“Can you live your life 100% guided by reason?”

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #3770 and unmarked it as a criticism.

I don’t know what kind of phone you use, but iPhone keyboards have support for multiple languages. You can switch between them. Should make false autocorrects rarer.

I don’t know what kind of phone you use, but iPhone keyboards have support for multiple languages. You can switch between them. Should make false autocorrects rarer.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #3743.

That was autocorrect from my cellphone. Mye means alot in Norwegian. Not a good idea to have autocorrect on when you're writing in two languages..

#3743·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 14 days ago

I don’t know what kind of phone you use, but iPhone keyboards have support for multiple languages. You can switch between them. Should make false autocorrects rarer.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #3654.

This is also borrowed from cognitive science. But what I meant was to point to the fact that there are “pre-conceptual” models, desires, attentional salience etc. that impinge on and filter input to conscious cognition. An example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to “move around” in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we’re close to the truth, we understand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.

#3654·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 16 days ago

Humans use flight-related words even though we can’t fly. From ChatGPT:

  • Elevated (thinking, mood, language)
  • High-level (ideas, overview)
  • Soar (ambitions, prices, imagination)
  • Take off (projects, careers)
  • Grounded (arguments, people)
  • Up in the air (uncertain)
  • Overview (“over-see” from above)
  • Perspective (originally spatial vantage point)
  • Lofty (ideals, goals)
  • Aboveboard (open, visible)
  • Rise / fall (status, power, ideas)
  • Sky-high (expectations, costs)
  • Aerial view (conceptual overview)
  • Head in the clouds (impractical thinking)
  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #3755.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

#3755·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 13 days ago

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears.

Yeah maybe but again (#3693), those are parochial factors, starting points. Ideas are more important. AGI could just switch bodies rapidly anyway.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #3755.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

#3755·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 13 days ago

So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

You don’t “train” an AGI any more than you’d “train” a child. We’re not talking about dogs here.

  Knut Sondre Sæbø revised criticism #3752 and unmarked it as a criticism.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

  Knut Sondre Sæbø commented on criticism #3752.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

#3752·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 13 days ago

If this is the case, it would make sense to make AGI as similar to ourselves as possible, so AGI can use our pre-existing knowledge more directly.

  Knut Sondre Sæbø revised criticism #3751.

I think that depend on the "embodiment" of the AGI. That is how it is like to be that AGI, and how it's normal world looks like. A bat (If they where people) would probably prefer different metaphors than for a human. Humans are very visual, which makes spacial feutures very salient for us. Metaphors are useful because they take advantage of already salient aspects for a person to view other things. So things that is are immidately salient for the person, has more potency as a metaphor.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

  Knut Sondre Sæbø addressed criticism #3733.

Or it might, who knows? An AGI, just like humans, would move around in the world and discover that metaphors are useful, so it might as well use spatial metaphors. If it did, that would be due to convergent evolution of ideas. And even if it didn’t, that could just be because the ideas didn’t converge, not because AGIs don’t have brains.

#3733·Dennis HackethalOP, 14 days ago

I think that depend on the "embodiment" of the AGI. That is how it is like to be that AGI, and how it's normal world looks like. A bat (If they where people) would probably prefer different metaphors than for a human. Humans are very visual, which makes spacial feutures very salient for us. Metaphors are useful because they take advantage of already salient aspects for a person to view other things. So things that is are immidately salient for the person, has more potency as a metaphor.

I think that depends on the "embodiment" of the AGI; that is, what it's like to be that AGI and how its normal world appears. A bat (if it were a person) would probably prefer different metaphors than a human would. Humans are very visual, which makes spatial features very salient to us. Metaphors work because they leverage already-salient aspects of experience to illuminate other things. So to train an AGI, I would think it's more useful for that AGI to leverage the salient aspects that are pre-given.

  Knut Sondre Sæbø revised idea #3741. The revision addresses idea #3734.

One part of my question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

One part of my question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

  Knut Sondre Sæbø commented on criticism #3734.

mye

How does this happen? (Not a metaphorical question.)

#3734·Dennis HackethalOP, 14 days ago

That was autocorrect from my cellphone. Mye means alot in Norwegian. Not a good idea to have autocorrect on when you're writing in two languages..

  Dennis Hackethal commented on idea #3736.

Interesting! Getting ideas to jibe/cohere seems like a more and more fundamental idea the more I think about it. Has anyone explored whether the collection of ideas in a person's mind must have a specific structure?

