Definition of “rationalism” from the Eggplant book draft. If you identify as a rationalist, I’m curious whether you find this accurate, and if not, why not?pic.twitter.com/2cvo7478fj
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I'm missing your point because I don't understand what it means for decision theory to be a "true account of reality", and hence I can neither confirm nor deny that I believe this to be the case.
Oh well. I guess we’re both talking past each other. It’s a bit puzzling. I can usually eventually understand other people’s worldviews, but I find yours unusually resistant :)
(?) It sounds like 'true theory of reality' is something that could be occupied only by a final theory of physics. Decision theory just tells you the objectively best way of acting to satisfy a set of preferences.
“Objectively best” assuming a set of axioms is satisfied. There can sometimes be a bait-and-switch or motte-and-bailey here when you try to apply this to a concrete real-world situation.
Do you have a specific example in mind?
Well, to get decision theory to apply, you have to characterize the situation in terms of a set of well-defined actions, well-defined outcomes, well-defined goodnesses, and you need some meaningful way of estimating probabilities. None of those are objectively given.
Writing this tweet, I have an unbounded number of possible things to say; an inconceivable set of possible outcomes; no clearly-defined goals; and any numerical probabilites would be meaningless. Do you know about aardvark cucumbers?
That is, an epistemic, not ontological problem. One can hold that 1)DT is the best way of deciding, objectively 2)DT cannot be applied in its textbook form, just approximated As GA Cohen said, just because one cannot reach some tasty grapes doesn't mean they are less tasty
Aardvark cucumbers are the only thing aardvarks eat other than ants and termites. Their fruits grow underground. Aardvarks are the only creature that eats them, so they depend absolutely on aardvarks for seed dispersal. (I am not making any of this up!)
I mean, I'd endorse all sorts of annoying propositions about decision theory being universal, general, not a mere prescriptive recipe but a descriptive theorem, etc. I just don't know what it would mean for it to potentially be a "true account of reality" and then be false.
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