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aSynchro comments on Rationality Quotes October 2011 - Less Wrong
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There's a nice quote from George Bernard Shaw on the same subject: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
It's more demonstrative imho ^^
Ah, that one.
I may lack the context to properly appreciate this quote, but evaluating it on its own merits, I've always thought it's unfair - I think the judgemental aspect isn't necessarily warranted.
It's unreasonable to want to adapt the world to ourselves, now? In many cases I think it's just a good idea, and there are plenty of examples that I don't think anyone would feel any need to disagree with. Humankind changed the world when they eliminated smallpox, for example.
I may be missing the point.
Maybe the key to understand the quote is that "reasonable" and "unreasonable" are social judgements, society would rather want people to conform to the norms/world than have them change it. At least that's the way I read the quote.
"Reason" in general seems to be a good set of heuristics. Trying to be reasonable will help you make financial decisions, plan ahead for common contingencies, work hard yet sustainably, get into stable relationships, etc. Another good point of reason is that its failings tend to be known or easy to predict; for example, it tends to select low-variance strategies, discount excitement, and underestimate the duration and magnitude of personality changes. That makes it easier to evaluate: use it much more for mortgages than for romance.
Oh, I see! That makes sense.
I dislike that quote. It used to be in my quotesfile, but I removed it sometime recently. It starts out on a bad premise, namely, that the reasonable man adapts himself to the world. There's no justification for that, and if you reverse "reasonable" and "unreasonable" the quote is pointless.
See my comment here:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/7wm/rationality_quotes_october_2011/52wq
Yeah, I noticed that after I posted mine.