![]() Here he took great pains in defining his terms for "good" and "evil": stating that if anyone was to disagree with his definitions it would be okay, and he would just find some other random and arbitrary combination of vowels and consonants to represent his ideas. For example, Scott Clifton, operating under the YouTube name Theoretical Bullshit, made a similar point underlining the importance of this in his 'Treatise on Morality'. It prevents this emotional blackmail aspect, allowing someone to critically evaluate an idea without having to avoid being labelled as "anti".ĭefining complex terms in advance has long been part of the normal "tool kit" of philosophical and rationalist debating. ![]() ![]() Tabooing these terms frees anyone from the need to unquestioningly agree and focus on what is actually meant. It is easy to effectively commit emotional blackmail on an opponent by questioning why they wouldn't be for something like rationality, feminism, freedom or democracy - because these words are almost universally considered to be good things that you should agree with. This isn't just important from the viewpoint of precision one of the most useful aspects is that it removes deep emotional attachment to certain terms. It's not too dissimilar to the artistic tip of "drawing what you see". It forces people to visualize details and describe what is really there, often as if you're seeing something for the first time, rather than use a less well defined mental shortcut. The point, from a "Yudkowskian" perspective, is to guide people to discussing things in terms of their observational qualities (what we expect to see and experience from them) rather than in terms of just their labels and learned behavior. The rationalist taboo proposes that completely avoiding these words that are the root cause of this mapping error is a technique that can be used to increase the productivity of a discussion. Thoughts map onto certain words, but unless both parties have the very same map, their thoughts will not sync up and the discussion can go absolutely nowhere. The simple fact at play here is that a word is not the same as a thought, and a word itself is quite meaningless without such an agreed-upon definition - the most important part here being "agreed upon". Perhaps Bill Clinton's infamous " It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" was taking this to extremes, but whether it be " democracy," " rationalism," or " reality," it's important to know exactly what words mean and then stick to this convention. Anyone who has ever spent time "discussing" or " debating" on the internet may well recognize the situation where instead of discussing an issue, you actually end up discussing a definition instead. The rationalist taboo comes from the importance of precision in arguments, and also from the need to avoid unproductive arguments from semantics and definitions. Yudkowsky describes the technique as follows: ![]() In this case, the target is the imprecision found in frequently-used and poorly-defined words, which allows entire conversations to occur without any real engagement even if both participants have open minds. The rationalist taboo is one of a variety of techniques applied by the Less Wrong crowd in their attempts to work around perceived shortcomings inherent to both language and human nature. For example, it is meaningless to argue about whether or not a particular sentiment is " racist", unless both speakers agree on the exact nature of "racism." Making "racist" a taboo word encourages speakers to describe the specific offense entailed, rather than arguing over the validity of a vague label. ![]() It is important to note that simply using a synonym does not suffice: the goal of the rationalist taboo is to prompt speakers to carefully define the actual content that might be otherwise disguised by the tabooed word. It specifies that the participants make one or more of the vague terms in a discussion - like " freedom" or " abortion" - a taboo word that temporarily cannot be said: more precise descriptions must instead be used. Rationalist taboo is the name coined by Eliezer Yudkowsky of Less Wrong for a technique which tries to overcome ambiguity and seek clarity in a discussion by restricting your use of language. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |