Some Morals from the Study of Human Irrationality [Link]

post by XiXiDu · 2011-01-18T15:56:21.053Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 10 comments

Luke Muehlhauser posted a selection of the “morals” from Stuart Sutherland’s Irrationality.

Link: commonsenseatheism.com/?p=13556

I was wondering if the same could be done for the Sequences and if it would be a good idea or rather hold people off from reading them at full length.

Is it even possible to summarize each post in one sentence? An example would be Belief in the Implied Invisible which could be summarized by a quote from the post Decoherence is Falsifiable and Testable:

If P(Y|X) ≈ 1, then P(X∧Y) ≈ P(X). Which is to say, believing extra details doesn't cost you extra probability when they are logical implications of general beliefs you already have.

One could then compile a quote paper and cite the accompanying posts. As Luke wrote, "If you want to know his reasons for giving all this advice, read the book."

10 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.

comment by Tesseract · 2011-01-19T02:23:46.421Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm currently working on a summary of some of the central Less Wrong ideas, with links to the original Sequences posts. First paragraph of the (very) rough draft, currently sans links:

The purpose of beliefs is to correspond with the state of the world and therefore allow you to predict reality. The 'truth' of a belief is therefore how accurately it predicts the world, which means that there can be degrees of truth, not simply a right and wrong answer. The way to arrive at beliefs which predict the world (at true beliefs) is to base your beliefs on evidence -- to entangle yourself with the world, and therefore let the state of the world control the state of your beliefs.

Would this be considered valuable?

Replies from: lukeprog, atucker
↑ comment by lukeprog · 2011-01-19T06:25:17.916Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yes. Definitely.

Replies from: XiXiDu
↑ comment by XiXiDu · 2011-01-19T11:46:57.472Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

What I wanted to ask you, since you are well-read. Can you pinpoint what is novel about LW, what makes it special, when compared to books like Stuart Sutherland’s Irrationality and Gary L. Drescher's Good and Real? If someone was going to read Good and Real, Sutherland’s Irrationality and a third book of your choice, what would that person be able to learn from reading the Sequences afterwards?

Replies from: David_Gerard, lukeprog
↑ comment by David_Gerard · 2011-01-19T11:53:10.589Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

One useful thing on LW is the comments section. Also that it's fine to post comments years later, and possibly start a new discussion.

↑ comment by lukeprog · 2011-01-19T15:52:48.053Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Oh, lots.

Drescher's Good and Real presupposes most of what the Sequences explain, and applies Less Wrongian thinking to specific problems in physics and philosophy. The most overlap is probably between Drescher's and Eliezer's discussions of QM.

Sutherland's Irrationality is a pretty good survey of heuristics and biases, but that's only one of the main topics at LW.

I don't know what a third book of my choice would be, since I don't know what the criteria are, but I don't know of any book that covers the material in the Sequences that isn't covered by Good and Real and Irrationality.

Replies from: XiXiDu
↑ comment by XiXiDu · 2011-01-19T16:32:46.381Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm an incredible slow reader with no formal education. I'm trying to figure out what I should learn and refine it as much as possible. I'd rather not read a book of marginal importance, otherwise I'll need a decade before I stumble upon the gist of the matter. I thought asking someone like you, someone who is reading the sequences and reviewing a lot of books, who would be able to point out if there is some redundancy here to spare. I think to remember Yudkowsky saying that Good and Real is basically LW in book form. That's why I asked. The third book I have been talking about would have been one that captures everything the mentioned ones miss about the sequences. If you would say that the sequences basically capture the content of a dozen books, or that there is a book that captures the content of the sequences, then I could either spare reading the books or vice versa.

I have the same problem with other fields. How long should I bother with certain fields of math, are some completely useless to me? That's hard to figure out. I'm an average person with no demanding job. What fields of knowledge would most help me to improve my life? What is the most effective way to digest that knowledge?

Replies from: jaimeastorga2000, lukeprog
↑ comment by lukeprog · 2011-01-19T18:29:50.530Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The #1 book I would recommend in general might be the latest edition of Weiten's Psychology Applied to Modern Life, which is a summary of scientific self-help. But if you're a slow reader, I'm not sure what to recommend. I don't know of any podcasts or video series that cover the same material.

But no, I don't know of a book that basically captures the sequences. At least not until Eliezer publishes the two books he's working on.

↑ comment by atucker · 2011-01-19T03:33:20.622Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It's definitely valuable, but I feel like it leaves out some ideas (which may or may not be included in your other paragraphs, and if they are you can just interpret this as simple praise).

Like, why beliefs need to be entangled with the world. Or the map/territory dichotomy, and how some false things will feel true because of cognitive biases and cognitive dissonance. Or how a lot of times people use beliefs for signaling.

Most religious people I talk to actually believe that God exists in the universe, but don't realize how they don't actually anticipate anything different because of him.

comment by timtyler · 2011-01-18T21:18:55.787Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

There have been some efforts to generate abstracts. For example, see here:

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Mysterious_Answers_to_Mysterious_Questions

The first 8 posts have been done - but then whoever-it-was apparently gave up.