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thomblake 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

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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.