I was thinking of this post, which has lines like these:
If I've got a hundred calculators, all of them rather error-prone—say a 10% probability of error—then there is no one calculator I can point to and say, "This is the standard!" I might pick a calculator that would happen, on this occasion, to vote with ten other calculators rather than ninety other calculators. This is why I have to idealize the answer, to talk about this ethereal thing that is not associated with any particular physical process known to me—not even arithmetic done in my own head, which can also be "incorrect".
(Bolding, but not italics, added.)
Thanks for pulling that up. I tried reading through the entire post, but I became confused at several points. Might be because I haven't read the previous posts in that particular series. Or maybe I'm just overly tired. I'll take another crack at it tomorrow.
From what you quoted, I do have to positively update my degree of belief in the "Eliezer is a mathematical Platonist" hypothesis. It's weak-medium evidence, but still evidence. I think much stronger evidence would be if he actually identified as a math realist. If he said, "Hey guys, I b...
I recognize the title could be more informative. At the same time I believe it says what is important.
I believe in a deity, I believe in mathematical entities in the same way.
The community of LessWrong (from whenceforth: LessWrong) is deeply interesting to me, appearing as a semi-organized atheist, reductionist community.
LessWrong seems very interested in promoting rationality, which I applaud. The effort does seem scattered, though, and this is the reason I post.
One has Eliezer's website with some interesting posts. The same of this community. The community links to some posts when you are coming for the first time into it, and you also have a filter for top posts. One has the blog. And recently, the center for modern rationality (in the same page as harrypoter fanfiction about rationality).
The point being there is no defined roadmap to go from AIC (average irrational chump to make an analogy to Game - which also seems to come up around quite a bit) to RA (again, rationality artist).
I write this post as to maybe generate a discussion on how the efforts could be concentrated and a new direction taken.
Should the creation of the Center for Modern Rationality envision this same concentration, this post may and should be disregard.
If it does not, then I leave it to your consideration.
Hang.