MrMind

You're never wrong injecting complexity, but rarely you're right

I just want to put this idea in the form of a post, to gather your impressions. I think it's my main rationalist failure mode. Recently in a Facebook group, some poster has proposed this synthesis of Harari's book '21 lessons': > In the 21st century, three narratives were used to explain the past and predict the future: the fascist, the communist and the liberal narrative. During the century, the latter has prevailed, although in recent times it has started to crack, due to events like the election of Trump, the Brexit, and so on. Then, the same user asked: what could be a new narrative that would help us in the future? I was tempted to reply as I always do: criticize the simplification. I was about to write that the concept of narrative itself is a narrative, that Harari is seeing the past with the eyes of the present, but not necessarily this lens will help with navigating the future, that also a better concept would be that of a memeplex, which is less internally coherent than a story, and thus more complex to pinpoint. Then a reflection occured to me: I always end up doing this, in almost all discussions I partecipate. People simplify too much and come to the wrong conclusion, they consider only the extremes of a spectrum, they use words as rigid classifiers and debate endlessly about them, they do not have internally coherent point of views, etc. I almost invariable end up 'winning' (i.e. appear wise) by injecting some complexity: usually in the form of a new parameter that was buried in the presuppositions. Then, I was struck by another insight: it is too easy to win this way. From a mathematical point of view, a system with a bigger state space is more flexible than a smaller system, and so an 'optimization' that increases the space state is always correct. Is that possible? How probable it is that I've discovered a universal optimization of every human debate? I reasoned that it's very low, and indeed I think I've always failed to consider the downside

36Oct 3, 2018

MrMind

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When I was younger...

3309

1628

15y

Odds are not easier

Epistemic status: just a review of a well known math theorem and a brief rant about terminology. Yesterday I saw another example of this: P(D) is just a normalizing constant for the posterior probability, and it's really hard (impossible?) to calculate, so let's switch to log odd probabilities, which are...

Aug 21, 20199

You're never wrong injecting complexity, but rarely you're right

Oct 3, 201836

Youtube channel devoted to the art of rationality

For quite some time I've considered creating a Youtube channel devoted to rationality. I live in Italy, and the political situation here bears some similarities with the US': we've seen the rise of populist figures accompanied by the debate around fake news and post-truth, usually created with the purpose of...

Dec 15, 201711

Open thread, Jul. 17 - Jul. 23, 2017

IF IT'S WORTH SAYING, BUT NOT WORTH ITS OWN POST, THEN IT GOES HERE. Notes for future OT posters: 1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag. 2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.) 3. Open Threads...

Jul 17, 20171

Open thread, Jul. 03 - Jul. 09, 2017

Jul 3, 20171

Open thread, Apr. 10 - Apr. 16, 2017

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here. Notes for future OT posters: 1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag. 2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.) 3. Open Threads...

Apr 11, 20174

Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

Notes for future OT posters: 1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag. 2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.) 3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday. 4. Unflag the two options "Notify...

Mar 20, 20177

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MrMind

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MrMind

You're never wrong injecting complexity, but rarely you're right

A new derivation of the Born rule

Yudkowsky vs Trump: the nuclear showdown.

Truth is holistic

MrMind

Odds are not easier

You're never wrong injecting complexity, but rarely you're right

Youtube channel devoted to the art of rationality

Open thread, Jul. 17 - Jul. 23, 2017

Open thread, Jul. 03 - Jul. 09, 2017

Open thread, Apr. 10 - Apr. 16, 2017

Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

Odds are not easier

You're never wrong injecting complexity, but rarely you're right

Youtube channel devoted to the art of rationality

Open thread, Jul. 17 - Jul. 23, 2017

Open thread, Jul. 03 - Jul. 09, 2017

Open thread, Apr. 10 - Apr. 16, 2017

Open thread, Mar. 20 - Mar. 26, 2017

You're never wrong injecting complexity, but rarely you're right

A new derivation of the Born rule

Yudkowsky vs Trump: the nuclear showdown.

Truth is holistic