You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

khafra comments on The rational rationalist's guide to rationally using "rational" in rational post titles - Less Wrong Discussion

64 Post author: Vaniver 27 May 2012 07:13PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (51)

Comments (51)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: khafra 29 May 2012 11:31:10AM 6 points [-]

Different connotations than those of "rational," but still some unfortunate ones: Reasonable means amenable to common sense, not absurd or shocking, not extreme, not controversial, etc.

Comment author: [deleted] 26 October 2012 10:03:32PM 1 point [-]

EY does use “sane”/“crazy” to mean ‘LW::rational’/‘LW::irrational’ somewhat often, which has those connotations to a much larger extent.

Comment author: [deleted] 29 May 2012 05:39:18PM 0 points [-]

Well, if we wanted something with no connotations at all, we should go with something like “Bayesian decision-theoretical”, but a tagline like “A community blog devoted to refining the art of applied Bayesian decision theory” wouldn't sound as good. :-)

Comment author: thomblake 29 May 2012 07:45:26PM 3 points [-]

I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but I'm reminded of the twelfth virtue:

You may try to name the highest principle with names such as “the map that reflects the territory” or “experience of success and failure” or “Bayesian decision theory”. But perhaps you describe incorrectly the nameless virtue. How will you discover your mistake? Not by comparing your description to itself, but by comparing it to that which you did not name.

"applied Bayesian decision theory" seems to be a particularly bad case of not capturing what rationality is about.

Comment author: RomeoStevens 29 May 2012 07:43:06PM 3 points [-]

thinking that them sciency sounding words carry no connotations of status, oh the folly of youth. :p

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit