Will_Newsome

Taking Ideas Seriously

I, the author, no longer endorse this post. Abstrummary: I describe a central technique of epistemic rationality that bears directly on instrumental rationality, and that I do not believe has been explicitly discussed on Less Wrong before. The technnique is rather simple: it is the practice of taking ideas seriously. I also present the rather simple metaphor of an 'interconnected web of belief nodes' (like a Bayesian network) to describe what it means to take an idea seriously: it is to update a belief and then accurately and completely propagate that belief update through the entire web of beliefs in which it is embedded. I then give a few examples of ideas to take seriously, followed by reasons to take ideas seriously and what bad things happens if you don't (or society doesn't). I end with a few questions for Less Wrong. Eliezer Yudkowsky and Michael Vassar are two rationalists who have something of an aura of formadability about them. This is especially true of Michael Vassar in live conversation, where he's allowed to jump around from concept to concept without being penalized for not having a strong thesis. Eliezer did something similar in his writing by creating a foundation of reason upon which he could build new concepts without having to start explaining everything anew every time. Michael and Eliezer know a lot of stuff, and are able to make connections between the things that they know; seeing which nodes of knowledge are relevant to their beliefs or decision, or if that fails, knowing which algorithm they should use to figure out which nodes of knowledge are likely to be relevant. They have all the standard Less Wrong rationality tools too, of course, and a fair amount of heuristics and dispositions that haven't been covered on Less Wrong. But I believe it is this aspect of their rationality, the coherent and cohesive and carefully balanced web of knowledge and belief nodes, that causes people to p

86Aug 13, 2010

Abnormal Cryonics

79May 26, 2010

Intelligence Amplification Open Thread

62Sep 15, 2010

Please do not downvote every comment or post someone has ever made as a retaliation tactic.

58Aug 21, 2011

Will_Newsome

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Consider giving an explanation for your deletion this time around. "Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild"

My stupid fanfic chapter was banned without explanation so I reposted it; somehow it was at +7 when it was deleted and I think silently deleting upvoted posts is a disservice to LessWrong. I requested that a justification be given in the comments if it were to be deleted again,...

Jul 8, 20142

Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild

"If you give George Lukács any taste at all, immediately become the Deathstar." — Old Klingon Proverb > There was no nice way to put it: Harry James Potter-Yudkowsky was half Potter, half Yudkowsky. Harry just didn’t fit in. It wasn't that he lacked humanity. It was just that no...

Jul 6, 2014-11

AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything

If you want people to ask you stuff reply to this post with a comment to that effect. More accurately, ask any participating LessWronger anything that is in the category of questions they indicate they would answer. If you want to talk about this post you can reply to my...

Jan 12, 201453

Morality open thread

I figure morality as a topic is popular enough and important enough and related-to-rationality enough to deserve its own thread. Questions, comments, rants, links, whatever are all welcome. If you're like me you've probably been aching to share your ten paragraph take on meta-ethics or whatever for about three uncountable...

Jul 8, 20126

Seeking a "Seeking Whence 'Seek Whence'" Sequence

One of the sharpest and most important tools in the LessWrong cognitive toolkit is the idea of going meta, also called seeking whence or jumping out of the system, all terms crafted by Douglas Hofstadter. Though popularized by Hofstadter and repeatedly emphasized by Eliezer in posts like "Lost Purposes" and...

Jun 25, 201239

This post is for sacrificing my credibility!

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. Don't worry, there won't be future posts like this, so you don't have to delete my LessWrong account, and anyway I could make another, and another. But since you've dared to read this far: Credibility. Should you maximize it, or minimize it? Have...

Jun 2, 2012-50

[Link] A superintelligent solution to the Fermi paradox

Here. Long story short, it's an attempt to justify the planetarium hypothesis as a solution to the Fermi paradox. The first half is a discussion of how it and things like it are relevant to the intended purview of the blog, and the second half is the meat of the...

May 30, 2012-2

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Will_Newsome

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Taking Ideas Seriously

Abnormal Cryonics

Intelligence Amplification Open Thread

Please do not downvote every comment or post someone has ever made as a retaliation tactic.

Will_Newsome

Consider giving an explanation for your deletion this time around. "Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild"

Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild

AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything

Morality open thread

Seeking a "Seeking Whence 'Seek Whence'" Sequence

This post is for sacrificing my credibility!

[Link] A superintelligent solution to the Fermi paradox

Taking Ideas Seriously

Abnormal Cryonics

Intelligence Amplification Open Thread

Please do not downvote every comment or post someone has ever made as a retaliation tactic.

Consider giving an explanation for your deletion this time around. "Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild"

Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild

AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything

Morality open thread

Seeking a "Seeking Whence 'Seek Whence'" Sequence

This post is for sacrificing my credibility!

[Link] A superintelligent solution to the Fermi paradox