2.2 KiB
[Q] Shower thought: Is rationality the open source software of the mind?
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Author: u/iamjohndie *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5rzysi/q_shower_thought_is_rationality_the_open_source/
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Score: 0
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Created: 2017-02-04T10:52:32
Post:
[removed]
Comments:
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+4] Champion of Justice and Reason (2 hours later)
I don't think this analogy applies exclusively to rationality. It applies to all thinking and learning. Epistemic rationality techniques improve thinking and that is all they do. It's just that improving one's thinking is very useful, so any impact learning to be epistemically rational has had on your life is merely the impact of getting better at thinking.
Instrumental rationality isn't very-well developed yet, because there isn't really any experimental research on self help like there is for heuristics and biases. The decision theory stuff they have on Less Wrong is better than nothing, but in regards to actually getting it to work to improve decision making skills, that's a lot harder.
It sounds like you might be under the influence of the halo effect and are in or about to enter a happy death spiral about rationality. If so, read the following and snap out of it.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ln/resist_the_happy_death_spiral/
Also would like to point out that this isn't actually on topic, and next time you should post this in one of the off-topic threads.
u/iamjohndie [+1] (3 hours later)
No worries. I'm alright. It was just a fleeting thought. No spiralling. As an aside, I am reading From AI to Zombies. Sorry about the off topic. I should have taken care to find out.
u/PeridexisErrant [+1] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (13 hours later)
Please read the sidebar, and make sure future posts are on-topic.
u/iamjohndie [+1] (21 hours later)
Absolutely.
u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
Can we just consider that computers have become so ubiquitous over time that we now use software as a analogous to thought, meaning one is considered standard and the other mysterious?
u/iamjohndie [+1] (5 hours later)
Well, analogies are a dime a dozen. I don't think it's necessarily indicative of that.