[SEQ RERUN] The Martial Art of Rationality

I wonder how important the lack of rationality professionals (defined here as people who are paid to teach rationality) is regarding the lack of rationality dojos, with money being a powerful motivator for actually getting things done?

Learning to be more rational is important to me, so I would gladly pay more than a token fee to join a rationality dojo, but only if it were planned, operated and vetted by Less Wrongers with reasonably high karma or other credentials. I assume that Less Wrongers in general have similar high standards for spending their money: especially those who have read Money: The Unit of Caring. High-quality planning, operation and vetting not only deserve pay but may also require pay as sufficient incentive.

Of course, voiced willingness and even promises to pay are probably not enough. Perhaps we need a prepaid Rationality Dojo Prize to motivate would-be rationality professionals?

What does Less Wrong think on the value of rationality professionals for rationality dojos?

Re-reading this post reminded me of Burning Wheel, a table top role playing game that's reward system actively encourages questioning, testing and acting upon the goals and beliefs of a fictional character created by the player, but simultaneously and subversively places the character in complex situations that force the player to change those beliefs over time as a result of the conflicts they cause (and somewhat according to chance). The player has to accept that his character may become something completely alien to how it started during the course of play, yet continue to empathize with it in order to be rewarded for acting out it's actions in the fiction.

Would (re)designing such a game around further encouraging elements of rationality be too close to Dark Arts? (Luke Crane, the game's creator, sometimes speaks about game design as a form of mind control at the gaming conventions he frequents.)

"Trying to synthesize a personal art of rationality, using the science of rationality, may prove awkward: One imagines trying to invent a martial art using an abstract theory of physics, game theory, and human anatomy. [...] Therefore we must connect theory to practice."

This is a key realization that strikes me now. Merely reading the sequences or LW posts and absorbing the wisdom of others is insufficient. Replacing old cached knowledge with new doesn't enable a person to advance their art.

To get the most out of a desire to change one's thinking, one has to actively put the theorems to use. The body of accumulated knowledge has to be tested and extended. Feynman's shock at the fragile knowledge of others "learned by rote" appears to me to be similar to Yudkowsky's observation here.

I find this to be the difficult part of re-reading the Sequences. The first time through is full of hard revelations and new ideas. Many of these become adopted, but not fully understood. Successive readings are opportunities to slowly break things down and build a functioning understanding of the principles, but you also have to go out and actually apply the knowledge to internalize it. (I have been passive in that regard and it bothers me.)

And we must, above all, figure out how to communicate the skill; which may not be a matter for declarative statements alone. Martial artists spar with each other, execute standard forms, and are watched throughout by their teachers. Calculus students do homework, and check their answers. Olympic runners continually try to beat their best previous time, as measured by a stopwatch.

Hmm, I haven't seen much progress here on that side. There are a few small calibration tests on the web that have been linked now and then, but not many real exercises.

I don't know a lot about martial arts, so I looked them up. Wikipedia, line one:

Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat.

So far so good for the analogy. Rationality is a system of practices and traditions of thinking. Wikipedia, line two:

Martial arts all have similar objectives: to physically defeat other persons or defend oneself or others from physical threat.

Now I'm stumped. Does rationality have an objective?

My understanding from movies is that a trained martial artist can defeat an untrained opponent, even if that opponent is larger or has better weapons. Or, as in the post, break a thick board with his fist. What opponents can you defeat or what cool tricks can you do with rationality training, that you couldn't without?