I suspect that the word "confidence" is not being used consistently in this exchange, and you might do well to replace it with a more explicit description of what you intend for it to refer to.

i referenced confidence only because Mugasofer did. What was your understanding of how Mugasofer used "confident as we should be"? Regardless, I am still wondering what the value of being "right" is if we can't determine what is in fact right? If it gives confidence/ego/comfort that you've derived the right answer, being "right" in actuality is not necessary to have those feelings.

To say that "rationality falls short" in these cases suggests that it's being compared to something.

Fair. The use of rationality and the belief in its merits generally biases the decision maker to form a belief that rationality will yield a correct answer, even if it does not -- it seems rationality always errs on applying probabilities (and forming a judgment), even if they are flawed (or you don't know they are accurate). To say it differently, to the extent a question has no clear answer (for example, because we don't have enough information or it isn't worth the cost), I think we'd be better off withholding judgment altogether than forming a judgment for the sake of having an opinion. Rumsfeld had this great quote -- "we dont know what we don't know" -- we also don't know the importance of what we don't know relative to what we do know when forming judgments. From this perspective, having an awareness of how little we know seems far more important than creating judgments based on what we know. Rationality cannot take into account information that is not known to be relevant -- what is the value of forming a judgment in this case? To be clear, I'm not "throwing my hands up" for all of life's questions and saying we don't know anything -- I'm trying to see how far LW is willing to push rationality as a universal theory (or the best theory in all cases short of perfect knowledge, whatever that means).

Truth is relative because its relevance is limited to the extent other people agree with that truth, or so I would argue. This is because our notions of truth are man-made, even if we account for the possibility that there are certain universal truths (what relevance do those truths have if only you know them?). Despite the logic underlying probability theory/science in general, truths derived therefrom are accepted as such only because people value and trust probability theory and science. All other matters of truth are even more subjective -- this does not mean that contradicting beliefs are equally true or equally valid, instead, truth is subjective precisely because we cannot even attempt prove anything as true outside of human comprehension. We're stuck debating and determining truth only amongst ourselves. Its the human paradox of freedom of expression/reasoning trapped within an animal form that is fallible and will die. From my perspective, determining universal truth, if it exists, requires transcending the limitations of man -- which of course i cannot do.

Perspectivism provides that all truth is subjective, but in practice, this characterization has no relevance to the extent there is agreement on any particular truth. For example, "Murder is wrong," even if a subjective truth, is not so in practice because there is collective agreement that murder is wrong. That is all I meant, but agree that it was not clear.

Throwing your hands in the air and saying "well we can never know for sure" is not as accurate as giving probabilities of various results. We can never know for sure which answer is right, but we can assign our probabilities so that, on average, we are always as confident as we should be. Of course, humans are ill-suited to this task, having a variety of suboptimal heuristics and downright biases, but they're all we have. And we can, in fact, assign the correct probabilities / choose the correct choice when we have the problem reduced to a mathematical model and apply the math without making mistakes.

If all you're looking for is confidence, why must you assign probabilities? I'm pushing you in hopes of understanding, not necessarily disagreeing. If I'm very religious and use that as my life-guide, I could be extremely confident in a given answer. In other words, the value of using probabilities must extend beyond confidence in my own answer -- confidence is just a personal feeling. Being "right" in a normative sense is also relevant, but as you point out, we often don't actually know what answer is correct. If your point instead is that probabilities will result in the right answer more often then not, fine, then accurately identifying the proper inputs and valuing them correctly is of utmost importance -- this is simply not practical in many situations precisely because the world is so complex. I guess it boils down to this -- what is the value of being "right" if what is "right" cannot be determined? I think there are decisions where what is right can be determined -- and rationality and the bayesian model works quite well. I think far more decisions (social relationships, politics, economics -- particularly decisions that do not directly affect the decision maker) are too subjective to know what is "right" or accurately model inputs. In those cases, I think rationality falls short, and the attempt to assign probabilities can give false confidence that the derived answer has a greater value than simply providing confidence that it is the best one.

I think I'm the only one on LessWrong that finds EY's writing maddening -- mostly the style -- I keep screaming to myself, "get to the point!" -- as noted, perhaps its just me. His examples from the cited article miss the point of perspectivism I think. Perspectivism (or at least how I am using it) simply means that truth can be relative, not that it is relative in all cases. Rationality does not seem to account for the possibility that it could be relative in any case.

Ok, yes, the idea of using probabilities raises two issues -- knowing you have the right inputs, and having the right perspective. Knowing and valuing the proper inputs to most questions seems impossible because of the subjectivity of most issues -- while Bayesian judgements may still hold in the abstract, they are often not practical to use (or so I would argue). Second, what do you think about the idea of "perspectivism" -- that there is only subjective truth in the world? You don't have to sign on completely to Nietzsche's theory to see its potential application, even if limited in scope. For example, a number of communication techniques employ a type of perspectivism because different people view issues through an "individual lens". In either case, seeing the world as constructed of shades of grey seems more practical and accurate relative to using probabilities. This seems at odds with Bayesian judgments that assume that probabilities yield one correct answer AND that a person can and should be able to derive that correct answer.

The point i raise about communication techniques relates to your "offtopic" point. I assume you are a rationalist, and thus believe yourself to have superior decision making skills (at least relative to those that are not students (or masters) of rationality). If so, what is the value of your "off topic" point -- you clearly were able to answer my question despite its shortcomings -- why belittle someone that is trying to understand an article that is well-received by LW? Is the petty victory of pointing out my mistakes, from your perspective, the most rational way to answer my comment? I'm not insulted personally (this type of pettiness always makes me smile), but I'm interested in understanding the logic of your comments. From my perspective, rationality failed you in communicating in an effective way. It seems your arrogance could keep many from following and learning from LW -- unless of course the goal is to limit the ranks of those that employ rationality. What am I missing? (and the answer is no, i haven't considered using a spell or grammar checker other than the one provided by this site).