Writing things like “it’s not always rational to be rational” is a good sign that you should taboo at least one of the ways you’re using the word.
If you had replaced “rational ethics” with “utilitarian ethics calculations from scratch,” I think this post would have been better received. Your argument is reasonable in substance, but the way you use the world “rational” seems different from how most people here use it.
“It’s not always logical to be logical” suffers the same apparent construction problem, as would “It’s not always utilitarian to be utilitarian.”
I’m using both words in the same sense; if you prefer, “It’s not always rational to choose a rational decision-making process for making a decision.” I presume that the choice in how to make a decision is an independent decision from the decision itself; that is, there are in fact two decisions to be made. It’s not necessary for the methodology used to make the first decision—what methodology to use for the second decision—to choose itself.
They do. The advantage of such confusing patterns is that they’re memorable and rhetorically interesting, but they receive no points for clarity.
So you actually did mean that if you undergo a meta-level value calculation, you will decide that the value of information from doing an object-level moral calculation is sometimes negative?
The advantage of such confusing patterns is that they’re memorable and rhetorically interesting, but they receive no points for clarity.
If the writer is doing his job, the different senses of the term should be clear in context, and the construction serves to reinforce that a distinction is being made between two senses of a term. The cognitive dissonance inherent in the seeming contradiction helps make it memorable so that it can act as a touchstone to the in context meaning.
That’s if the writer is doing his job. Often, the writer is merely mesmerized by his own language, and is wallowing in the “mystery of the paradox”.
Of course. Complex arguments tend to call for as much clarity as possible, though, so i’d advocate generally avoiding these constructions in venues like LessWrong.
I started as a poet, so I hope I’ll be forgiven my occasional forays into rhetorically interesting constructions, as I am prone to them.
I’d say that the construction is somewhat weaker; if you undergo a meta-level value calculation, you -may- decide that the value of information from doing an object-level moral calculation is sometimes negative, including the cost of the calculation in the value of the information. (There’s a joke in there somewhere about the infinite cost I calculated in my meta-meta-level value calculation for collecting the information to prove the meta-level calculation for all cases...)
They have their uses, but the word “rational” can be a bit sensitive around here. If you’ve done a value of information calculation and decided the moral calculation isn’t worth your time, then obviously doing that moral calculation can’t be considered “rational.” Though it could be a way to attempt to make a “rational” choice on a moral problem. This meta-level stuff can be tricky!
That’s what I meant to say, actually; I think we agree on what the construction means now,
“It’s not always rational to choose a rational decision-making process for making a decision.”
You are NOT using rational in the same sense in the two places it is used in that sentence.
The first rational means something like “optimal,” or like “winning” when Eliezer says “rationalists win.”
The second meaning means something like “doing your own analysis and calculations to create or derive a system which, in some theoretical but not real world where it is implemented by everybody INSTEAD of the existing system, would be (according to your own calculations) better than the existing system.”
Writing things like “it’s not always rational to be rational” is a good sign that you should taboo at least one of the ways you’re using the word.
If you had replaced “rational ethics” with “utilitarian ethics calculations from scratch,” I think this post would have been better received. Your argument is reasonable in substance, but the way you use the world “rational” seems different from how most people here use it.
“It’s not always logical to be logical” suffers the same apparent construction problem, as would “It’s not always utilitarian to be utilitarian.”
I’m using both words in the same sense; if you prefer, “It’s not always rational to choose a rational decision-making process for making a decision.” I presume that the choice in how to make a decision is an independent decision from the decision itself; that is, there are in fact two decisions to be made. It’s not necessary for the methodology used to make the first decision—what methodology to use for the second decision—to choose itself.
They do. The advantage of such confusing patterns is that they’re memorable and rhetorically interesting, but they receive no points for clarity.
So you actually did mean that if you undergo a meta-level value calculation, you will decide that the value of information from doing an object-level moral calculation is sometimes negative?
If the writer is doing his job, the different senses of the term should be clear in context, and the construction serves to reinforce that a distinction is being made between two senses of a term. The cognitive dissonance inherent in the seeming contradiction helps make it memorable so that it can act as a touchstone to the in context meaning.
That’s if the writer is doing his job. Often, the writer is merely mesmerized by his own language, and is wallowing in the “mystery of the paradox”.
Of course. Complex arguments tend to call for as much clarity as possible, though, so i’d advocate generally avoiding these constructions in venues like LessWrong.
I started as a poet, so I hope I’ll be forgiven my occasional forays into rhetorically interesting constructions, as I am prone to them.
I’d say that the construction is somewhat weaker; if you undergo a meta-level value calculation, you -may- decide that the value of information from doing an object-level moral calculation is sometimes negative, including the cost of the calculation in the value of the information. (There’s a joke in there somewhere about the infinite cost I calculated in my meta-meta-level value calculation for collecting the information to prove the meta-level calculation for all cases...)
They have their uses, but the word “rational” can be a bit sensitive around here. If you’ve done a value of information calculation and decided the moral calculation isn’t worth your time, then obviously doing that moral calculation can’t be considered “rational.” Though it could be a way to attempt to make a “rational” choice on a moral problem. This meta-level stuff can be tricky!
That’s what I meant to say, actually; I think we agree on what the construction means now,
I’ll add one thing, on consideration: Doing that calculation may be irrational, but that’s not to say the calculation itself is irrational.
You are NOT using rational in the same sense in the two places it is used in that sentence.
The first rational means something like “optimal,” or like “winning” when Eliezer says “rationalists win.”
The second meaning means something like “doing your own analysis and calculations to create or derive a system which, in some theoretical but not real world where it is implemented by everybody INSTEAD of the existing system, would be (according to your own calculations) better than the existing system.”