Against the Bottom Line

gRR

In the spirit of contrarianism, I'd like to argue against The Bottom Line.

As I understand the post, its idea is that a rationalist should never "start with a bottom line and then fill out the arguments".

It sounds neat, but I think it is not psychologically feasible. I find that whenever I actually argue, I always have the conclusion already written. Without it, it is impossible to have any direction, and an argument without any direction does not go anywhere.

What actually happens is:

I arrive at a conclusion, intuitively, as a result of a process which is usually closed to introspection.
I write the bottom line, and look for a chain of reasoning that supports it.
I check the argument and modify/discard it or parts of it if any are found defective.

It is at the point 3 that the biases really struck. Motivated Stopping makes me stop checking too early, and Motivated Continuation makes me look for better arguments when defective ones are found for the conclusion I seek, but not for alternatives, resulting in Straw Men.

In the spirit of contrarianism, I'd like to argue against The Bottom Line.

As I understand the post, its idea is that a rationalist should never "start with a bottom line and then fill out the arguments".

What actually happens is:

I arrive at a conclusion, intuitively, as a result of a process which is usually closed to introspection.
I write the bottom line, and look for a chain of reasoning that supports it.
I check the argument and modify/discard it or parts of it if any are found defective.

If you come up with a candidate "bottom line" and then explore arguments for and against it, and sometimes end up rejecting it, then it wasn't really a bottom line — your algorithm hadn't actually terminated.

Oh. That makes sense. So it's the bottom line only if I write it and refuse to change it forever after. Or, if it is the belief on which I actually act in the end, if it was all a part of a decision-making process.

Guess that's what everybody was telling me... feeling stupid now.

Feeling stupid means you're getting smarter. At least, that's what I tell myself whenever I feel that past-me did something stupid.

7fubarobfusco14y

's all good. Your real decision is the one you act on. Decision theory, after all, isn't about what the agent believes it has decided; it's about actions the agent chooses. Edited to add: Also, you recognized where "the biases really struck" as you put it — that's a pretty important part. It seems to me that one reason to resist writing even a tentative bottom line too early is to avoid motivated stopping. And if you're working in a group, this is a reason to hold off on proposing solutions. Edited again to add: In retrospect I'm not sure, but I think what I triggered on, that led me to respond to your post was the phrase "a rationalist should". This fits the same grammatical pattern as "a libertarian should", "a Muslim should", and so on ... as if rationality were another ideological identity; that one identifies with Rationalist-ism first and then follows the rationality social rules, having faith that by being a good rationalist one gets to go to rationalist heaven and receive 3^^^3 utilons (and no dust specks), or some such. I expect that's not what you actually meant. But I think I sometimes pounce on that kind of thing. Gotta fight the cult attractor! I figure David Gerard has the "keeping LW from becoming Scientology" angle; I'll try for the "keeping LW from becoming Objectivism" angle. :)

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