No, I didn't, which is not the same thing. But yeah, it's hard to respond to because it's not clear what you're saying. Any given thing anyone says can be called a "map", which tells us nothing about the particular thing or the particular person who says it. So if there's a specific criticism you're making, would you care to make it clearer?

"The map is not the territory" Is a map. You are using maps for your argumentation. That's what you base rationality on. Reality is arational, rationality/irrationality is within it. It's a paradox. I make the same mistake, because it's communication. The arational reality you can experience yourself through subjective experience.

Quite likely not. But it's the audience here, to which you brought the video and asked "what do you think?".

I agree, but I wanted to point it out regardless, even though I understand now why you can't accept the video in its entirety.

I already listed some in an earlier comment. You did reply to that comment but not in a way that gave me much reason to hope for constructive discussion.

How do you have a constructive discussion?

I hope you will forgive me for saying that I don't get the impression that you are here to learn at all.

Truthfully no. I think however it's possible?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand the question. The things I was describing aren't arguments; my comment applies not to the arguments (of which there are actually rather few in the video) but to the maker's repeated comments about how people who consider themselves rational are so far beneath his level of "awareness".

The arguments made in the video, what does this have to do with that? Seems more like a subjective opinion which you projected upon the world. I think I would have done the same thing, however.

I don't think so. What I see is people pointing out that the video is attacking straw men. (Extra-specially strawy, as regards LW in particular; but very strawy even if applied more broadly to people who explicitly aim to be rational.)

You couldn't respond to my statement that "the map is not the territory"- is one of the maps which you use, regularly, thus fall into the category of which the straw man is targeted towards. In my opinion, and what I think.

Some of it is things the video said, and you've said you agree with it. I don't think there's anything in my (admittedly not especially generous) paraphrase that doesn't closely match things said in the video.

I do agree with it, I think everything is arational and within the arational there is irrationality and rationality.

the video seems to me to combine (1) stating things that I think would be obvious to almost everyone here,

Which is probably not the target audience, do you believe there are those who know nothing of rationality yet think math and language is the territory and be Spock? Although I understand now why you can't agree with all the arguments/fallacies in the video, but a few.

(2) making less-obvious claims without any sort of justification, which in many cases I think are entirely false, and

Which less obvious claims without justification and why are they false? That's what I am looking for to learn.

(3) gloating about how the maker is so much more advanced than those poor deluded rationalists.

Ok, how does this apply to any of the arguments made?

I think you are supposed to tell which is the one you recommend. I would like to read a textbook on mathematical logic, and would like to know which one to choose. And you just give a list without any advice

There seems to be quite some denial on LW then regarding the topic. I don't understand why, if what you are saying is true.

"Hey, losers! Rationality is overrated because you confuse the map with the territory, you aren't aware of your own thoughts and don't distinguish them from reality, and you're 100% confident you're right and therefore can't change your minds!".

That's a straw man argument, as far as I remember, I never said that. Personally, it seems to me as "the map is not the territory" is one of the maps which some, I am not saying you or anyone else, might think is the territory. This is only speculation.

So you do agree with the video, who else?

If for example, you were the person who was attached to the map being the territory, or not aware of it, and the argument was not a straw man.

Of course, you don't have to agree with a certain method of delivery, like the straw man.

I feel we have a deep communicational barrier here. You probably didn't read "Rationality A-Z" (the canonical LW text).

I have not read that.

On the other hand, I have no idea what you mean by "matrix"

Virtual reality, as in the movie Matrix.

"context"

This is a bit harder to explain, imagine everything said is out of context from the subjective experience. Context can only be found within the subjective experience.

"awareness" and other stuff, and you don't bother to explain. (By "no idea" I actually mean I could imagine hundred different things under each of these labels, and I don't know which one of them is close to the one you mean. That makes the communication difficult.)

Awareness is the separation of thoughts from awareness. You can be aware of thoughts, that's awareness, and aware of thoughts which you think is you.

From my point of view, it seems like you are "in love" with some words; you associate strong positive emotions with certain nebulous concepts. These are all typical mistakes people make while reasoning; even very highly intelligent people! A part of the mission of this website is to help people overcome making this mistakes.

It would be better if I could reason for my point without making a mistake, but unfortunately, that's very hard to do. It's also up to the rationalist to consider opening up to the possibility everything they think is true, is wrong. By this I mean, being able to reason properly will spread more truth, meanwhile it might be futile depending how close-minded rationalists can be. But that's on my current data.

