All of non-expert's Comments + Replies

interesting, so you are dividing morality into impact on immigrants and the idea that they should be allowed to join us a a moral right, with the former included in your analysis and the latter not.

putting aside positions, from a practical perspective it seems that drawing that line will remain difficult because "impact to immigrants" likely informs the very moral arguments I think you're trying to avoid. Or in other words, putting that issue (effect on immigrants) within the costs/benefits analysis requires some of the same subjective conside... (read more)

nope, i'm just asking why you think that the moral argument should be ignored, and why that position is obvious. we're talking about a group of humans and what laws and regulations will apply to their lives, likely radically changing them. these decisions will affect their relatives, who may or may not be in similar positions themselves. when legislating about persons, it seems there is always some relevance as to how the laws will affect those people's lives, even if broader considerations (value to us/cost to us as a country) are also relevant.

to be ... (read more)

if we confess that 'right' lives in a world of physics and logic - because everything lives in a world of physics and logic - then we have to translate 'right' into those terms somehow.

A different perspective i'd like people's thoughts on: is it more accurate to say that everything WE KNOW lives in a world of physics and logic, and thus translating 'right' into those terms is correct assuming right and wrong (fairness, etc.) are defined within the bounds of what we know.

I'm wondering if you would agree that you're making an implicit philosophical ar... (read more)

Look, there is no doubt an equivalency in your method in that "they should join us" is put on the backburner along with "we should penalize them." I'm simply highlighting this point.

Or to put it another way, the moral statement I'm trying to make is that the moral value of absolutist moral considerations is less than utilitarian concerns in regards to costs/benefits. I don't actually care about moral arguments for or against immigration that aren't consequentalist.

In limiting the "consequentialist" argument to the "h... (read more)

I think you're implicitly making an moral statement (putting aside whether its "correct"). Your focus on "costs to us and how much do we benefit" means we downplay or eliminate any consideration of the moral question. However, ignoring the moral question has the same effect as losing the moral argument to "this is our home and we shouldn't let strangers in" -- in both cases the moral argument for "joining us" is treated as irrelevant. I'm not making an argument, just an observation i think is relevant if considering the issue.

DeFranker -- many thanks for taking the time, very helpful.

I spent last night thinking about this, and now I understand your (LW's) points better and my own. To start, I think the ideas of epistemic rationality and instrumental rationality are unassailable as ideas -- there are few things that make as much sense as the ideas of what rationality is trying to do, in the abstract.

But, when we say "rationality" is a good idea, I want to understand two fundamental things: In what context does rationality apply, and where it applies, what methodolog... (read more)

Great, thanks, this is helpful. Is the answer to the above questions, as far as you practice rationality, the same for instrumental rationality? it is an idea -- but no real methodology? in my mind it would seem decision theory could be a methodology by which someone could practice instrumental rationality. To the extent it is, the above questions remain relevant (only in the sense they should be considered,

I now have an appreciation of your point -- I can definitely see how the question "what are the flaws with epistemic rationality" could b... (read more)

no -- im not saying your goals ought to be anything, and i'm not trying to win an argument, but appreciate you will interpret my motives as you see appropriate.

let me try this differently -- there is an idea on LW that rationality is a "good" way to go about thinking [NOTE: correct me if i'm wrong]. By rationality, I mean exactly what is listed here:

Epistemic rationality: believing, and updating on evidence, so as to systematically improve the correspondence between your map and the territory. The art of obtaining beliefs that correspond t

DeFranker, thanks for the detailed note -- I take your points, they are reasonable and fair, but want to share a different perspective.

The problem I'm having is that I'm not actually making any arguments as "correct" or saying any of you people are wrong. The observation/statement for the sake of discussion does not mean that there is a conclusory judgment attached to it. Now, to the extent that you say i need to have a better understanding to make dissenting points, fair, but all I want to know is what the weakest arguments against rationali... (read more)

How has Rationality, as a universal theory (or near-universal) on decision making, confronted its most painful weaknesses? What are rationality's weak points? The more broad a theory is claimed to be, the more important it seems to really test the theory's weaknesses -- that is why I assume you bring up religion, but the same standard should apply to rationality. This is not a cute question from a religious person, more of an intellectual inquiry from a person hoping to learn. In honor of the grand-daddy of cognitive biases, confirmation bias, doesn't rati... (read more)

Thanks, EY. I am asking a real question in that i want to know what people think of the question.

As a person that does not think rationality is as useful or as universal as people do on this site, I am at a disadvantage in that i'm in the minority here, however, I'm still posting/reading to question myself through engaging with those I disagree with. I seek the community's perspective, not to necessarily believe it or label it correct/wrong, but simply to understand it. My personal experience (with this name and old ones) has been that people general... (read more)

Thanks. I don't mean any weaknesses in particular, the idea laid out by EY was to confront your greatest weaknesses, so that is something for those that follow the theory to look into -- I'm just exploring :).

I guess what I'm not following is this idea of "choosing" an approach. Implicit in your answer I think is the idea that there is a "best" approach that must be discovered among the various theories on living life -- why does the existence of theory that is the "best" indicative that it is universally applicable? The goal... (read more)

ok, wasn't trying to play "gotcha," just answering your question. good chat, thanks for engaging with me.

you suggested that emotion hacking is more of an issue for instrumental rationality and not so much for epistemic rationality. to the extent that is wrong, you're ignoring emotion hacking (subjective factor) from your application of epistemic rationality.

sure. note that i don't offer this as conclusive or correct, but just something i'm thinking about. also, lets assume rational choice theory is universally applicable for decision making.

rational choice theory gives you an equation to use and all we have to do is fill that equation with the proper inputs, value them correctly, and you get an answer. Obviously this is more difficult in practice, particularly where inputs (as to be expected) are not easily convertible to probabilities/numbers -- I'm worried this is actually more problematic than we think... (read more)

Thanks for the clarification, now i understand.

