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Mitchell_Porter comments on Is causal decision theory plus self-modification enough? - Less Wrong Discussion

-4 Post author: Mitchell_Porter 10 March 2012 08:04AM

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Tags: decision_theory

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Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 10 March 2012 08:27:56AM *  -1 points [-]

You can't. But why would we want to taboo those terms?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 10 March 2012 03:22:36PM 2 points [-]

The inability to taboo a term can indicate that the term's meaning is not sufficiently clear and well-thought out.

Comment author: Incorrect 10 March 2012 09:06:38AM *  2 points [-]

I want to know what they mean in context. I feel I cannot evaluate the statement otherwise; I am not sure what it is telling me to expect.

Comment author: Giles 10 March 2012 05:55:27PM *  1 point [-]

My understanding is that tabooing is usually "safe".

  • If a concept is well-defined and non-atomic then you can break it down into its definition, and the argument will still be valid.
  • If a concept is not well-defined then why are you using it?

So the only reasons for not-tabooing something would seem to be:

  • My above argument is confused somehow (e.g. the concepts of "well-defined" or "atomic" are themselves not well-defined and need tabooing)
  • For convenience - someone cal effectively stall an argument by asking you to taboo every word
  • The concepts are atomic

Treating control (and to a lesser extent causality) as atomic seems to imply a large inferential distance from the worldview popular on LW. Is there a sequence or something else I can read to see how to get to there from here?

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 10 March 2012 06:30:06PM *  0 points [-]

Refusing to taboo may be a good idea if you don't know how, and using the opaque concept gives you better results (in the intended sense) than application of the best available theory of how it works. (This is different from declaring understanding of a concept undesirable or impossible in principle.)

Comment author: Giles 10 March 2012 09:24:56PM 0 points [-]

Yes, that makes sense. Do you think this applies here?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 10 March 2012 03:16:26PM 0 points [-]

Same reason we usually play "rationalist's taboo" around here: to separate the denotations of the terms from their connotations and operate on the former.

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