Re[6]: Metarationality (was: JOIN: Alden Streeter)

From: Cliff Stabbert (cps46@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Aug 25 2002 - 14:08:36 MDT


Sunday, August 25, 2002, 2:55:57 PM, Gordon Worley wrote:

GW> One aspect of rationality is making use of the best priors
GW> rather than inaccurate, evolved ones like emotional priors
GW> to encourage reproduction.

You keep bringing up this alleged inaccuracy of evolved pre-/sub-/
non-rational processes.

I disagree with what you wrote.

Our bodies and minds represent millions years of *successful*
evolution. We are, after all, the ones who made it.

If you are willing to credit your body's own wisdom -- your
"intuition", if you will -- you can achieve incredible results
compared to those who distrust their bodies, their emotions, their
intuition, etc.

One example would be world-class athletes. At times, professional
basketball rises to something like Art -- the fluid interplay of
teammates becoming almost a ballet.

The article I linked earlier about facial "mindreading"
   http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_08_05_a_face.htm
discusses early prodigies in this skill. Their accomplishments were
the motive force for the analysis discussed in the article -- and
those accomplishments would not have been possible without them making
the "leap of faith" towards trusting their intuition.

"Leap of faith" is of course inaccurate if you take into account my
point about us representing an optimal evolutionary path.

At the risk of making too personal and insulting a point here, I'll
offer a few facile pop-psychological instant guesses here: you don't
trust your body's innate wisdom, you're not much of an athlete, and
you don't have many if any routes of artistic expression.

Note: these are guesses, I could be way off. But if my suspicions are
correct, I'd put my money on Ben Goertzel achieving results before you
do (not yet having read about your approach to AI).

--
Cliff


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