Dennis Hackethal
@dennis.hackethal·Joined Jun 2024·2,904 ideas: 1,929 adoptable, 975 rejectable
Founder Veritula.
Author. Software engineer. Ex Apple. Translator of The Beginning of Infinity.
dennishackethal.com
#5341·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoIf we can have a purely deductive process to tell whether we’re being rational or not, that’s a very good thing. The opposite of something to be concerned about.
I think Brett is concerned that Veritula discounts the creation of new options. David is right to point in BoI chapter 13 that traditional accounts of rational decision-making focus too much on choosing from existing options according to a fixed formula while ignoring the fact that man is creative, ie can make new options.
#5340·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoBrett claims in response “the whole Popperian view is that rationality *is* creativity: the *creation* of corrections to errors once identified, etc.” He’s concerned that Veritula “seems to suggest ‘rationality’ is identical to something like ‘logic’ or a purely deductive process.”
If we can have a purely deductive process to tell whether we’re being rational or not, that’s a very good thing. The opposite of something to be concerned about.
#5333·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoAs I wrote to him in response, rationality and creativity are different things. They’re related, and there’s overlap, but you don’t need to code creativity to code rational preference formation. You can outsource creative input to the user, as programs usually do.
Brett claims in response “the whole Popperian view is that rationality *is* creativity: the *creation* of corrections to errors once identified, etc.” He’s concerned that Veritula “seems to suggest ‘rationality’ is identical to something like ‘logic’ or a purely deductive process.”
I’ve experimentally turned off pretty text wrapping in paragraphs. I’ll give it some time to see how ideas look around the site now. If they look worse on the whole (orphans etc), I can always undo fd699cd.
It’s because of text-wrap: pretty;
Chromium renders it properly. Desktop and mobile Safari doesn’t.
How to Be Rational: https://x.com/dchackethal/status/2091272979791659054
#5332·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoBrett says this can’t be a fully specified criterion of rationality because it’s not an AGI.
As I wrote to him in response, rationality and creativity are different things. They’re related, and there’s overlap, but you don’t need to code creativity to code rational preference formation. You can outsource creative input to the user, as programs usually do.
#4902·Dennis HackethalOP revised 6 months agoRational Decision-Making
Expanding on #2112…
If an idea, as written, has no pending criticisms, it’s rational to adopt it and irrational to reject it. What reason could you have to reject it? If it has no pending criticisms, then either 1) no reasons to reject it (ie, criticisms) have been suggested or 2) all suggested reasons have been addressed already.
If an idea, as written, does have pending criticisms, it’s irrational to adopt it and rational to reject it – by reference to those criticisms. What reason could you have to ignore the pending criticisms and adopt it anyway?
Or, simplified:
It is rational to adopt only those ideas which, as written, don’t have pending criticisms, and to reject ideas that do.
Brett says this can’t be a fully specified criterion of rationality because it’s not an AGI.
#5330·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoBrett Hall says Newtonian physics has pending criticisms but we can adopt it rationally in many situations so my criterion of rationality must be false.
#4902·Dennis HackethalOP revised 6 months agoRational Decision-Making
Expanding on #2112…
If an idea, as written, has no pending criticisms, it’s rational to adopt it and irrational to reject it. What reason could you have to reject it? If it has no pending criticisms, then either 1) no reasons to reject it (ie, criticisms) have been suggested or 2) all suggested reasons have been addressed already.
If an idea, as written, does have pending criticisms, it’s irrational to adopt it and rational to reject it – by reference to those criticisms. What reason could you have to ignore the pending criticisms and adopt it anyway?
Or, simplified:
It is rational to adopt only those ideas which, as written, don’t have pending criticisms, and to reject ideas that do.
Brett Hall says Newtonian physics has pending criticisms but we can adopt it rationally in many situations so my criterion of rationality must be false.
#5328·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoBrett Hall says this basically comes down to getting the “best explanation” but is “not quite right”.
Brett is confused about HTV. It says nothing about pending criticisms. As I replied to him, it says to prefer, “between rival theories at a given state of a discussion, those we find the most difficult to change without breaking their ability to explain what they purport to explain.”
#4902·Dennis HackethalOP revised 6 months agoRational Decision-Making
Expanding on #2112…
If an idea, as written, has no pending criticisms, it’s rational to adopt it and irrational to reject it. What reason could you have to reject it? If it has no pending criticisms, then either 1) no reasons to reject it (ie, criticisms) have been suggested or 2) all suggested reasons have been addressed already.
If an idea, as written, does have pending criticisms, it’s irrational to adopt it and rational to reject it – by reference to those criticisms. What reason could you have to ignore the pending criticisms and adopt it anyway?
Or, simplified:
It is rational to adopt only those ideas which, as written, don’t have pending criticisms, and to reject ideas that do.
