Idk, if we had invented a new name for a concept that already exists in decision science I feel like ppl would be griping about that too.
-
-
Ah! This is very interesting… here you seem to have a “harder” take on rationality than some other people from the LW-derived community I’ve been discussing this with. 1/2
-
Hard to answer accurately or comprehensibly in 280, but: I think those benefits are rarely (not never, but rarely) useful in practice, and they trade off against other desirable features that are more often useful.
-
Your position seems to me like saying that if we can't see the shortest path through a maze, then it must have no shortest path or at least the concept of a shortest path must not be useful. Seems useful to me. I don't get your weird ban? What else can be said?
-
I’m saying that in many/most cases there is no one correct metric, and therefore no shortest path. It’s an ontological objection, not an epistemological one. (Relatedly: I see rationalism as pervasively misunderstanding ontological questions as being epistemological ones.)
-
So relativize the "shortest path" to a metric, like all preference orderings on options are relativized to a utility function. These ideas are technically straightforward, and if somebody manages to shoot themselves in the psychological foot, I would not blame the theory.
-
Right: in order to apply any rational method, you first have to fix the ontological parameters (e.g. metric of goodness). My objection to rationalism is that it doesn’t want to look at the “meta-rational” process whereby you make those ontological choices.
-
My objection is not to rationality: if the ontological choices are made effectively, then rational methods are often extraordinarily valuable. Yay science, engineering, medicine, etc!
-
My suggestion is that rationality can be made more effective by teaching people that the ontological choices must be made deliberately, not by default, and teaching skills for ontology choice or construction.
- 10 more replies
New conversation -
-
-
You seem to have an idiosyncratic definition of "normative." What do you mean by the term?
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.