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Vaniver comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 12 - Less Wrong
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I just penned a few thoughts on maintaining proper pessimism about Methods's future. (I also teased Eliezer and, indirectly, Less Wrong commenters a bit. It's all tongue-in-cheek and in a spirit of friendship.)
If anyone can think of a better title for that post, do let me know. I couldn't come up with a pithy Rationalist phrase that quite fit it.
Rationality is the technique that turns motivations into plans. It is not a technique to generate motivation, except very indirectly.
Strongly disagree. Maintaining and managing motivation should be built into any practical plan for trying to achieve a goal. This applies both in the abstract sense (all rational agents will self modify so that they more effectively achieve their goals) and as a ubiquitous consideration in human rational planning.
This is what I meant by "very indirectly."
[edit] "Very" might have been an overstatement; it probably should have just been "indirectly."
We can also add that a large component of 'motivation' can also be compartmentalized off into a general 'motivation' goal - leaving only specific reinforcement and boredom minimisation aspect as part of the more direct plan.
Hmm I don't think that's a very good description. Rationality means setting rational goals to accomplish what you actually want, and then understanding the world around you and yourself well enough to systematically and logically accomplish those goals. It would certainly include studying yourself to understand how to generate motivation.
That sounds circular to me.
That sounds like turning motivations (i.e. goals) into plans.
Indeed, as an indirect step.
The adjective ‘rational’ is just superfluous there; the grandparent should simply remove it.
"Rational," as an adjective for goals, typically means something like "internally consistent" or "long-sighted" or "wise," and so in general "rational goals" and "goals" mean different things. In a definition for rationality, though, it's inappropriate.
I didn't mean that it was superfluous in front of ‘goals’ but that it was superfluous in a definition of ‘rationality’, so we agree about that. And Pringlescan's definition makes sense if it's removed.
If you're defining rationality as the definition given on this site, you're right. If you're defining rationality as the thing that's actually discussed on here, you're not.
They could use some more sequences on how to motivate yourself, if I recall there was one written by lukefrog but it wasn't very good.
What do you claim would be a good definition for rationality as actually discussed?
How to think clearly.
Deconstruct that, it means little
How to develop correct beliefs about the world, with an emphasis on compensating for systematic errors and biases caused by suboptimal hardware.