Maybe I am wrong about you here, but you don't provide enough information for me to judge otherwise. You posted a video of a smug person accusing everyone else, especially "scientists" and "rationalists" of being stupid and having lesser awareness. That's all there is, as far as I see. Color me unimpressed.

The only way to know you have lesser awareness is by having higher awareness. Then, it repeats itself.

There are some things that... uhm, are you familiar with the "motte and bailey" concept? Essentially: there are some statements which taken literally are true but trivial, but they can be interpreted more generally, which makes them interesting but false. I suspect this is one of the traps you fell into.

I don't understand, you don't have to be afraid of criticising properly.

This is nothing trivial, this is the truth, and if you are serious about it can see for yourself.

So, here we are... each side convinced that the other side is missing something important, relatively simple, but kinda tricky. Saying "dude, you are just confused!" is obviously not going to help, when the other side is thinking the same thing. Any other idea? From my side, I recommend reading "Rationality A-Z", there is free download.

How many pages is it, how do you use the information and how, what, should you remember?

The books have different focuses, and will have different blurbs. The first book will have a Science! focused blurb since that's what it contains, and the later ones will have blurbs more appropriate to their content.

Edit: Added

The blurbs should fit the volume. A non-exhaustive list of possible things to emphasize:

• First: science, rationality, agentyness, seeing the world through fresh eyes and strategic thinking.
• Second: seeing the darkness in the world, heroism, caring, psychology, and rationality.
• Third: maturing, realizing the stakes, making difficult moral choices, realizing you're not perfect but still trying, and rationality.

Comments in order:

First of all, a general remark: Less Wrong Is Not Lifehacker. I would prefer LW not to become dominated by, so to speak, mundane self-help. Not because there's anything wrong with mundane self-help (quite the contrary, I think it's an excellent thing) but because there is lots of it out there already and I think material of that sort belongs on LW only if there's something genuinely new/different about it in an LW-relevant way. For instance, a strong empirical focus with actual evidence that the thing works; or (maaaybe) advice that's specifically relevant to exceptionally intelligent compumatsci types with akrasia issues. (I'm not convinced the last of those should be enough on its own.)

In what follows, "LWINL" is short for a re-recitation of the foregoing paragraph. (In particular, it doesn't mean "this definitely doesn't belong here", but something more like "this doesn't belong here unless there are special reasons why it does that aren't yet apparent to me".)

(I have a vague feeling that we once had open threads with a self-help-y theme. I forget whether we still do. That might be a good place for some things that aren't so exceptionally good or LWish to merit posting as articles but that are still a notch more LW-appropriate than your typical Lifehacker article.)

One other general remark: My feeling is that most of these things would be better handled as blog post + link in open thread than as LW posts.

