Rationality

“Rationality is the art of thinking in ways that result in accurate beliefs and good decisions. It is the primary topic of LessWrong.

Rationality is not only about avoiding the vices of self-deception and obfuscation (the failure to communicate clearly), but also about the virtue of curiosity, seeing the world more clearly than before, and achieving things previously unreachable to you. The study of rationality on LessWrong includes a theoretical understanding of ideal cognitive algorithms, as well as building a practice that uses these idealized algorithms to inform heuristics, habits, and techniques, to successfully reason and make decisions in the real world.

Topics covered in rationality include (but are not limited to): normative and theoretical explorations of ideal reasoning; the capabilities and limitations of our brain, mind and psychology; applied advice such as introspection techniques and how to achieve truth collaboratively; practical techniques and methodologies for figuring out what’s true ranging from rough quantitative modeling to full research guides.”

Src. Rationality — LessWrong.

What is meant by rationality?

• Two things:
  • [[epistemic-rationality|Epistemic Rationality]]: systematically improving the accuracy of your beliefs.
  • [[instrumental-rationality|Instrumental Rationality]]: systematically achieving your values.

This is what it’s like to have a false belief, a map of the world that doesn’t correspond to the territory. Epistemic rationality is about building accurate maps instead. This correspondence between belief and reality is commonly called “truth,” and I’m happy to call it that.

Instrumental rationality, on the other hand, is about steering reality—sending the future where you want it to go. It’s the art of choosing actions that lead to outcomes ranked higher in your preferences. I sometimes call this “winning.”

So rationality is about forming true beliefs & making decisions that help you win.jo

Feelings of curiosity?

A popular belief about rationality is that it opposes all emotion; that one should be like [[spock|Spock]]. Not all feelings are equal, though. A thought is considered “not rational” if it rests on mistaken beliefs or on mistake-producing epistemic conduct.

Emotions come from our models of reality. Happiness in dreams is destroyed if it’s not also true in real life. The sadness that might arise from that is true in real life, so there is no truth able to destroy it.

“That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” // P.C. Hodgell

Becoming more rational (arriving at better estimates of how-the-world-is) can diminish feelings or intensify them.

There is nothing wrong with feeling strongly. “That which the truth nourishes should thrive.”

It is rational to feel.