From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Aug 25 2002 - 23:14:24 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Everything that works is a form of rationality; works because it is
> rational; and is rational because it works.
>
What precisely do you mean by "it works"? So every time we see
the word rational we might substitute something like "that which
works"? Interesting but a bit circular.
> To be precise, everything that works noncoincidentally, with a
> probability greater than sheer random chance would predict, is a form of
> rationality; works because it is rational; and is rational because it
> works.
>
> That's what the Bayesian Probability Theorem *is* - a *universal*
> description of the way in which things can be evidence about other things.
>
> It is not limited to any one domain. It is not limited to deliberative
> or verbalizable thought.
>
> Intuitions are a form of rationality.
>
> The visual cortex is a form of rationality.
>
> Logic - real logic, the kind that works - is a form of rationality.
>
> Verbally clever rationalization, e.g. Plato, is not a form of
> rationality because it is not bound (does not correlate under the BPT)
> to the external variables about which it purports to provide information.
>
Now you are claiming all that is "rational", "all that works"
conforms to BPT? That seems a bit strained. BPT was never
intended to swallow the entire universe of all "that which works".
> Evolution, and everything created by evolution, is a form of rationality
> (DNA carrying on a limited kind of induction on past observations).
>
> A flower is a frozen truth - the expression of DNA's induction on a
> history of past successes. So is a smallpox virus. So is a human baby.
> Evolution's induction is an imperfect form of rationality - but to
> whatever degree it works, it works because it is a form of rationality.
>
OK. You lost me. Your signal is breaking up.
- samantha
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