonymous]15y00

I don't know a lot about martial arts, so I looked them up. Wikipedia, line one:

Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat.

So far so good for the analogy. Rationality is a system of practices and traditions of thinking. Wikipedia, line two:

Martial arts all have similar objectives: to physically defeat other persons or defend oneself or others from physical threat.

Now I'm stumped. Does rationality have an objective?

My understanding from movies is that a trained martial artist can defeat an untrained opponent, even if that opponent is larger or has better weapons. Or, as in the post, break a thick board with his fist. What opponents can you defeat or what cool tricks can you do with rationality training, that you couldn't without?

MrMind15y10

Isn't the objective of rationality to correctly align our beliefs with reality, so that they may pay rent when we try to achieve our goals?

Protecting oneself against manipulation, learning to argue correctly and getting used to being defeated are all byproducts of the fact that there is only one reality, independent of the mind.

3ameriver15y

I would say that the analogous objective of rationality is to protect oneself from mental threats: dark arts, misleading questions, tempting but wrong arguments... where specific biases would constitute specific types of attacks. A couple interesting corellaries from that line of thought: 1) like in a physical situation, mere awareness of the form an attack may take doesn't always help; 2) like martial arts, in mental defense you have the option of developing a large number of highly specific defenses, or a smaller number of more generic ones It does seem a little limiting to consider rationality nothing more than a mental form of self-defense, but I would argue that the higher levels of martial arts offer far more than that, and like rationality aim (among other things) for holistic life improvement. An anecdote from my martial arts background: A student asked, "Sensei, what would you say if I came into the dojo tomorrow and told you I had been attacked in a dark alley, and that I had protected my child who was with me, and defeated my attackers, and escaped unharmed?" The teacher responded, "I would say that I had failed you as a teacher, because the ultimate goal of our art is not to defeat attackers, but simply not to be present when the attack comes."

0jsalvatier15y

Sure. The objective of rationality is to achieve your goals as well as possible. Rationality doesn't tell you what you goals are, and martial arts don't tell you which people to defeat.

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