Welcome to Less Wrong! (8th thread, July 2015)

Sarunas

19 Welcome to Less Wrong! (8th thread, July 2015)

22nd Jul 2015

7 min read

19

If you've recently joined the Less Wrong community, please leave a comment here and introduce yourself. We'd love to know who you are, what you're doing, what you value, how you came to identify as an aspiring rationalist or how you found us. You can skip right to that if you like; the rest of this post consists of a few things you might find helpful. More can be found at the FAQ.

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LW WIKI: This is our attempt to make searching by topic feasible, as well as to store information like common abbreviations and idioms. It's a good place to look if someone's speaking Greek to you.

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A list of some posts that are pretty awesome

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_{Once a post gets over 500 comments, the site stops showing them all by default. If this post has 500 comments and you have 20 karma, please do start the next welcome post; a new post is a good perennial way to encourage newcomers and lurkers to introduce themselves. (Step-by-step, foolproof instructions here; takes <180seconds.)}

_{If there's anything I should add or update on this post (especially broken links), please send me a private message—I may not notice a comment on the post.}

_{Finally, a big thank you to everyone that helped write this post via its predecessors!}

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19 Welcome to Less Wrong! (8th thread, July 2015)

by Sarunas

22nd Jul 2015

7 min read

273

19

A few notes about the site mechanics

EXTRA FEATURES:

There's actually more than meets the eye here: look near the top of the page for the "WIKI", "DISCUSSION" and "SEQUENCES" links.

A few notes about the community

A list of some posts that are pretty awesome

More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.

Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site!

_{If there's anything I should add or update on this post (especially broken links), please send me a private message—I may not notice a comment on the post.}

_{Finally, a big thank you to everyone that helped write this post via its predecessors!}

Open Threads

Personal Blog

19

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top scoring

(show more) Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 1:48 AM

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ShaneC11y80

Hello from Canada! I study computer science and philosophy at the University of Waterloo. Above anything, I love mathematics. The certainty that comes from a mathematical proof is amazing, and it fuels my current position about epistemology (see below). My favourite courses for mathematics so far have been the introductory course about proofs, and a course about formal logic (the axioms of first order logic, deduction rules, etc). Philosophy has always been very interesting to me: I've taken courses about epistemology, ethics, the philosophy language; I am also currently taking a course about political philosophy, and am reading Nietzsche on the side. I also love to debate. Although I don't practice Christianity anymore, I loved debating about religion with my friends.

I have come to Less Wrong to talk about my epistemological views. It is a form of skepticism. I view (i.e. define) truth exclusively as the outcome of some rational system. I reject all claims unless they are given in terms of a rational system by which it can be deduced. Even when such a system is given, I would call the claim true only given the context of the rational system at hand and not (necessarily) under any other systems.

For example, "2 + 2 = 4" is true when we are using the conventional meanings for 2, 4, +, and =, along with a deductive system that takes expressions such as "2 + 2 = 4" and spits out true or false. On the contrary, "2 + 2 = 4" is false when we use the usual definitions of 2 and 4 and = but + being defined for x and y and the (regular) sum of x and y minus one. This is an illustration of the truth of a claim only making sense once it has precise meaning, axioms that are assumed to be true, and some system of deduction.

When a toddler sees the blue sky and asks his mother why the sky is blue and she responds with something about the scattering of light, he has a choice: either he accepts the system of scattering implies blueness, or he can ask again: "Why?" She might reply with something about molecules, etc... Eventually, the toddler seems to have two choices: either he must accept that the axioms of the scientific method are true just because or reject the whole thing for not being justified all the way through.

My view on epistemology is distinct from the above options. It wouldn't reject the whole system (useless; no knowledge) or truly believe in the axioms of the scientific method (naive; they could be wrong). It would appreciate the intrinsic nature of the ideas; that the scattering of light can imply that the sky is blue. It would view rational systems as tools that can be used and then put away, rather than thing that have to be carried around your whole life.

What do you think about this? Can you suggest any related readings?

Sarunas11y20

This sounds similar to Coherence theory of truth.

See in context