Meta-rationality

Very rational of you, but that's the problem with the whole system. If you want to avoid thinking you're right all the time, it doesn't help to be clever and say the logical opposite. "Rationally" it should work, but it's bad because you're still thinking about it! It's like the thinking of a pink elephant thing. Other approaches I recommend: * try and fail to invest in stocks * read Meaningness's https://metarationality.com * print out this meme and put it on your wall https://imgflip.com/i/82h43h

This is a bit similar to the book-in-progress “In the cells of the eggplant”. https://metarationality.com/ I highly recommend reading it. I found it extremely clarifying as a working scientist/engineer and someone who has been persistently nagged by the deification of rationality. The OP even uses the term “metarational” (though used to mean something different), which made me surprised when “The Eggplant” was not mentioned.

Just to give concrete recommendation re: bayesianism (one kind of what he calls probabilistic rationalism), it specifically might be worth dipping into his metarationality writings here: https://metarationality.com/probabilism-applicability

I like Chapman's piece on the subject -- "Maps, the territory, and meta-rationality" -- which is a deeper examination of what this classic saying really means: https://metarationality.com/maps-and-territory

But how do you know that "informal logic" has anything to do with formal logic? Outside of math, formal logic seems actively misleading. For example, the "principle of explosion" (from a contradiction follows anything) is definitely not how people think. Philosophically, I prefer the reasonable / rational / meta-rational framework explained by David Chapman. [1] But if you want to know how people ordinarily think, better to study how they think. (And in practical everyday use on the Internet, I find logic mostly useful for for shooting down attempts at inappropriately applying logic to conclude things that you can't safely conclude.) [1] https://metarationality.com/reasonableness-aspects

David Chapman is still very interesting (now a Buddhist philosopher). Here are some of his references to his collaboration with Phil Agre https://metarationality.com/ken-wilber-boomeritis-artificial-intellige… https://metarationality.com/abstract-emergent I was also a subscriber to RRE. I sometimes wrote to Agre in reply, usually with pretty naive commentary; he would usually then tell me that my commentary was pretty naive. Agre's disappearance/reclusion reminds me of Grothendieck's.

“There is always uncertainty in science, but real science gradually establishes some stable facts; it eventually strongly supports some theories and conclusively dismisses others. … Nutrition has made no progress. It has discovered no stable facts. Everything nutritionists have said, they have said the opposite ten or twenty years later (if not much sooner). They literally know nothing. After a century of countless experiments, the most common, most basic problem they’ve addressed—the optimal ratio of fat, protein, and carbohydrate—is completely unsolved. If they can’t figure that out, anything more sophisticated seems hopeless. … My point is not that nutrition is bad science. Unquestionably, it is bad science; a competent statistician, looking at the design of most experiments, will immediately say “this is meaningless; you can’t learn anything this way.” It’s worse than just incompetence … even the best studies have been useless. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong, such that doing the same sort of science better wouldn’t help.” https://metarationality.com/nutrition

This is a deep topic worthy of an essay, the kind of essay pg might write! The concise reply is, when you catch yourself in dichotomous thinking, you should assume you have misunderstood or oversimplified. Sometimes you have to go with your misunderstanding or oversimplification to make a decision or to make progress, but keep in mind you are doing so based on beliefs which are unlikely to correspond to reality. It's striking that so many mental health difficulties are characterized by dichotomous thinking. [1] Rationality itself can be profitably critiqued at the meta-level.[2] So, don't be an asshole, unless you need to be. Do you see the world as consisting of assholes and non-assholes? How does that feel? What are the advantages of that view? What are the disadvantages? Is considering that question worth your time? [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/she-comes-long-way-baby/201506… [2] https://metarationality.com/introduction EDIT: Fixed link, spacing

Check out this interesting article: https://metarationality.com/probability-and-logic

I read this extension of the concept a while back that dives a bit more into what's actually missing in the "cargo cult" approach, and how to transition to actual productivity — https://metarationality.com/upgrade-your-cargo-cult#upgrading

They don't find how things "are", they do the typical useless epidemiological study which I described and find spurious connections in statistical noise. This is why nutrition epidemiology is largely a failed science - it can't actually tell us anything useful: https://metarationality.com/nutrition

While I fully agree withtthe gist of this quote, I think one major point is wrong: the idea of an optimal ratio between the macronutrient is probably bullshit in itself. In fact, the idea of categorizing food into such simple categories (three macronutrients + vitamins and minerals) at all seems wrong. Fiber plays a major role, different fats and different carbs have widely different effects, probably different proteins too. Note: the source of the quote for anyone curious to read more: https://metarationality.com/nutrition

check out metarationality: https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge

Yet another nutrition study. here's a counterpoint: > Nutrition has made no progress. It has discovered no stable facts. Everything nutritionists have said, they have said the opposite ten or twenty years later (if not much sooner). They literally know nothing. After a century of countless experiments, the most common, most basic problem they’ve addressed—the optimal ratio of fat, protein, and carbohydrate—is completely unsolved. If they can’t figure that out, anything more sophisticated seems hopeless. https://metarationality.com/nutrition

Sorry, didn't see your reply earlier. Don't have much time to explain, but for context, you probably want to read "a first lesson in meta-rationality" [0]. It doesn't talk much about categorization directly, but it broadly discusses the limits of rationalism, and starts to explore the "solutions" / alternative perspectives (that the author decided to label as "meta-rationalism"). The categorization problem is one of the points where you can see the "limits" of rationalism. It's never discussed to much or too explicitly in these terms, though. I advice you to read the whole thing attentively, and when you are done, go back to review the section on nebulosity, and specially this quote: >> One has to be able to “bend” concepts, when it is appropriate. Nothing should be absolutely rigid. On the other hand, things shouldn’t be so wishy-washy that nothing has any meaning at all, either. The trick is knowing when and how to slip one concept into another. And reflect again at this point about what you have read: >> The point of these examples is that what counts as an “object” depends on the context. ...while thinking explicitly about the categorization problem. In computer science and AI, in particular, this problem might appear even more clearly, specially in symbolic AI. If you try to create a symbolic AI system, or if you are an experienced programmer and have a solid grasp of the limitations of abstraction, it all floats around this main issue of nebulosity / categorization…