Great thread! I decided to reply in blog post format:https://juliagalef.com/2017/04/07/does-irrationality-fuel-innovation/ …
Good thread/discussion between @juliagalef and @michael_nielsen on the value (if any) of occasionally thinking in irrational ways.https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/849868740204257280 …
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This is great. One immediate thing: I used to have a rule "Twitter is a 'yes, and' medium, not a medium for argument". May hv been wrong
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Well, I DID switch over to a blog post, so I'm not sure if that disconfirms your theory... :)
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The greatest aspiration a Twitter thread can have is to grow up into a blog post.
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(But if you’re a bit irrational to get to the truth in the long run, it wasn’t irrational, right? Just temporarily loosening standards.)
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Yes. But I'm using "rational" in a narrower sense, which I think is (to some approximation) the kind of behaviour Julia was referring to
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1. Nah, it's a grey area. I wouldn't call someone irrational for temporarily suspending their disbelief to enjoy a movie! Similarly I don't
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2. think it's that irrational to suspend your skepticism in a hypothesis, if doing so makes you better at finding (true) points in its favor
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3. But if someone spends entire career suspending skepticism in their pet hypothesis, never pops out to reevaluate, then yeah- irrationality
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4. I think Michael's claiming society's better off if most scientists/inventors engage in the kind of (lifelong) irrationality in (3)?
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5. I suspect that's wrong. But I'm much more bullish on *temporary* suspension-of-skepticism.
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1/ This turned into an essay. Replying helped me clarify my thinking quite a bit - thank you, Julia!
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Avi Loeb had a nice analogy to financial portfolios: https://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1586 A balanced sci. portfolio matches risk to investment level.
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Eric Weinstein also makes the portfolio analogy, in a really stimulating talk: http://pirsa.org/08090036/
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Interesting! I wonder if that's what inspired Avi's talk, two years later.
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Is it bad that I like the Bayesian rationality websites for inducing pro-social behavior through irrational group-identity motives?
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I really liked this, by
@katjagrace: https://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/pretend-to-really-really-try/ … (via@slatestarcodex )
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Trade-offs due to external (environment variables) and internal constraints (cognitive architecture and resources). Hence, heuristics.
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Only if you think that your actions don't influence other people. I vote, not only to have an impact on the election, but also on my peers.
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In a sort of rationality annealing process? Odd.
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