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TheAncientGeek comments on Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory - Less Wrong
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A significant number of postings don't argue towards a discernible point.
A significant number of postings don't argue their point cogently.
Lack of awareness of standard counterarguments, and alternative theories.
Lack of appropriate response to objections.
None of this has anything to do with which answers are right or wrong. It is a form of the fallacy of grey to argue that since no philosophy comes up with definite answers, then it's all equally a failure. Philosophy isn't trying to be science, so it isn't broken science.
A quick way of confirming this point might be to attempt to summarize the Less Wrong theory of ethics.
Particularly the ones written as dialogues. I share Massimo Pigliuccis frustration
3 and 4. There's an example here. A poster makes a very pertinent objection tithe main post. No one responds, and the main post is to this day bandied around as establishing the point. Things don't work like that. If someone returns your serve, you're supposed to hit back, not walk off the court and claim the prize.
A knowledge of philosophy doesn't give you a basis of facts to build on,but it does load your brain with a network of argument and counterargument, and can prevent you wasting time by mounting elaborate defences of claims to which there are well known objections.
It seems to me that there are two views of philosophy that are useful here: one of them I'll term perspective, or a particular way of viewing the world, and the other one is comparative perspectives. That term is deliberately modeled after comparative religion because I think the analogy is useful; typically, one develops the practice of one's own religion and the understanding of other religions.
It seems to me that the Sequences are a useful guide for crystallizing the 'LW perspective' in readers, but are not a useful guide for placing the 'LW perspective' in the history of perspectives. (For that, one's better off turning to lukeprog, who has a formal education in philosophy.) Perhaps there are standard criticisms other perspectives make of this perspective, but whether or not that matters depends on whether you want to argue about this perspective or inhabit this perspective. If the latter, a criticism is not particularly interesting, but a patch is interesting.
That is to say, I think comparative perspectives (i.e. studying philosophy formally) has value, but it's a narrow kind of value and like most things the labor involved should be specialized. I also think that the best guide to philosophy X for laymen and the best guide to philosophy X for philosophers will look different, and Eliezer's choice to optimize for laymen was wise overall.
Most of the content in the sequences isn't new as such, but it did draw from many different sources, most of which were largely confined to academia. In synthesis, the product is pretty original. To the best of my knowledge, the LessWrong perspective/community has antecedents but not an obvious historical counterpart.
In that light, I'd expect the catalyzing agent for such a perspective to be the least effective such agent that could successfully accomplish the task. (Or: to be randomly selected from the space of all possible effective agents, which is quite similar in practice.) We are the tool-users not because hominids are optimized for tool use, but because we were the first ones to do so with enough skill to experience a takeoff of civilization. So it's pretty reasonable to expect the sequences to be a little wibbly.
To continue your religious metaphor, Paul wrote in atrocious Greek, had confusingly strong opinions about manbeds, and made it in to scripture because he was instrumental in building the early church communities. Augustine persuasively developed a coherent metaphysic for the religion that reconciled it with the mainstream Neoplatonism of the day, helping to clear the way for a transition from persecuted minority to dominant memeplex, but is considered a 'doctor of the church' rather than an author of scripture because he was operating within and refining a more established culture.
The sequences were demonstrably effective in crystallizing a community, but are probably a lot less effective in communicating outside that community. TAG's objections may be especially relevant if LessWrong is to transition from a 'creche' online environment and engage in dialogue with cultural power brokers- a goal of the MIRI branch at a minimum.
I wish I had more than one upvote to give this comment; entirely agreed.
Thank you! The compliment works just as well.
..and its not too iimportant what the community is crystallized around? Believing in things you can't justify or explain is something that an atheist community can safely borrow from religion?
Of course it's important. What gives you another impression?
It's not clear to me where you're getting this. To be clear, I think that the LW perspective has different definitions of "believe," "justify," and "explain" from traditional philosophy, but I don't think that it gets its versions from religion. I also think that atheism is a consequence of LW's epistemology, not a foundation of it. (As a side note, the parts of religion that don't collapse when brought into a robust epistemology are solid enough to build on, and there's little to be gained by turning your nose up at their source.)
In this particular conversation, the religion analogy is used primarily in a social and historical sense. People believe things; people communicate and coordinate on beliefs. How has that communication and coordination happened in the past, and what can we learn from that?
We can learn that "all for the cause, whatever it is" is a failure of rationality.
I think the LW perspective has the same definitions...but possibly different theories from the various theories of traditional philosophy. (It also looks like LW has a different definition if "definition", which really confuses things)
Religious epistemology - dogmatism+vagueness - is just the problem
Entirely agreed.
I don't see the dogmatism you're noticing--yes, Eliezer has strong opinions on issues I don't think he should have strong opinions on, but those strong opinions are only weakly transmitted to others and you'll find robust disagreement. Similarly, the vagueness I've noticed tends to be necessary vagueness, in the sense of "X is an open problem, but here's my best guess at how X will be solved. You'll notice that it's fuzzy here, there, and there, which is why I think the problem is still open."
"Crystalising" you team clarifying, or defending.
Communicating the content of a claim is of llimited use, unless you can make it persuasive. That in turn, requires defending it against alternatives. So the function you are trying to separate are actually very interconnected.
