I never asked Eliezer directly but assume he must have gotten those definitions from the decision science literature (which includes parts of economics, philosophy, psychology and comp sci relevant to modeling normative decision making) bc that's how that literature uses the word
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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I'll do the paranoid thing here and say this sounds like trying to smuggle in pomo-ish ontological relativism through the back door (or meta door, in this case).
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Yes; the main point of the book is to explain meta-rationality, which is about how to make ontological choices *well*. It’s not relativist at all; quite the opposite.
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It’s specifically meant to help STEM people who have realized that there can be no ultimate foundation to knowledge, and are thereby thrown into pomo-ish nihilism. It gives a STEM-ish answer for how to proceed. This post explains that:https://meaningness.com/metablog/stem-fluidity-bridge …
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