And idk, maybe I am kind of convinced? Like, consistency checks are a really powerful tool and if I imagine a young person being like “I will just throw myself into intellectual exploration and go deep wherever I feel like without trying to orient too much to what is going on at large, but I will make sure to do this in two uncorrelated ways”, then I do notice I feel a lot less stressed about the outcome
I worry this gives up too much. Being embedded in multiple communities/cultures with differing or even conflicting values and world views is exceedingly common. Noticing that, and explicitly playing with the idea of “holding multiple truths” in your head is less common, but still something perhaps even most people would recognize.
But most people would not recognize the importance of this dialogue. Navigating the tension between academics and politics does not seem sufficient to correctly orient humanity. The conflicting values of business and family do not seem to produce anything that resembles truth seeking.
I feel pretty strongly that letting go of correctness in favor of any heuristic means you will end up with the wrong map, not just a smaller or fuzzier one. I don’t think that’s advice that should be universally given, and I’m not even sure how useful it is at all.
I feel pretty strongly that letting go of correctness in favor of any heuristic means you will end up with the wrong map, not just a smaller or fuzzier one. I don’t think that’s advice that should be universally given, and I’m not even sure how useful it is at all.
I think correctness applies—until it reaches a hard limit. Understanding what an intellectual community like LessWrong was able to generate as clusters of valuable knowledge is the most correct thing to do but in order to generate novel solutions, one must accept with bravery[1] that the ideas in this forum might have some holes that original ideas will emerge.
I assume that many people will be scared of challenging what is considered to be normal / generally accepted principles in LessWrong, but this I think is necessary in tackling grand challenges like solving the alignment problem.
I worry this gives up too much. Being embedded in multiple communities/cultures with differing or even conflicting values and world views is exceedingly common. Noticing that, and explicitly playing with the idea of “holding multiple truths” in your head is less common, but still something perhaps even most people would recognize.
But most people would not recognize the importance of this dialogue. Navigating the tension between academics and politics does not seem sufficient to correctly orient humanity. The conflicting values of business and family do not seem to produce anything that resembles truth seeking.
I feel pretty strongly that letting go of correctness in favor of any heuristic means you will end up with the wrong map, not just a smaller or fuzzier one. I don’t think that’s advice that should be universally given, and I’m not even sure how useful it is at all.
I think correctness applies—until it reaches a hard limit. Understanding what an intellectual community like LessWrong was able to generate as clusters of valuable knowledge is the most correct thing to do but in order to generate novel solutions, one must accept with bravery[1] that the ideas in this forum might have some holes that original ideas will emerge.
I assume that many people will be scared of challenging what is considered to be normal / generally accepted principles in LessWrong, but this I think is necessary in tackling grand challenges like solving the alignment problem.