• Goals of LW group: not interesting to me, might be useful to others, would be more interesting if accompanied by nonobvious information about what goal-deciding processes empirically work well and what ones don't.
• Goal interrogation/levels: might be interesting with good empirical evidence; otherwise LWINL.
• How to human: probably not; LWINL.
• Getting-shit-done strategies: LWINL.
• Superpowers and kryptonites: LWINL. Also, might be worth thinking of in two parts: (1) an exhortation to be explicitly aware of one's unusual strengths and weaknesses, and (2) a listing of likely strengths and weaknesses.
• Effective behaviours: LWINL.
• Stress prevention: LWINL.
• Make it easier for future you: this does seem to have a somewhat LW-specific flavour, with hints of TDT/UDT about it. Is it a thing that's clarified by looking at it through LWish decision-theoretic eyes?
• P=NP approach to learning: Interesting iff it comes with genuinely compelling examples and a plausible way to apply it.
• Guide to dating: my first reaction is "oh god please no" but maybe that's unfair if there is genuinely rationalist-specific advice in it.
• Training inherent powers: interesting almost exactly in so far as it contains empirical evidence and actionable advice.
• Steelman not strawman: could be good; you should check for overlap with already-posted stuff on LW, SSC, etc. "More poetic than anything else" worries me a bit.
• How to approach a new problem: probably useful iff it has solid empirical evidence and good examples.
• Stimming: no, this is not the sort of content LW is for.
• Time management: LWINL.
• Spices: sounds interesting but highly non-LW-relevant.
• Winging it versus planning: LWINL.
• On-stage bias: it's not clear how far the word "bias" is actually descriptive as opposed to being a rationalization for posting generic self-help advice on LW. LW-appropriateness is more or less proportional to how far it is :-).
• Creating a workspace: LWINL.
• Cost/benefit analysis: LWINL, but this feels slightly more LWish than most.
• Extinction learning: might be interesting, but hard to tell until the idea is more fully formed.
• Dating ad: oh god please no no no.
• Aversions: probably not but again might be easier to tell when idea is less inchoate.
• Lists: LWINL.
• Remembering details: interesting psychologically if the central claim (that you can actually choose to remember names) is true; how does this generalize?
• What is a problem?: no, make it an introductory part of something more substantial if it turns out to be needed.
• How to attend a meetup: not interesting to me but might be to others. I have a vague feeling someone already posted something along these lines, a few years ago, but my memory is super-unreliable.
• Noticing the world: I don't understand what the actual topic would be.
• Least-good but only solution: maaaybe. Do you have a few good examples? Is there a bigger picture? (I'm thinking e.g. of Eliezer's post about "the lens that sees its flaws".)
• Self-management thoughts: again not clear what you'd actually be saying; hard to tell until the idea is better formed.
• Subgroups: probably not appropriate for LW.
• If nothing to do, make better tools: Totally uninteresting (to me) as a "poetic style motivation post". Might be interesting if some actual empirical content -- examples and evidence.
• What other people are good at as support: does't sound appropriate for LW.
• Focusing: sounds like it might be LW-appropriate.
• Rewrite of !2000-year-old vampire": might be worth it.
• Tell people your goals?: maybe.

Possible quotes:

"It's a terrific series, subtle and dramatic and stimulating. Smart guy, good writer. Poses hugely terrific questions that I, too, had thought of... and a number that I hadn't. I wish all Potter fans would go here, and try on a bigger, bolder and more challenging tale." - David Brin

'This is a book whose title still makes me laugh and yet it may just turn out to be one of the greatest books ever written. The writing is shockingly good, the plotting is some of the best in all of literature, and the stories are simply pure genius. I fear this book may never get the accolades it deserves, because it's too hard to look past the silly name and publishing model, but I hope you, dear reader, are wiser than that! I must-read." - Aaron Swartz

"Oh Thoth Trismegistus, oh Ma'at, oh Ganesha, oh sweet lady Eris... I have not laughed so hard in years! Read it and laugh. Read it and learn. Eliezer re-invents Harry Potter as a skeptic genius who sets himself the task of figuring out just how all this 'magic' stuff works. Strongly recommended. And if you manage to learn about sources of cognitive sias like the Planning Fallacy and the Bystander Effect (among others) while your sides are hurting with laughter, so much the better." - Eric S. Raymond

"Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is the sort of thing that would technically be called a fanfic, but is more appropriately named a work of sheer genius. It takes the basic Harry Potter story and asks 'what if, instead of a boy locked in a closet, he was a child genius raised by a loving pair of adoptive parents who brought science, reason, and modern thinking to the wizarding world?' LOVE. IT. Read it, seriously. It will change your way of looking at the world." - Rachel Aaron

But "rationalism" or "rationality" in, say, the sense commonly used on LW does not in fact mean denying any of that.

But that's what you're mostly doing in your post. I will bring this up below.

The guy in the video comes across (to me at least) as smugly superior even while uttering a succession of trivialities, which doesn't do much to encourage me to watch more.

I don't think everyone shares that view, at least it's not for me. I don't know if I am contradicting myself, though. If someone was similar but in differing in opinion then me. The contradiction would then lie under if I told you the world is your mirror.

So I thought "maybe it gets more interesting later on" and skipped to 50:00. At which point he isn't bothering to make any arguments, merely preening over how he understands the world so much more deeply than rationalists, who will come and bother him with their "arguments" and "contradictions" and he can just see that they "haven't got any awareness" and trying to engage with them would be like trying to teach calculus to a dog, and that the mechanism used to brainwash suicide bombers and fundamentalists are "the exact same mechanism that very intelligent scientists use to prove their theories of space and time and whatever else". OK, then.

That's what he said, of course it's kind of harsh, but it's his way of going on these things I think, I don't know why or what's most effective but for myself I am unaffected or in the positive. That might be just because I agree.

