David Chapman

@Meaningness

Better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value.

Joined September 2010

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  1. Pinned Tweet
    Feb 1

    🆕 Much of my explanation of how and why rationality works (the middle part of the book) is a simplified presentation of ethnomethodological concepts and findings in easier language. It’s hip! You need to be able to say “ethnomethodology” confidently

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  2. 14 hours ago

    Unexpected discovery: Keith Stanovich has a chapter on “metarationality” in his 2010 “Decision Making” book. He uses the word to mean evaluating preferences in a formal decision-theoretic framework. Which is important, and consistent with my use, but a much narrower conception.

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  3. Feb 1

    This fascinating misunderstanding was once used to prove that space rockets were impossible. Calculations showed that the most explosive substance then known, TNT, would be insufficient to power one.

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  4. Retweeted
    Jan 28

    my philosophy is indexical, yours is limited in scope, theirs totally fails to generalize

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  5. Retweeted
    Jan 29

    every seemingly innocent fragment of information is secretly plotting how to escape its context and cause trouble

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  6. Retweeted
    Jan 30

    I wish people were better at distinguishing "I understand where this person is coming from" from "I think this person is correct". I see way too many "lol can you imagine believing X" posts, and I think if you *can't* imagine it you're probably lacking crucial empathy skills.

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  7. Retweeted
    Jan 30

    1/ Did you know that Vannevar Bush (you know, the guy who helped enable everything from radar to the manhattan project, the NSF to memexes) wrote an autobiography? Turns out that yes he did, it's been out of print since the 70's, and it's *excellent* BOOK REPORT THREAD

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  8. Retweeted
    Jan 30

    In which I object to philosophers looking down at the sort of science done by the vast majority of professional scientists: (lunchtime repost)

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  9. Retweeted
    Jan 30

    From - “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.”

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  10. Retweeted

    “A rational theory is primarily epistemological; it wants to be a collection of true beliefs. A meta-rational understanding is primarily ontological; it wants to be a collection of useful distinctions“ From in

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  11. Jan 30

    The part of your brain that tries to explain everything in terms of wooden spoons.

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  12. Jan 30

    (This via , one of my main sources for science reform news)

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  13. Jan 30

    Science nightmare: you discover your brilliant PhD work was based on data your collaborator just made up in Excel. Cool account of how she found out. Accountants deal with this all day. I wonder if some could offer crash courses in forensics for science?

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  14. Jan 30

    Because the content is important, I'm tempted to write a summary extracting the main points, for those who might not take the time to solve the puzzles. That would spoil the fun for other readers, though.

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  15. Jan 30

    I had to read this twice to (mostly?) understand it. The logic of the argument is precise, but hidden in an exquisite bejeweled puzzle-box: playful misdirections, riddles, apparent non-sequiturs whose relevance the reader suddenly realizes much later... I love this stuff!

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  16. Jan 30

    Difficult, important exploration of the manufacture of official knowledge by : on good and bad bullshit, ethnomethodology vs social science, a painstaking debunking of a Fact, and the original sin of psychology.

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  17. Jan 30

    🆕 An accurate, effective understanding of practical activity that is neither cognitive nor science: does that sound paradoxical?

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  18. Retweeted
    Jan 29

    Hmm, flipping that about: if you want to be a useful funder, maybe you should never fund a project that anyone else in the world would fund. Which sounds nuts, but has the benefit you're sure any impact was additional.

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  19. Retweeted
    Jan 29

    I call this Groucho's law: you should never work on any project for which can get funding. Tongue-in-cheek, but there's a grain of truth to it: the easier funding is to get, the more likely something like it would have happened anyway.

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  20. Retweeted
    Jan 29

    Reflecting on Rota's characterization of Alonzo Church as "logic incarnate". It's shocking how much and rapidly one can learn from people in deep communion with their subject. Often without noticing what one is learning, including what is felt, what is omitted, & what is asked

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