When discussing virtues, you seem to suggest a hierarchical organization of ideas, as opposed to ideas competing horizontally for attention and salience. It appears that ideas organize vertically in a hierarchy, where activating "higher-level" ideas automatically resolves conflicts among lower-level ones. For example, if a snake suddenly appears next to you, all previous internal conflicts dissolve because self-preservation is among the most dominant (highest) ideas in their value structure.

However, individuals can construct even higher-order values that override self-preservation. The structure seems hierarchical: when a top-level idea is activated, there seems to be some alignment in lower level ideas.

#3736·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 14 days ago

Getting ideas to jibe/cohere seems like a more and more fundamental idea the more I think about it.

Agreed. There’s more to it than meets the eye. For example, maybe capitalism can be thought of as society-wide common-preference finding (#3013). Rationality might work the same way across minds as it does within a single mind. Capitalism as an expression of rationality in society.

As for virtues, I think some virtues are more fundamental than others. There are some virtues I think people should adopt. Like, rationality depends on them. But the core functionality of the mind as a whole does not. There’s a difference between creativity and rationality. Which virtues someone adopts and why and how they prioritize them in different situations is downstream of creativity as a whole.

I don’t know if activating higher virtues always resolves conflicts between ideas. But it could put them on hold for a while, yeah. If I see a venomous snake, my main priority is to get to safety (life as the ultimate value, as objectivists would say).

  Knut Sondre Sæbø revised idea #3731.

One part of mye question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

One part of my question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

  Dennis Hackethal commented on idea #3731.

One part of mye question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

#3731·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 14 days ago

Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

Yeah, I think so.

If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

For example, you could observe that you’re feeling sad even though only good things have been happening to you. So the sadness doesn’t make sense (at least on the surface). And then you can introspect from there.

  Knut Sondre Sæbø revised idea #3735.

Has anyone explored whether the collection of ideas in a person's mind must have a specific structure?

When discussing virtues, you seem to suggest a hierarchical organization of ideas, as opposed to ideas competing horizontally for attention and salience. It appears that ideas organize vertically in a hierarchy, where activating "higher-level" ideas automatically resolves conflicts among lower-level ones. For example, if a snake suddenly appears next to you, all previous internal conflicts dissolve because self-preservation is among the most dominant (highest) ideas in their value structure.

However, individuals can construct even higher-order values that override self-preservation. The structure seems hierarchical: when a top-level idea is activated, there seems to be some alignment in lower level ideas.

Interesting! Getting ideas to jibe/cohere seems like a more and more fundamental idea the more I think about it. Has anyone explored whether the collection of ideas in a person's mind must have a specific structure?

When discussing virtues, you seem to suggest a hierarchical organization of ideas, as opposed to ideas competing horizontally for attention and salience. It appears that ideas organize vertically in a hierarchy, where activating "higher-level" ideas automatically resolves conflicts among lower-level ones. For example, if a snake suddenly appears next to you, all previous internal conflicts dissolve because self-preservation is among the most dominant (highest) ideas in their value structure.

However, individuals can construct even higher-order values that override self-preservation. The structure seems hierarchical: when a top-level idea is activated, there seems to be some alignment in lower level ideas.

  Knut Sondre Sæbø commented on idea #3699.

Thanks for asking good questions.

Is it accurate to view reason more as a process than a static state?

Yes.

Where the process might be summed up by
1. Being open to criticism
2. Truth-seeking (commitment to getting ideas to jibe)

Yes. Aka ‘common-preference finding’ aka ‘fun’.

Some of the virtues that @benjamin-davies has put together are part of it, too.

#3699·Dennis HackethalOP revised 15 days ago

Has anyone explored whether the collection of ideas in a person's mind must have a specific structure?

When discussing virtues, you seem to suggest a hierarchical organization of ideas, as opposed to ideas competing horizontally for attention and salience. It appears that ideas organize vertically in a hierarchy, where activating "higher-level" ideas automatically resolves conflicts among lower-level ones. For example, if a snake suddenly appears next to you, all previous internal conflicts dissolve because self-preservation is among the most dominant (highest) ideas in their value structure.

However, individuals can construct even higher-order values that override self-preservation. The structure seems hierarchical: when a top-level idea is activated, there seems to be some alignment in lower level ideas.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #3731.

One part of mye question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

#3731·Knut Sondre Sæbø, 14 days ago

mye

How does this happen? (Not a metaphorical question.)

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #3732.

But an AGI might not develop such phrases independently. (See #3730.)

