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On the other hand, that doesn't seem to have convinced us about the chimpanzees.
For what it's worth, the chimps have me convinced.
In response to
Convincing ET of our rationality
Since somebody already laid out the groundwork for situations like these, I guess I would start with that.
Once they know our numbers, we can hopefully start defining operations like addition, multiplication, and exponentiation, then move on to algebra and calculus. Great, so now they know we know some math. To show them we know science, regurgitating scientific knowledge might work, but I think they would be slightly more impressed with a prediction that utilizes that knowledge, followed by observation and confirmation. The number of seconds it takes an object to fall from a given height, calculated beforehand and then measured, or the number of days until some celestial phenomenon, represented by, for example, making a pile of pebbles for each unit of time you expect the event to take and taking away one pebble at each interval (expecting the punchline to occur at no pebbles), would be worth considering as attempts.
I love that link. It reminds me of a poster I once saw which gave instructions on how to make electric generators, fixed wing aircraft, penicillin, and the like for prospective time travelers.
In response to
Convincing ET of our rationality
using only your personal knowledge and whatever tools you might reasonably have on your person on an average day
Show the ET my cellphone?
More seriously: draw a rough map of the Earth showing my location, and then a diagram of the Solar System with approximately correct distance ratios. An irrational species isn't likely to have such information. See Terry Tao's presentation The Cosmic Distance Ladder for some epic applications of rationality to measuring large distances.
Great link. It reminds me of my freshman astronomy lab which actually had us students calculate for instance the diameter and mass of the Earth and sun, and through the semester moved up to the level of using parallax and blackbody spectra to calculate distance to various stars.
In response to
Convincing ET of our rationality
Writing prime numbers in dots is one idea; drawing a rough diagram of the solar system is another. Or if the primary goal is to prove that humans are sentient, civilized and therefore "people", I'd just show them my various gadgets: cell phone, iPod, Kindle, calculator, etc.
Pre-scientific societies have managed to build quite complex machinery. For instance the Antikythera mechanism, Roman textile mills, Egyptian irrigation systems, etc. Is it possible aliens could develop something as complex as a calculator without first attaining scientific literacy? If so electronics wouldn't necessarily prove scientific literacy to them.
In response to
Convincing ET of our rationality
Our sample size of intelligent species is pretty small. We don't have any good reason to think that they would prefer "rational" entities or would even have a notion of "rational." One could easily construct other hypotheticals, like an alien species that was intensely religious and considers signs of rationality to be bad (there are humans who do just fine in careers like engineering and claim to have such viewpoints, so the idea of a species reaching high tech levels and having such hang-ups isn't implausible.)
True, but would you agree that it is more likely that rational entities attain spaceflight capabilities? Also, rationality is likely to share some universals, whereas religion seems far less likely to.
In response to
Convincing ET of our rationality
I'm reminded of the hoary old anecdote about the primate intelligence researchers who put a chimpanzee in a room with a collection of intelligence-testing toys to see what it would do, and when they peek through the keyhole all they see is a chimpanzee eye watching them.
Which is to say, I doubt that my primary goal in this situation would be to convince them of my rationality, but rather to learn as much about them as I could.
That said... no, I don't think I could communicate much of anything reliable without the benefit of common language, culture, psychology, or biology.
Funny story, but it raises a good point. Perhaps an expression of curiosity would be enough to convince them of our worthiness.
In response to
Back to the Basics of Rationality
I like how pragmatic you're being. I am new here, but one of the things that attracted me to this site was the fact that much of the material is simply above my head. That's hard to find in informal public online communities outside of academia, and I feel that the very challenge of trying to wrap my head difficult material is an absolute necessity for keeping my math and statistics skills sharp. However, different people have different bars that they want to reach, and I do agree that more accessible material is a great idea. As for me, I have a voice for radio and a knack for stating difficult theories in an accessible way, so I think a good microphone will be my next purchase for my computer. Making a Youtube video or two on rationality would be a great way for me to contribute to this goal.
I don't believe I've conflated anything. It's posed as a question because I don't know the answer; I'm giving my view and some speculation based on a nagging feeling/set of thoughts. I'm looking for the views and experiences of others who may have observed/felt something similar.
I certainly agree that it can seem that rationalists are lonelier, I'm just posing an alternate reason why. Though, perhaps your post deserves a more thoughtful reply than I gave.
Unfortunately, the question seems to be a difficult one to answer. First, we need to find a way to determine whether or not rationalists truly are more lonely. Loneliness seems like a tricky variable to quantify. Some ideas that spring to mind: You could measure the size of social circles using social network data or self-report surveys. Simply measure self-reported loneliness. Measure loneliness with some sort of psychological screening like you would measure introvertedness or conscientiousness. Record how often someone goes out with friends. Rationality might be easier to measure, except that I think self-report data would be unreliable, as it seems likely that like intelligence or competence at a given task, rationality would be underrated by those that have it and overrated by those who don't, but I'm sure the folks here at less wrong or elsewhere could write up a survey that measures it fairly well.
Then only once these variables are quantified, would we be able to see if there even is a correlation to begin with. Though it could be explained a number of ways. Rational people are attracted mainly to other rational people, and there are fewer rationalists than non-rationalists. Human social ques are emotionally rather than logically based. Rational people are more likely to be candid about sensitive topics, scaring away non-rationalists. People with psychological traits such as placement on the Asperger's scale or high introversion could be conducive to rationality and not conducive to social aptitude. Or a combination of any of these. it's an interesting topic, but I think we are a long way from being able to draw any big rational conclusions about it yet.
In response to
Are committed truthseekers lonelier?
Perhaps you have conflated correlation and causation. It is possible that loners, or people who are less concerned with group conformity simply have more time and resources to devote to their rationality.
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Although I'm invariably annoyed by this kind of (what seems to me like) weasly hedging ("just state your probability already!"), it might be a reasonable thing to say if your probability is somewhere between 50% and 99%. At 15%, however, I hardly see the point, and in fact it's downright misleading.
How is that 'weaselly'? Say there is a criminal who confesses to a crime, and quite obviously did it, but the police failed to properly Mirandize them, or otherwise unlawfully elicited the confession. Legally, you should find them not guilty, even if they likely committed the crime. Not guilty does not equal innocent.