TheOtherDave comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012) - Less Wrong

25 Post author: orthonormal 26 December 2011 10:57PM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 January 2012 04:23:14PM 2 points [-]

If I have a choice of parents, and a dietician is the most useful parent to have for achieving my goals, then yes, choosing a dietician for a parent is a rational choice. Of course, most of us don't have a choice of parents.

If I believe that children of dieticians do better at achieving their goals than anyone else, then choosing to become a dietician if I'm going to have children is a rational choice. (So, more complicatedly, is choosing not to have children if I'm not a dietician.)

Of course, both of those are examples of decisions related to the state of affairs you describe.

Talking about whether a state of affairs that doesn't involve any decisions is a rational state of affairs is confusing. People do talk this way sometimes, but I generally understand them to be saying that it is symptomatic of irrationality in whoever made the decisions that led to that state of affairs.

Comment author: Kouran 04 January 2012 04:49:13PM 1 point [-]

Talking about whether a state of affairs that doesn't involve any decisions is a rational state of affairs is confusing. People do talk this way sometimes, but I generally understand them to be saying that it is symptomatic of irrationality in whoever made the decisions that led to that state of affairs.

What do you mean? Whose irrationality? Isn't it more straightforward (it's there among the 'virtues of rationality' no?) to just not call things 'rational' if they do not involve thinking?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 04 January 2012 09:29:10PM 2 points [-]

Incidentally, you've caused me to change my mind.

http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/96n/meta_rational_vs_optimized/

Comment author: Kouran 05 January 2012 02:01:30PM 0 points [-]

Wow.... I'm surprised and glad. Thanks for being open to criticism.