#3732·Dennis HackethalOP, 14 days ago

Or it might, who knows? An AGI, just like humans, would move around in the world and discover that metaphors are useful, so it might as well use spatial metaphors. If it did, that would be due to convergent evolution of ideas. And even if it didn’t, that could just be because the ideas didn’t converge, not because AGIs don’t have brains.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #3629.

An example is how brain regions originally used for moving the body through 3D space are repurposed cognitively to "move around" in idea-space. Some anecdotal evidence for this: notice how many movement metaphors structure propositional thinking. We say we're close to the truth, we under-stand, we grasp a concept, we arrive at a conclusion.

That has nothing to do with brain regions. An AGI running on a laptop would use the same phrases.

#3629·Dennis HackethalOP, 17 days ago

But an AGI might not develop such phrases independently. (See #3730.)

  Knut Sondre Sæbø commented on idea #3696.

Maybe I don’t understand the question, but I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all criterion to use for that scenario. It depends on the content of the ideas and how they conflict exactly.

All I can say without more info is that we can try to criticize ideas and adopt the ones with no pending criticisms. That’s true for any kind of idea – explicit, inexplicit, conscious, unconscious, executable, etc. See #2281.

#3696·Dennis HackethalOP, 15 days ago

One part of mye question was whether a formal criterion can be applied universally. If the citerion itself must be chosen, like for instance what brings more fun, meaning, practical utility, then by what criterion do we choose the criterion? Or is the answer simply to apply the same process of critical examination to everything that arises, until a coherent path emerges?

The other part was how you actually critize an implicit or unconcious idea. If you have an unconcious idea that gives rise to a conflicting feeling for instance, how do you critisize a feeling?

  Knut Sondre Sæbø commented on idea #3692.

Why would an AGI use spacial metaphors like understand, arrive, close to understand ideas?

Because it would be a product of our culture and speak English.

#3692·Dennis HackethalOP, 15 days ago

Aah, then I agree. I thought you meant AGI would develop the same metaphors independently.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #3625.

The act of making different types of idea jibe ((propositional ideas, feelings etc. ), doesn’t seem to me to be best explained as a rational process. They don’t have a shared metric or intertranslatability that would enable comparison. If feelings and other nonrational mental contents cannot be reduced to explicit reasons, then the process of integrating them cannot itself be arrived at through reasoning alone. This doesn’t mean reason cannot critique feelings or other nonrational content, only that the integrative process itself operates differently than rational deliberation.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The act of making different types of idea jibe (propositional ideas, feelings etc.), doesn’t seem to me to be best explained as a rational process. They don’t have a shared metric or inter-translatability that would enable comparison. If feelings and other non-rational mental contents cannot be reduced to explicit reasons, then the process of integrating them cannot itself be arrived at through reasoning alone. This doesn’t mean reason cannot critique feelings or other non-rational content, only that the integrative process itself operates differently than rational deliberation.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #3698.

Thanks for asking good questions.

Is it accurate to view reason more as a process than a static state?

Yes.

Where the process might be summed up by
1. Being open to criticism
2. Truth-seeking (commitment to getting ideas to jibe)

Yes. Aka ‘common-preference finding’.

Some of the virtues that @benjamin-davies has put together are part of it, too.

Thanks for asking good questions.

Is it accurate to view reason more as a process than a static state?

Yes.

Where the process might be summed up by
1. Being open to criticism
2. Truth-seeking (commitment to getting ideas to jibe)

Yes. Aka ‘common-preference finding’ aka ‘fun’.

Some of the virtues that @benjamin-davies has put together are part of it, too.

  Dennis Hackethal commented on idea #3672.

After reading some more about Deutsch's and your definition of reason. Is it accurate to view reason more as a process than a static state? Where the process might be summed up by
1. Being open to criticism
2. Truth-seeking (commitment to getting ideas to jibe)

#3672·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 15 days ago

Thanks for asking good questions.

Is it accurate to view reason more as a process than a static state?

Yes.

Where the process might be summed up by
1. Being open to criticism
2. Truth-seeking (commitment to getting ideas to jibe)

Yes. Aka ‘common-preference finding’.

Some of the virtues that @benjamin-davies has put together are part of it, too.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #3669.

After reading some more about the definitoin of reason. Is it accurate to view reason more as a process than a static state? Where the process might be summed up by
1. Being open to criticism
2. Truth-seeking (commitment to getting ideas to jibe)

#3669·Knut Sondre Sæbø revised 15 days ago

Superseded by #3671.