Rationality requires intelligence, and the kind of intelligence that we use (for communication, progress, FAI, etc.) runs on language.
It seems that the place we should start is optimizing language for intelligence and rationality. One of SIAI's proposals includes using Lojban to interface between humans and an FAI. And of course, I should hope the programming language used to build a FAI would be "rational". But it would seem to me that the human-generated priors, correct epistemic rationality, decision theory, metaethics, etc. all depend on using a language that sufficiently rigorously maps to our territory.
Are "naturally evolved" languages such as English sufficient, with EY-style taboos and neologisms? Or are they sick to the core?
Please forgive and point me towards previous discussion or sequences about this topic.
I may have read too much into the first and second sentences of your post - I felt that you were suggesting that the only way for us to achieve sufficient rationality to work on FAI or solve important problems would be to start using Lojban (or similar) all the time.
So my response to using a language purely for working on FAI is much the same as Vladimir's - sounds like you're talking more about a set of conventions like predicate logic or maths notation than a language per se. Saddling it with the 'language' label is going to lead to lots of excess baggage, because languages as a whole need to do a lot of work.
It's the argument nearly anyone with any linguistic knowledge will have with countless people who think that language would be so much better if it was less ambiguous and we could just say exactly what we meant all the time. No convenient links though, sad to say
Such as decision theories?
Apologies, I can see how you would have assumed that, my OP wasn't as clearly formed as I thought.
I think one of my main confusions may be ignorance of how dependent DT, things like CEV, and metaethics are on actual language, rather than being expressed in such a mathematical notation that is uninfluenced by potentially critical ambiguities inherent in evolved language. My OP actually stemmed from jimrandomh's comment here, specifically jim's concerns about fuzzy language in DT. I have to confess I'm (hopefully understandably) not up to the challenge o... (read more)