(Another disanalogy between philosophy and religion is that philosophy is less holistic, working more at the claim level)
I mean clarifying. I use that term because some people look at the Sequences and say "but that's all just common sense!". In some ways it is, but in other ways a major contribution of the Sequences is to not just let people recognize that sort of common sense but reproduce it.
I understand that clarification and defense are closely linked, and am trying to separate intentionality more than I am methodology.
I consider 'stoicism' to be a 'philosophy,' but I notice that Stoics are not particularly interested in debating the finer points of abstractions, and might even consider doing so dangerous to their serenity relative to other activities. A particularly Stoic activity is negative visualization- the practice of imagining something precious being destroyed, to lessen one's anxiety about its impermanence through deliberate acceptance, and to increase one's appreciation of its continued existence.
One could see this as an unconnected claim put forth by Stoics that can be evaluated on its own merits (we could give a grant to a psychologist to test whether or not negative visualization actually works), but it seems to me that it is obvious that in the universe where negative visualization works, Stoics would notice and either copy the practice from its inventors or invent it themselves, because Stoicism is fundamentally about reducing anxiety and achieving serenity, and this seems amenable to a holistic characterization. (The psychologist might find that negative visualization works differently for Stoics than non-Stoics, and might actually only be a good idea for Stoics.)
Your example of "a philosophy" is pretty much a religion. by current standard. By philosophy I meant the sort of thing typified by current anglophone philosophy.
That may be the disjunction. Current anglophone philosophy is basically the construction of an abstract system of thought, valued for internal rigor and elegance but largely an intellectual exercise. Ancient Greek philosophies were eudaimonic- instrumental constructions designed to promote happiness. Their schools of thought, literal schools where one could go, were social communities oriented around that goal. The sequences are much more similar to the latter ('rationalists win' + meetups), although probably better phrased as utilitarian rather than eudaimonic. Yudkowsky and Sartre are basically not even playing the same game.
I'm delighted to hear that Clippie and Newcombs box are real-world, happiness promoting issues!
Clippy is pretty speculative, but analogies to Newcomb's problem come up in real-world decision-making all the time; it's a dramatization of a certain class of problem arising from decision-making between agents with models of each other's probable behavior (read: people that know each other), much like how the Prisoner's Dilemma is a dramatization of a certain type of coordination problem. It doesn't have to literally involve near-omniscient aliens handing out money in opaque boxes.
Does it? It seems to me that once Omega stops being omniscient and becomes, basically, your peer in the universe, there is no argument not to two-box in Newcomb's problem.
Seems to me like you only transformed one side of the equation, so to speak. Reallife Newcomblike problems don't involve Omega, but they also don't (mainly) involve highly contrived thought-experiment-like choices regarding which we are not prepared to model each other.
What, on your view, is the argument for not two-boxing with an omniscient Omega?
How does that argument change with a non-omniscient but skilled predictor?
Think of the situation in the last round of an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma with known bounds. Because of the variety of agents you might be dealing with, the payoffs there aren't strictly Newcomblike, but they're closely related; there's a large class of opposing strategies (assuming reasonably bright agents with some level of insight into your behavior, e.g. if you are a software agent and your opponent has access to your source code) which will cooperate if they model you as likely to cooperate (but, perhaps, don't model you as a CooperateBot) and defect otherwise. If you know you're dealing with an agent like that, then defection can be thought of as analogous to two-boxing in Newcomb.
You may note several posts ago that I noticed the word 'philosophy' was not useful and tried to substitute it with other, less loaded, terms in order to more effectively communicate my meaning. This is a specific useful technique with multiple subcomponents (noticing that it's necessary, deciding how to separate the concepts, deciding how to communicate the separation), that I've gotten better at because of time spent here.
Yes, comparative perspectives is much more about claims and much less about holism than any individual perspective- but for a person, the point of comparing perspectives is to choose one whereas for a professional arguer the point of comparing perspectives is to be able to argue more winningly, and so the approaches and paths they take will look rather different.
Professionals are quite capable of passionately backing a particular view. If amateurs are uninterested in arguing - your claim, not mine - that means they are uninterested in truth seeking. People who adopt beliefs they can't defend are adopting beliefs as clothing
1 and 2 seem to mostly be objections to the presentation of the material as opposed to the content. Most of these criticisms are ones I agree with, but given the context (the Sequences being "bad amateur philosophy"), they seem largely tangential to the overall point. There are plenty of horrible math books out there; would you use that fact to claim that math itself is flawed?
As for 3 and 4, I note that the link you provided is not an objection per se, but more of an expression of surprise: "What, doesn't everyone know this?" Note also that this comment actually has a reply attached to it, which rather undermines your point that "people on LW don't respond to criticisms". I'm sure you have other examples of objections being ignored, but in my opinion, this one probably wasn't the best example to use if you were trying to make a point.
Not in the sense that I don't like the font. Lack of justification or point are serious issues.
EDIT I have already said that this isn't about that is right .or wrong.
I can find out what math is from good books. If the Sequences are putting forward original ideas, I have nowhere else to go,. Of course, in many cases, I can't tell whether they are, And the author can't tell me whether his philosophy is new because he doesn't know the old philosophy.