Brett Hall says this basically comes down to getting the “best explanation” but is “not quite right”.
#5325·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoBrett Hall responds to the contradiction between HTV and ‘if you can’t program it, you haven’t understood it’: https://x.com/ToKTeacher/status/2090780593739243793
He agrees we can’t program HTV but says even if we don’t know how or why an explanation is HTV, we still know that it’s HTV.
The blog post already sidesteps that issue by granting the user the ability to input some HTV score without having to give any reasoning. That still leads to all sorts of trouble.
#5325·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months agoBrett Hall responds to the contradiction between HTV and ‘if you can’t program it, you haven’t understood it’: https://x.com/ToKTeacher/status/2090780593739243793
He agrees we can’t program HTV but says even if we don’t know how or why an explanation is HTV, we still know that it’s HTV.
Translation: ‘trust me bro’
It’s just vibes.
#3069·Dennis HackethalOP revised 11 months agoMy critique of David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity as a programmer. In short, his ‘hard to vary’ criterion at the core of his epistemology is fatally underspecified and impossible to apply.
Deutsch says that one should adopt explanations based on how hard they are to change without impacting their ability to explain what they claim to explain. The hardest-to-change explanation is the best and should be adopted. But he doesn’t say how to figure out which is hardest to change.
A decision-making method is a computational task. He says you haven’t understood a computational task if you can’t program it. He can’t program the steps for finding out how ‘hard to vary’ an explanation is, if only because those steps are underspecified. There are too many open questions.
So by his own yardstick, he hasn’t understood his epistemology.
You will find that and many more criticisms here: https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/hard-to-vary-or-hardly-usable
Brett Hall responds to the contradiction between HTV and ‘if you can’t program it, you haven’t understood it’: https://x.com/ToKTeacher/status/2090780593739243793
He agrees we can’t program HTV but says even if we don’t know how or why an explanation is HTV, we still know that it’s HTV.
#5311·Tyler MillsOP, 2 months agoAh, I marked my agreement in #5292 a criticism to neutralize yours, since I corrected #5293. But I should have revised it to additionally have the existing criticism no longer apply. I'll make a new revision with that change.
Since you agree that a revision was necessary, I’ve submitted a counter-criticism of #5292 so that this branch of the discussion tree is consistent (#5323). Ideas are immutable; opening a new branch won’t automatically fix broken branches.
The branch now reflects that your action was rational.
Generally speaking, when a revision addresses a criticism, we don’t submit a counter-criticism.
Let me stress ahead of time that this kind of housekeeping may not seem the most fun, but is indispensable in keeping consistent discussion trees. We can learn to enjoy it. We benefit from this kind of housekeeping by being able to look up which ideas we can rationally adopt.
#5292·Tyler MillsOP, 2 months agoWell the device may deal with some noisy neighbors, but sure, a criticism overall. Edited.
Revision done; criticism not needed.
#5183·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago@edwin-de-wit recently asked Deutsch about this:
… hard to vary can also be a property that you don’t want. Sometimes they say that complicated systems are just so entangled that they’re no longer changeable. You could call that hard to vary but it’s not a property you pursue.
Deutsch’s reply:
Quite so. So hard to vary is about explanations, not about end products. So the end product should be easy to vary, if you want to. But it should be hard to vary in the sense that you don’t want to.
Naval, who’s inspired by Deutsch, says good products are hard to vary, too: https://nav.al/good-products
Gives iPhone as example.
#5183·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago@edwin-de-wit recently asked Deutsch about this:
… hard to vary can also be a property that you don’t want. Sometimes they say that complicated systems are just so entangled that they’re no longer changeable. You could call that hard to vary but it’s not a property you pursue.
Deutsch’s reply:
Quite so. So hard to vary is about explanations, not about end products. So the end product should be easy to vary, if you want to. But it should be hard to vary in the sense that you don’t want to.
But HTV is also about art (BoI chapter 14).
A piece of art is a kind of end product. And we could write code to produce art.
What’s wrong with using melatonin indefinitely?
AFAIK it creates no physical dependence, you don’t build a tolerance, and it’s cheap. What’s not to love?
AFAIK it creates no physical dependence and you don’t build a tolerance.
#5233·Dennis Hackethal, 2 months agoWhat’s wrong with using melatonin indefinitely?
AFAIK it creates no physical dependence, you don’t build a tolerance, and it’s cheap. What’s not to love?
I was wrong to submit this criticism in this form; it should be only about the lack of dependence. Otherwise the criticism chain is inverted for #5203.
#5233·Dennis Hackethal, 2 months agoWhat’s wrong with using melatonin indefinitely?
AFAIK it creates no physical dependence, you don’t build a tolerance, and it’s cheap. What’s not to love?
What’s not to love?
#5203 already says: causes people to wake up early. (Can corroborate.)