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IlyaShpitser comments on Deliberate Grad School - Less Wrong
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Comments (153)
It's striking how much value there is in academia that I didn't notice, and that a base-level rational person would've noticed if they'd asked "what are the main blind spots of the rationality community, and how can I steelman the opposing positions?". Not a good sign about me, certainly.
Also, is that your actual email address?
I have been talking about this very issue for ages here on LW. "Rationalists" (the tribe, not the ideal platonic type) share a ton of EY's biases, including anti-academic sentiment.
Question: Did you make a post of this nature before?
I don't write top level posts, but I took issue w/ Luke taking a shit on academic philosophy, for instance.
I don't see that the above post refutes any arguments Luke made about academic philosophy. What were the basics of your disagreements with his arguments?
Luke is not qualified to shit on academic philosophy. He simply doesn't have the background or the overview. And it's a terrible idea for social reasons, it just makes people not take LW seriously. I would be happy to accept critiques of the philosophy establishment from e.g. Clark Glymour, not from Luke. There is a ton of value in philosophy you are leaving on the table if you shit on philosophy.
My other big annoyance is the "LW Bayesians" (who are similarly not qualified generally to have strong opinions about these issues, and instead should read stats/ML literature). Although I should say very sophisticated stats folks occasionally post here (but I don't count them among the "LW Bayesians" number, as they understand issues with Bayes very well).
Love this, Luke is actually well read so maybe it's a bit tough on him, but the casual dismissal and elitist posturing is pretty dumb and cringe inducing. Philosophy is underrated around these parts.
Could you provide an object level counter argument please? A strong one would give me a lot more credence that Luke's work was not an accurate portrayal of academic philosophy.
(Three would be preferred)
(Object level might look like "philosophers are making useful progress by metric X" or "I expect philosophers' work to be very useful in area of science a because b" or "doing a PhD in philosophy has lots of value in the world for reasons p, q and r")
I am not very interested in convincing you.
You said:
So look for the value! Don't write the entire field off, lots of smart people there, probably you are missing something.
But for example quite a few very smart causal inference people are in philosophy. That conference on decision theory MIRI went to in Cambridge was hosted by philosophers. Some philosophers deal with very hard problems that do not map onto empiricism very well, etc.
I think Luke will agree with you on what you say here, though. I remember commenting on one of his posts that was critical of philosophy, saying that his arguments didn't really apply to the area of philosophy I'm involved in (technical philosophy of science). Luke's response was essentially, "I agree. I'm not talking about philosophy of science." I think he'd probably say the same about philosophical work on decision theory and causal inference.
Isn't that motte/bailey: "philosophy, a diseased discipline" is not a very discriminating title. The best line of his post is this:
And this is definitely ok!
But again, I am not super interested in arguing with people about whether philosophy is worthwhile. I have better things to do. I was only pointing out in response to the OP that I have been harping on LW's silly anti-academic sentiment for ages, that's all.
He could have saved himself some trouble by writing "Philosophy: a Partly Diseased Disciplien" or "Philosophy: a Bit of a Curate's Egg".
How about:
I think the article Ilya has in mind is this one: Philosophy, a diseased discipline.
I can help with the second request:
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Someone who's studied stats and ML is much more qualified to talk about philosophy than someone who's studied academic philosophy.
My comment may be irrelevant. You didn't provide a link to Luke's article, so I don't have the context, and am only guessing at your meaning.
^ this is what I am talking about. For some reason I think Luke has a bachelor's degree with a major in cognitive science (but I don't remember exactly).
I was under the impression that he studied psychology, but dropped out before graduating. (An old interview has him mentioning that "I studied psychology in university but quickly found that I learn better and faster as an autodidact", and back when he was still employed at MIRI, his profile on the staff page didn't mention any degree whereas it did for almost everyone else.)
Just so we are clear -- I am not really attacking Luke. I met him, we talked on skype, etc. He's a sensible dude. I am just not weighing his opinion of philosophy very highly. "Mixture of experts" and all that.