Going back to the original comment i commented on:

emotion-hacking is mostly an instrumental technique (although it is also epistemically valuable to notice and then stop your brain from flinching away from certain thoughts).

Particularly with your third type of emotion hacking ("hacking your emotional responses to external stimuli"), it seems emotion hacking is vital for for epistemic rationality -- i guess that relates to my original point, that hacking emotions are at least as important for epi... (read more)

I suppose there is a third kind of emotion-hacking, namely hacking your emotional responses to external stimuli.

isn't this the ONLY kind of emotion-hacking out there? what emotions are expressed irrespective of external stimuli? seems like a small or insignificant subset.

But it's not as if I can respond to other people's thoughts, even in principle: all I have access to are sounds or images which purport to be correlated to those thoughts in some mysterious way.

the second two paragraphs above are responding to this. sorry to throw it back at you, ... (read more)

All emotions are responses to external stimuli, unless your emotions relate only to what is going on in your head, without reference to the outside (i.e. outside your body) world.

I agree you can't respond to others' thoughts, unless they express them such that they are "behaviors." Interestingly, the "problem" you have with the sounds or images (or words?) which purport to be correlated to others' thoughts is the same exact issue everyone is having with you (or me).

if we're confident in our own ability to express our thoughts (i.e. the correlation problem is not an issue for you), then how much can we dismiss others' expressions because of that very same issue?

whose thoughts and whose behaviors? not disagreeing, just asking.

the best evidence that confirmation bias is real and ever-present is a website of similarly thinking people that values comments based on those very users' reactions. perhaps unsurprisingly, those that conform to the conventional thought are rewarded with points. so i guess while the point system doesn't actually work as a substantive matter, at least we are afforded a constant reminder that confirmation bias is a problem even among those that purport to take it into account.

of course, my poking fun will only work so long as i don't get so many negative... (read more)

what you're saying is obviously true, but it goes beyond the information available. the question, limited the facts given, is representative of a larger point, which is the one I'm trying to explain as a general observation and is not limited to whether in fact That tree fell and made a noise.

btw, I never thanked you for our previous back and forth -- it was actually quite helpful, and your last comment in our discussion has kept me thinking for a couple weeks now, and perhaps in a couple more i will respond!

what is the basis for the position that knowledge of the world must come from analytical/probabilistic models? I'm not questioning the "correctness" of your view, only wondering your basis for it. It seems awfully convenient that a type of model that yields conclusions is in fact the correct one -- put another way, why is the availability of a clear methodology that gives you answers indicative of its universal applicability in attaining knowledge?

traditional philosophy, as you correctly point out, has failed to bridge its theory to practice -... (read more)

emotion-hacking seems far more important in epistemic rationality, as your understanding of the world is the setting in which you use instrumental rationality, and your "lens" (which presumably encompasses your emotions) is the key hurdle (assuming you are otherwise rational) preventing you from achieving the objectivity necessary to form true beliefs about the world.

With respect to your example, I can only play with those facts that you have given me. In your example, I assumed that knowledge of which vial has poison could not be known, and the best information we had was our collective beliefs (which are based on certain factors you listed). I agree with the task at hand as you put it, but the devil is of course in the details.

Which vial contains poison is a fact about the world, and there are a million other contingent facts about the world that go one way or another depending on it. Maybe the air around the vi

We can know what is Right, as long as we define it as "right according to human morals." Those are an objective (if hard to observe) part of reality. If we built an AI that tries to figure those out, then we get an ethical AI - so I would have a hard time calling them "subjective"

I don't dispute the possibility that your conclusion may be correct, I'm wondering the basis under which you believe your position to be correct. Put another way, why are moral truths NOT relative? How do you know this? Thinking something can be done is fin... (read more)

What do you disagree with? That "truth is relative" applies to only moral questions? or that it applies to more than moral questions?

If instead your position is that moral truths are NOT relative, what is the basis for that position? No need to dive deep if you know of something i can read...even EY :)

I actually don't think we're using the word differently -- the issue was premised solely for issues where the answer cannot be known after the fact. In that case, our use of "confidence" is the same -- it simply helps you make decisions. Once the value of the decision is limited to the belief in its soundness, and not ultimate "correctness" of the decision (because it cannot be known), rationality is important only if you believe it to be correct way to make decisions.

Roughly speaking, I understood Mugasofer to be referring to a calculated value with respect to a proposition that ought to control my willingness to expose myself to penalties contingent on the proposition being false.

How is this different than being "comfortable" on a personal level? If it isn't, the only value of rationality where the answer cannot be known is simply the confidence it gives you. Such a belief only requires rationality if you believe rationality provides the best answer -- the "truth" is irrelevant. For exampl... (read more)

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 "righ... (read more)

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 mathe

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 ... (read more)

i don't follow the relevance of article, as it seems quite obvious. the real problem with the black and white in the world of rationality is the assumption there is a universal answer to all questions. the idea of "grey" helps highlight that many answers have no one correct universal answer. what i dont understand about rationalists (LW rationalists) is that the live in a world in which everything is either right or wrong. this simplifies a world that is not so simple. what am i missing?