My guess is that most readers don’t care that much about the sort of rationality that Eliezer wants characters to have. Likewise, most people (even well-educated smart people) aren’t much interested in having protracted, high-quality rational discourse. I don’t think people can really be faulted for not having this interest.
“Maybe that’s the main reason we don’t see many realistic rationalists in fiction.”
Are you just referring to SF&F? Outside genre fiction, most stories don’t involve the sort of technologies or fantasy elements that you discuss here. Instead, stories focus on mundane human relationships. There are characters who are sensitive and adroit in the way they interact with other people. They are thoughtful and successful in the way they conduct their lives. They achieve their goals and flourish due to prudent decision making and diligence. It seems to me that they are more “rational” in an important sense than statisticians who know all about Bayesian inference and selection effects but are completely unable to organize their lives in such a way that they flourish. (Such people know a lot about formal rationality while leading grossly unsatisfying lives—no good friends, bad relations with family, and jobs they hate).
Mysteries are partly about people figuring out crimes, and suspense fiction is partly about people making the right decision under stress. There’s room for rational thought in both.
Anyone reading fiction based on forensics? How’s the level of rationality there?
My guess is that most readers don’t care that much about the sort of rationality that Eliezer wants characters to have. Likewise, most people (even well-educated smart people) aren’t much interested in having protracted, high-quality rational discourse. I don’t think people can really be faulted for not having this interest.
“Maybe that’s the main reason we don’t see many realistic rationalists in fiction.” Are you just referring to SF&F? Outside genre fiction, most stories don’t involve the sort of technologies or fantasy elements that you discuss here. Instead, stories focus on mundane human relationships. There are characters who are sensitive and adroit in the way they interact with other people. They are thoughtful and successful in the way they conduct their lives. They achieve their goals and flourish due to prudent decision making and diligence. It seems to me that they are more “rational” in an important sense than statisticians who know all about Bayesian inference and selection effects but are completely unable to organize their lives in such a way that they flourish. (Such people know a lot about formal rationality while leading grossly unsatisfying lives—no good friends, bad relations with family, and jobs they hate).
Mysteries are partly about people figuring out crimes, and suspense fiction is partly about people making the right decision under stress. There’s room for rational thought in both.
Anyone reading fiction based on forensics? How’s the level of rationality there?