Twelve Virtues of Rationality

[ciphergoth]

Twelve Virtues of Rationality

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, 2006

The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. Be wary of those who speak of being open-minded and modestly confess their ignorance. There is a time to confess your ignorance and a time to relinquish your ignorance.

Read on...

I've been absolutely captivated by Yudkowsky's writing on rationality for ages now; it's given me a lot of new tools with which to think about and talk about the world, and shaken me out of a lot of comfortable assumptions about my own rationality. I'd love to know what people who read here think about it.

Comments

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Interesting piece and I'll look at more of the author's stuff. I like the choice to give up mystery particularly.

[andrewducker]

Good one - stolen.

[ex-pipistre.livejournal.com]

A lot of it tallies exactly with what I want to do as a (science) teacher, and the qualities I hope to develop in my students (and myself).

I particularly like his clear distinction between blindly accepting different views and evaluating ideas based on evidence. I think this is the trap people fall into when they say that teaching creationism in science lessons is offers a 'balanced perspective' on evolution- and it's a very important one to be aware of.

[henry_the_cow]

That's an interesting style. It's as if he's pitching the pursuit of rationality in the language of mysticism and spirituality. Which would certainly be useful if it attracted some of the folk who follow those paths into following the rational path.

[mopani.livejournal.com]

I like the idea that when we start we don't need to know where we will end up. As in, if you write 'blah' at the bottom of the blank sheet of paper then there is no need to go back and write the rest; if you already knew where you were gong then you would be there already. Too many people think that you have to know the answer before you start. But I like an exercise to be an exploration (by exercise i mean line of thought or experiment)where the results may give illuminating and interesting new directions.

[booklectica]

Thaks to this and links off it I ended up spending an entire busride into London reading about Bayesian maths. I thought you'd like to know. :)

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I followed his writing for a while, but stopped because I found it a bit too long-winded for my taste. What I most liked about it when I was still reading was his knack for metaphor.

The virtues seem rather insular.

[grendelkhan.livejournal.com]

It seems that Yudkowsky's virtues are very inwardly-directed; they all describe ways to relate to oneself, rather than relate to others. If I were feeling charitable, I'd call this solipsism; if not, I'd call it sociopathy. Perhaps Yudkowsky means that rationality, like science, is a morally neutral tool which will help you do whatever you're doing better, even if what you're doing is, well, evil.

But it still bugs me that someone can display each of these virtues perfectly and still be a vile psychopath. I think it bugs me more because of Robin Hanson (http://robinhanson.typepad.com/overcomingbias/2007/08/food-vs-sex-cha.html). Oh, hell, just pick your favorite moment (http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/387154.html). If the virtues of rationality don't make the merest dent in that sort of thing (and, indeed, I forget the name of this metabias, but learning about cognitive biases tends to make the rationalist see them in others but not in themselves)... I don't think that they're utterly useless, but they're not particularly useful, either.

If your program of reasoned self-improvement toward rationalism leads you to propose rape coupons, there may be a flaw in your program of reasoned self-improvement toward rationalism.