Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:
- Provide sufficient information (URL, title, date, page number, etc.) to enable a reader to find the place where you read the quote, or its original source if available. Do not quote with only a name.
- Post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself.
- Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
What reason is there to think that Allen is correct when he says that the "contemplative, logocentric approach" is a poor match for understanding the relationship between knowledge and technology? In the passage you quote, he makes a number of claims that seem (at best) extremely doubtful. Does he justify them elsewhere?
(Perhaps he -- or you -- might consider this a fruitlessly contemplative and logocentric question, too much concerned with evidence, warrant and justification. Too bad.)
Let's take the best computer programmer. Imagine he tries to write down all his important knowledge in a book. He writes down all statements where he believes that he can justify that they are true in a book.
Then he gives the book to a person who never programmed with equal IQ.
How much of the knowledge of the expert knowledge get's passed down through this process? I grant that some knowledge get's passed down, but I don't think that all knowledge does get passed down. The expert programmer has what's commonly called "unconscious competence".
All... (read more)