= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
LawrenceC comments on Rationality Compendium: Principle 1 - A rational agent, given its capabilities and the situation it is in, is one that thinks and acts optimally - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
Comments (28)
I'm not sure if this is correct, but my best guess is:
It maximizes utility, in so far as most goals are better achieved with more information, and people tend to systematically underestimate the value of collecting more information or suffer from biases that prevent them from acquiring this information. Or, in other words, curiosity is virtuous because humans are bounded and flawed agents, and it helps rectify the biases that we fall prey to. Just like being quick to update on evidence is a virtue, and scholarship is a virtue.
There are a couple of problems here. First is the usual thing forgotten on LW -- costs. "More information" is worthwhile iff its benefits outweigh the costs of acquiring it. Second, your argument implies that, say, attempting to read the entire Wikipedia (or Encyclopedia Britannica if you are worried about stability) from start to finish would be a rational thing to do. Would it?
No, it isn't. Being curious is a good heuristic for most people, because most people are in the region where information gathering is cheaper than the expected value of gathering information. I don't think we disagree on anything concrete: I don't claim that it's rational in itself a priori but is a fairly good heuristic.
This is a good point about taking into account the costs. I want to cover this idea in my third post which I am still writing, but will probably be something like Principle 3 – your rationality depends on the usefulness of your internal representation of the world. My view is that truth seeking should be viewed as an optimization process. If it doesn't allow you to become more optimal, then it is not worth it. I have a post about this here.