rationality is a method of dealing with uncertainty by devouring information and making simplifying assumptions about the outside world until you can convince yourself that you understand it
hinterlanderx.comrationality is a method of dealing with uncertainty by devouring information and making simplifying assumptions about the outside world until you can convince yourself that you understand it
When your knowledge is incomplete—meaning that the world will seem to you to have an element of randomness—randomizing your actions doesn’t solve the problem. Randomizing your actions takes you further from the target, not closer. In a world already foggy, throwing away your intelligence just makes things worse.
Eliezer Yudkowsky • Rationality
Epistemic rationality: systematically improving the accuracy of your beliefs.
Eliezer Yudkowsky • Rationality
Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge.
Eliezer Yudkowsky • Rationality
Simon formulated the notion now known as bounded rationality: we cannot possibly measure and assess everything as if we were a computer; we therefore produce, under evolutionary pressures, some shortcuts and distortions. Our knowledge of the world is fundamentally incomplete, so we need to avoid getting into unanticipated trouble. And even if our k
... See moreNassim Nicholas Taleb • Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
Second, individuals cannot and do not optimise; nor are they irrational, victims of ‘biases’ which describe the ways they deviate from ‘rational’ behaviour. The meaning of rational behaviour depends critically on the context of the situation and there are generally many different ways of being rational.