From @Meaningness - “Reasonableness works directly with reality, whereas rationality works with formalisms. Rationalism assumes that a formalism somehow reflects reality, and glosses over questions about how that works.” https://meaningness.com/eggplant/reasonableness …
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Replying to @neovictorian23 @Meaningness
I think this articulates the strain in your writing that has always felt wrong to me. I agree about the dangers of believing your formalism somehow really is reality. I don't think any cognitive process can work "directly with reality" rather than through models and formalisms.
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Replying to @ProfJayDaigle @neovictorian23
Ah, interesting… I hope that reading that part of the book will change your mind! An intuition pump, maybe: do insects use models and formalisms? Bacteria? Even bacteria interact with the world in complex, goal-directed, effective ways.
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Replying to @Meaningness @neovictorian23
I might be introducing a distinction or two that you're not, but I think they're important. To start with a hopefully not controversial example: if we have, like, a rock, it isn't using models, but it also isn't doing anything I would call "cognition". Or "reasonable".
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In contrast, anything with a visual system is _definitely_ using models. The visual system is taking in a tremendous amount of data, throwing most of it away, and building a super faillible model of the world; this is why optical illusions work.
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(I don't actually have a good answer for you about whether bacteria are using models, because I don't know enough about bacterial behavior. But I'm pretty sure insects do.)
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I did equivocate a bit here, because most of these models aren't formal, and you did say "formalisms" in you original tweet. But they're also an insulating abstraction layer between the insectoid or canine or human decision-making process and working "directly with reality."
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Ah, yes, the problem word here seems to be “directly”. There are of course several stages through which the causal path travels. It is however local and fast. Otoh a formal model on paper of some astrophysical phenomenon is not.
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