Cyan comments on The path of the rationalist - Less Wrong

20 Post author: So8res 12 April 2015 01:44AM

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Comment author: dxu 13 April 2015 05:12:28PM 1 point [-]

Nobody asked me to take either vow. Doing so isn't in the spirit of this community.

I believe that's why So8res referred to it as a vow to yourself, not anyone else. Also note that this is a series of posts meant to introduce people to Rationality: AI to Zombies, not "this community" (by which I assume you mean LW).

There nothing wrong with willing reality to be different. It leads to actions that change reality.

This seems like a willful misreading of the essay's point. It seems obvious from context that So8res is referring here to motivated cognition, which does indeed have something wrong with it.

Comment author: ChristianKl 13 April 2015 06:38:48PM -1 points [-]

I believe that's why So8res referred to it as a vow to yourself, not anyone else.

Before I also haven't heard anybody speak about taking those kinds of vows to oneself.

This seems like a willful misreading of the essay's point. It seems obvious from context that So8res is referring here to motivated cognition, which does indeed have something wrong with it.

I consider basics to be important. If we allow vague statements about basic principles of rationality to stand we don't improve our understanding of rationality.

Willing is not the problem of motivated cognition. Having desires for reality to be different is not the problem. You don't need to be a straw vulcan without any desire or will to be rational.

Furthermore "Shut up and do the impossible" from the sequences is about "trying to will reality into being a certain way".

Comment author: Cyan 14 April 2015 01:46:54PM 2 points [-]

Before I also haven't heard anybody speak about taking those kinds of vows to oneself.

It's not literal. It's an attempt at poetic language, like The Twelve Virtues of Rationality.

Comment author: ChristianKl 14 April 2015 02:23:01PM *  4 points [-]

I think the "The Twelve Virtues of Rationality" actually makes an argument that those things are virtues.

It's start is also quite fitting: "The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth."

It argues against the frame of vows.

Withdrawing into mysticism where everything goes is bad. Obfuscating is bad. It's quite easy to say something that gives rationalist applause lights. Critical thinking and actually thinking through the implications of using the frame of a vow is harder. Getting less wrong about what it happens to think rational is hard.

Mystic writing that's too vague to be questioned doesn't really have a place here.

Comment author: Cyan 14 April 2015 02:48:16PM 1 point [-]

Sure, I agree with all of that. I was just trying to get at the root of why "nobody asked [you] to take either vow".

Comment author: ChristianKl 14 April 2015 03:22:39PM 2 points [-]

The fact that I haven't taken a literal vow is true, but they meaning of what I was saying goes beyond that point.

The root is that nobody asked me in a metaphorical way to take a vow either. Eliezer asked for curiosity instead of a solemn vow in the talk about rationalist virtues.

There are reasons why that's the case.

Comment author: dxu 14 April 2015 10:34:47PM 3 points [-]

The root is that nobody asked me in a metaphorical way to take a vow either.

Er, yes, someone has. In fact, Eliezer has asked you to do so. From the Twelve Virtues:

The third virtue is lightness. Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can. Do this the instant you realize what you are resisting; the instant you can see from which quarter the winds of evidence are blowing against you. Be faithless to your cause and betray it to a stronger enemy. If you regard evidence as a constraint and seek to free yourself, you sell yourself into the chains of your whims. For you cannot make a true map of a city by sitting in your bedroom with your eyes shut and drawing lines upon paper according to impulse. You must walk through the city and draw lines on paper that correspond to what you see. If, seeing the city unclearly, you think that you can shift a line just a little to the right, just a little to the left, according to your caprice, this is just the same mistake.)

This is the exact same thing that the article is saying:

In order to study the art of human rationality, one must make a solemn pact with themselves. They must vow to stop trying to will reality into being a certain way; they must vow to instead listen to reality tell them how it is.

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