Hi everyone,
Recently have started a discussion group amongst some of my friends and aquaintences in an attempt to study and improve our rationality.
What I tend to do, is using the sequences as 'source' material, write up a lesson plan that attempts to be a bit more accesible to the layman and go through it with them as slowly and meticulously as needed.
Only had one meeting so far, but it's been exciting seeing it come together and people get engaged with the idea of improving their rationality.
My question is regarding the "Map and Territory" analogy, which is what we're planning to look at indepth next meeting.
Could you further the analogy and say that the paths that you write on your map, to get you to and from different points be considered the application of Instrumental Rationality? (As charting the map is the application of epistemic) You could point out that Instrumental Rationality also requires you to have a good map.
Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated.
How did you sell them on the idea of improving their rationality? I've been trying to teach some of my more receptive friends about it for a while now (by bringing up techniques when appropriate) and been met with apathy, rationalization, and laziness
I'm fortunate in that I have friends who are already quite into a lot of things that aren't too far from rationality as already is, who were previously part of a political discussion group I used to run, so it was easy for them to get on board with a new project.
As I said previously, I think the greatest challenge is making people understand the relevance of what we're studying and how it's directly applicable to everything they do. A lot of people tend to think it's beyond them, or not for them, or be somewhat dismissive, but once you start engaging them ... (read more)