fortyeridania comments on Rationality: Appreciating Cognitive Algorithms - LessWrong

37 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 October 2012 09:59AM

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

Comments (134)

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

Comment author: Wei_Dai 07 October 2012 05:03:30AM 6 points [-]

When Anna tells me, "I'm worried that you don't seem very curious about this," there's this state of mind called 'curiosity' that we both agree is important - as a matter of rational process, on a meta-level above the particular issue at hand - and I know as a matter of process that when a respected fellow rationalist tells me that I need to become curious, I should pause and check my curiosity levels and try to increase them.

Having someone who would occasionally point out deficiencies in one's rational processes sounds awesome. Do you think it is possible for LWers to perform this service for each other on this forum, or does it require much closer interactions and/or intimate knowledge?

(It seems like the real meat of this post is in the second half, but a lot of people, including myself, got distracted by problems in the first half.)

Comment author: fortyeridania 01 November 2012 04:26:49PM 0 points [-]

Do you think it is possible for LWers to perform this service for each other on this forum, or does it require much closer interactions and/or intimate knowledge?

This could have perverse consequences, because "You don't seem very curious about this" seems like a criticism.

In my case anyway, having an irrationality-cop would have two effects. First, it would motivate me to avoid the criticism by being more rational (like it does for Eliezer). Second, it would motivate me to avoid the criticism by hiding my irrationality better. The latter effect would be bad, because then both the cop and I would overestimate my level of rationality. (Why would I, too, overestimate it? Because I'd hide my failures from myself as well, in an unconscious effort to hide them from others more effectively.)

I think the fundamental issue here is that I dread criticism. (Solutions to this problem include exposure therapy and CBT.) People for whom this is less of a hurdle are likely to benefit more from having an irrationality-cop.