Problem of verifying rationality
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Revision as of 00:14, 27 March 2011 by Vladimir Nesov (talk | contribs) (→See also: linked to The Craft and the Community)
The single largest problem for those desiring to create methods of systematically training for increased epistemic and instrumental rationality - how to verify that the training actually worked. Very Awful Things happen to people who set out to build training methods and schools without strong means of verification - two hideous historical examples being modern-day practice of martial arts (once the teachers are no longer fighting duels to the death) and the proliferating "schools" of psychotherapy (in the entire absence of any experimental evidence that one school worked better than another, and indeed, in the presence of experimental evidence that the schools did not have any discernible difference in effectiveness).
Primary article
- 3 Levels of Rationality Verification - Reputational, experimental, and organizational: the different strengths of evidence needed to (a) prevent a school from degenerating, (b) systematically test particular techniques, or (c) credential individuals.
Blog posts
- Test Your Rationality by Robin Hanson - You should try hard and often to test your rationality, but how can you do that?
- Rationality Toughness Tests by Robin Hanson - Sound epistemic rationality requires good judgement even when human rationality typically degrades
- The Martial Art of Rationality
- A Sense That More Is Possible
- Epistemic Viciousness (in the martial arts)
- Schools Proliferating Without Evidence (in both psychotherapy and martial arts)
- 3 Levels of Rationality Verification
- In What Ways Have You Become Stronger? by Vladimir Nesov - Brainstorming verification tests, asking along what dimensions you think you've improved due to "rationality".
- Ask LW: What questions to test in our rationality questionnaire? by Anna Salamon - Requesting suggestions for an actual survey to be run.
- The Correct Contrarian Cluster
- Verifying Rationality via RationalPoker.com
- All Less Wrong posts tagged "verification"
