All of alfredmacdonald's Comments + Replies

There is a lot going on with Nobel prize winners. The most common trait is that they work extremely hard. There have been 40-something g-loaded subtasks that I know of. It's quite possible that they have an exceptional "recipe" of sub-abilities from these elemental cognitive abilities that won't show up on a traditional WAIS IV.

But this is to be expected; the primary purpose of IQ testing is (1) to measure cognitive decline or some other kind of medical concern and/or (2) to determine which children go into gifted programs. Adult IQ is rarely tested outsid... (read more)

There is a lot to say about IQ. I plan to make a video about it. It's not my field, but I've been reading the literature on and off for 17 years. Recently, I have noticed an explosion in what we can (for the purpose of this post) call SecretSauce-ism which is adjacent to a "cult of genius" mindset, i.e. the idea that there is some secret genius juice that lends godlike credibility to a person. This is harmful, so I've been rereading the literature, and have over the past week spent about 50-100 hours refamiliarizing myself with the current literature.

It's ... (read more)

Kindness will only affect decisions where altruistic behavior wouldn't occur if lacking kindness. Integrity I'm even less sure about. Rationality could affect any decision where bias or fuzzy reasoning is involved, which is almost every decision.

You should get a Ph.D. in Philosophy if you consider the material studied in philosophy to be an end in itself. Philosophy is a truthseeking discipline, so if you find that inherently rewarding and could imagine doing that for a large part of your life it's a good decision. Don't worry about the wariness of philosophy: I can guarantee you that the criticisms levied here against philosophy have been addressed tenfold in actual philosophy departments, by people with sympathies closer to Luke's than you'd think.

That said, a lot of people go into graduate prog... (read more)

Sure, in the very short run (starting from absolutely no knowledge of the game) you'd have to make mistakes to learn anything at all. But the process of getting better is a gradual decrease of the frequency of those mistakes. You'd want to minimize your mistakes as much as possible as you got better, because the frequency of mistakes will be strongly correlated with how much you lose.

I think you're seeing "try to minimize how many mistakes you make" and reading that as "trying to make no mistakes." There are certainly mistakes you'll ha... (read more)

I really liked this post, and I think a lot of people aren't giving you enough credit. I've felt similarly before -- not to the point of suicide, and I think you might want to find someone who you can confide those anxieties with -- but about being angered at someone's dismissal of rationalist methodology. Because ultimately, it's the methodology which makes someone a rationalist, not necessarily a set of beliefs. The categorizing of emotions as in opposition to logic for example is a feature I've been frustrated with for quite some time, because emotions ... (read more)

I don't currently work at a restaurant, so at the moment I'm afraid of nothing.

But for the purposes of the example, it's not about discovering mistakes or incompetence -- it's about your level of incompetence being much greater than you previously estimated, for reasons you were unaware of prior to being exposed to those reasons.

I find that similar to the concept of fractal wrongness. What distinguishes an iceberg from a fractal is that you're in situations where someone is resisting exposing the whole iceberg for one reason or another. In the dishonesty scenario, you realize one lie reveals many others but only because that person has left you a tidbit of information that cracks their facade and allows you to infer just how deeply they've lied to you -- or in the case of attraction, an event or action that only would occur if they had a much greater level of attraction existing below the surface.

I think LessWrong actually has a higher barrier for contribution -- at least for articles -- because you're expected to have 20 comment karma before you can submit. This means that, if you're honest anyway, you'll have to spend your time in the pit interacting with people who could potentially shout you down, or call you a threat to their well-kept garden, or whatever.

I have at least 3 articles in draft format that I want to submit once I reach that total, but I don't comment on discussions as much because most of what I would say is usually said in one co... (read more)

Luke, I was curious: where does informal logic fit into this? It is the principal method of reasoning tested on the LSAT's logical reasoning section, and I would say the most practical form of reasoning one can engage in, since most everyday arguments will utilize informal logic in one way or another. Honing it is valuable, and the LSAT percentiles would suggest that not nearly as many people are as good at it as they should be.

His understanding of philosophy is barely up to undergraduate level. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

I feel like the phrasing "barely up to undergraduate level" is like saying something is "basic" or "textbook" not when it's actually basic or textbook but because it insinuates there is an ocean of knowledge that your opponent has yet to cross. If luke is "barely undergraduate" then I know a lot of philosophy undergrads who might as well not call themselves that.

While I agree that reform is far more likely to be do... (read more)

The general population would contain 50 sociopaths to 1000; I don't think LessWrong contains 50 sociopaths to 1000. Rationality is a truth-seeking activity at its core, and I suspect a community of rationalists would do their best to avoid lying consciously.

I am not sure what "the common definition of the word 'lie'" is, especially since there are a lot of differing interpretations of what it means to lie. I know that wrong answers are distinct from lies, however. I think that a lot of LessWrong people might have put an IQ that does not reflect a... (read more)

Over 1000 people took the test. Statistically speaking, it should have included about 50 sociopaths.

Not if LessWrong values truthseeking activities more than the general population, or considers lying/truth-fabrication a greater sin than the general population does, or if LessWrong just generally attracts less sociopaths than the general population. If over 1000 fitness enthusiasts take a test about weight, the statistics re: obesity are not going to reflect the general population's. Considering the CRT scores of LessWrong and the nature of this website... (read more)

Some personality traits may be conducive to "natural" rationality. High scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory for example may indicate ego-preserving tendencies that make greater levels of rationality more difficult to obtain. I'd imagine that natural levels of introversion would also help, and I say that as someone who usually maxes out the extroversion scale on these kinds of tests.

Does anyone know if there is a similar trope website for rationality -- does the LessWrong wiki qualify? Or trope websites for humor? Or rhetorical devices?

Hell, Silvia Rhetoricae is sort of like TVTropes for rhetoric but managed by one person instead of a community.

Often people who dismiss philosophy end up going over the same ground philosophers trode hundreds or thousands of years ago. That's one reason philosophers emphasize the history of ideas so much. It's probably a mistake to think you are so smart you will avoid all the pitfalls they've already fallen into.

While I agree that it's important to avoid succumbing to these ideas, philosophy curricula tend to emphasize not just the history of ideas but the history of philosophers, which makes the process of getting up to speed for where contemporary philosophy ... (read more)

YeahOKButStill has an interesting take on the interaction between philosophy done in blogs and philosophy done in journals:

"... Many older philosophers lament the current lack of creativity and ingenuity in the field (as compared to certain heady, action-packed periods of the 20th century), yet, it is a well-established fact that in order to be published in a major journal or present at a major conference, a young philosopher has to load their paper/presentation with enormous amounts of what is called the "relevant literature". This means

I have always despised the term "pseudointellectualism" since there isn't exactly a set of criteria for a pseudointellectual, nor is there a process of accreditation for becoming an intellectual; the closest thing I'm aware of is, perhaps, a doctorate, but the world isn't exactly short of Ph.D.s who put out crap. There are numerous graduate programs where the GRE/GPA combination to get in is barely above the undergrad averages, for example.

I don't think anyone on Less Wrong has lied about their IQ. (addendum: not enough to seriously alter the results, anyway.) If you come up with a "valuing the truth" measure, LessWrong would score pretty highly on that considering the elaborate ways people who post here go about finding true statements in the first place. To lie about your IQ would mean you'd have to know to some degree what your real IQ is, and then exaggerate from there.

However, I do think it's more likely than you mention that most people on LessWrong self-reporting IQ simply d... (read more)