Since I obviously wasn't enlightened enough for minute 50 of this thing, I went back to 40:00. He says it's important to connect with your emotions and not deny they're there (OK), and then he says that "rational people just assume that, well, we don't need any of that emotional stuff". OK, then. (And rational people like scientists get emotional when they argue with highly irrational people because they're attached to their rational models of the world and don't want to hear anything contrary to those models because of cognitive dissonance; they close their eyes and ears to the arational because they demonize it as irrational.)

By becoming aware of the emotions that you are suppressing, not the "feeling emotions" rationally because the reason of emotion is rational.

OK, clearly still too advanced for me. Back to 30:00. Apparently, if your "awareness" is low then you think thinking is great (OK...), you think thinking is all there is (huh?)

There is awareness of thoughts, not only thoughts, and the awareness is not a thought. That is a definition game of what is a thought, consider it being different from awareness.

Yes, you don't have a thought of a thought, you have awareness of thought. Otherwise, you're trapped in thinking and don't know that there is something else.

, you think thinking is a powerful tool for understanding reality (OK...), but as you gain in "awareness" you realise that thinking is a system of symbols, and "this gulf between the map and the territory just grows wider and wider and wider, until you see that the map is just a complete fiction, a complete illusion", and once you realise this you see "the gross limitations of thinking".

Einstein's theory of gravity isn't revealing anything deep about the world, it's just a set of sounds and symbols on paper. "That's what it literally is, except your awareness is too low to actually see that". And then he pulls an interesting move where he complains about people with "low" "awareness" getting "sucked into the content" of a theory because they don't see the "larger context".

See how he never mentions the larger context of an understanding of relativity itself? But the context of which sounds and symbols make up our "reality".

You might think he's now going to explain what the larger context is and how it should affect our understanding of relativity. Ha, ha. What a silly idea. Only someone with low awareness would expect that. What he actually does is to tell us how when rationalists criticize him they're doing it "on the level of thoughts" while he is "on the level of awareness, which is a much higher level". Bleh.

You missed the point, there was nothing said about affecting the understanding of relativity, you fell into the exact paradigm which the video said.

The larger context of the symbols and sounds on the paper. Not the theory itself according to physicists. That's the matrix.

Oh, wait, he has something resembling an actual point somewhere around 35:00. Rationalists give too much credit to logic, he says, because logic "has no teeth", because it depends on its premises and the premises are doing the real work, and if your premises are dodgy then so are your conclusions, and "most of them are very very wrong". Cool, he's going to tell us what wrong premises we have. ... Oh, no, silly me, he isn't. He just says they're very wrong but gives no specifics.

He gave the specifics right after that, rationality itself. Asking about the premises which make rationality possible.

Saying things that are true but elementary and not in fact denied by rationalists. For some of these, he actually gives some kind of justification.

It seems like you disagree on numerous points, but not being aware of it. Like Einstein's equation is simply symbols and sounds (and pretty much everything else which you give attribute to)

Saying that rationalists are wrong in various ways (giving too much weight to X, having wrong premises, ...). In every instance of this I heard (though I have not listened to the whole dreary thing) either the claim is flatly wrong, or he offers no sort of support for it, or both.

Let's say the rational mind cannot understand something, why continue to use the rational mind? Is there something else? Maybe awareness? There might be something worth pursuing there.

Now I know I am not responding to my quote of your text. Rationality is wrong because of rationality itself. It cannot be right without the right context. The context of which rationality exists. Where thinking exists. Which is "outside" the subjective experience according to you. That's the whole point. It's right under your nose if you'd bother to meditate and separate awareness from thoughts.

Saying smugly how much more "aware" he is than rationalists are, and how this puts him on a higher level than them. If there's anything actually useful there, I missed it. And now I've listened to enough of this without any sign that he has anything useful to teach me, and I'm going to go and do something else. My apologies for not sitting through all 82 minutes of it.

Well. You're capable of becoming aware as well. It's not a radical difference. :)

Hi, I'm curious what rationalists (you) think of this video if you have time:

Why Rationality Is WRONG! - A Critique Of Rationalism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaV6S45AD1w 1 h 22 min 47 s

Personally, I don't know much about all of the different obstacles in figuring out the truth so I can't do this myself. I simply bought it because it made sense to me, but if you can somehow go meta on the already meta, I would appreciate it.