Geoffrey MillerVerified account

Yes; as I said, my impression is that the LW-derived community has gone well beyond “rationalism” as it is classically defined, and incorporates significant elements of meta-rationality, and I am enthusiastic and supportive of that!

It would be helpful, I think, if the LW-derived community understood more clearly that “rationalism” isn’t something they invented and own, but has been around for centuries, and is thoroughly worked-out in various other intellectual communities: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ …

Rationalists are very aware of “rationalism” as a different body of thought from ours that frustratingly has a similar name. I know it’s confusing & I’m sorry! But blame decision science, not us - they chose to use the word rational for utility maximization, & we followed suit

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.

Yes, some people (like me) will always find something to complain about :) Is your conception of “rationality” in fact restricted to that of decision science? My impression is that the community has a broader sense of it (but individuals vary, and yours may be more specific).

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