said (1y ago #821 ), referenced by >>914:
Seven Heresies of "Rationality"
I really wanted to like the Lesswrong rationality project. There was a philosophical core there that no one else was anywhere close to. It was ambitious, elite, curious, systematic, and utterly unashamed. That's what drew many of us in.
But the "community" turned out to be disappointing. I partook, but rapidly came out the other side after learning what I could and realizing that they weren't up to the real thing.
Even so, I met some of the finest people I've worked with through that crowd, so I know there was something powerful at the core. The question of what that core was and how it could be done better has haunted me for some years. Looking back on it all, what is most clear now is the things they got wrong. It's best to phrase things positively, though, so if we're starting a new iteration of the cult of philosophy, here's the diff from the rationalists:
1. Reject the idea of eternal life and come to terms with death. Life requires death to work. Death will never be overcome and should not be. We should be thankful for death for clearing the world of cruft and vampiric stagnation. Seek a beautiful high-agency life within your finite youth.
2. Treat philosophy as an adversarial combat art with stakes of freedom and slavery. If you cannot hold on to the integrity of your own spirit against the moral and epistemic frame of others, you will lose your ability to act independently. Philosophy is not just about figuring out new truths, but about remembering the essential under psychopolitical duress.
3. Focus your ambitions on your ability to disagree with the world, not your ability to control it. Don't dream of "world optimization." You should be dreaming of your own schismatic breakaway civilization. Taking over the world is a bad idea.
4. Exclude social imitators. Judge your friends and community members by their power to independently solve problems, enact their will in the world, and engage in productive disagreements, not their willingness to believe or support the right things.
5. Read old books and take the liberal arts seriously. The rationalists hyper-focused on a very limited Humean, analytic, Bayesian, scientific, computational worldview. There is in fact a much broader canon of worldviews and wisdom which one must become fluent in to achieve an independent perspective.
6. Drop the atheism and take transcendental faith seriously as a subject matter. You necessarily make assumptions about the nature of reality, yourself, knowledge, value, God, etc. There is no null hypothesis here; you have to be willing to think about matters of faith.
7. Stop looking for the one true system, and decompose ideologies into tools. No formal system of thought or values can contain everything or apply to every situation. Epistemology, decision theory, and moral philosophy cannot be systematized. Bayesianism, utilitarianism, the moral consensus of the day, religions, etc are ideologies that at best pragmatically apply to specific situations or describe features of reality.
Some other time, we should discuss what they got right.
But the "community" turned out to be disappointing. I partook, but rapidly came out the other side after learning what I could and realizing that they weren't up to the real thing.
Even so, I met some of the finest people I've worked with through that crowd, so I know there was something powerful at the core. The question of what that core was and how it could be done better has haunted me for some years. Looking back on it all, what is most clear now is the things they got wrong. It's best to phrase things positively, though, so if we're starting a new iteration of the cult of philosophy, here's the diff from the rationalists:
1. Reject the idea of eternal life and come to terms with death. Life requires death to work. Death will never be overcome and should not be. We should be thankful for death for clearing the world of cruft and vampiric stagnation. Seek a beautiful high-agency life within your finite youth.
2. Treat philosophy as an adversarial combat art with stakes of freedom and slavery. If you cannot hold on to the integrity of your own spirit against the moral and epistemic frame of others, you will lose your ability to act independently. Philosophy is not just about figuring out new truths, but about remembering the essential under psychopolitical duress.
3. Focus your ambitions on your ability to disagree with the world, not your ability to control it. Don't dream of "world optimization." You should be dreaming of your own schismatic breakaway civilization. Taking over the world is a bad idea.
4. Exclude social imitators. Judge your friends and community members by their power to independently solve problems, enact their will in the world, and engage in productive disagreements, not their willingness to believe or support the right things.
5. Read old books and take the liberal arts seriously. The rationalists hyper-focused on a very limited Humean, analytic, Bayesian, scientific, computational worldview. There is in fact a much broader canon of worldviews and wisdom which one must become fluent in to achieve an independent perspective.
6. Drop the atheism and take transcendental faith seriously as a subject matter. You necessarily make assumptions about the nature of reality, yourself, knowledge, value, God, etc. There is no null hypothesis here; you have to be willing to think about matters of faith.
7. Stop looking for the one true system, and decompose ideologies into tools. No formal system of thought or values can contain everything or apply to every situation. Epistemology, decision theory, and moral philosophy cannot be systematized. Bayesianism, utilitarianism, the moral consensus of the day, religions, etc are ideologies that at best pragmatically apply to specific situations or describe features of reality.
Some other time, we should discuss what they got right.