I am obsessed with Rationality. I know there was a philosophical movement in the 1800s called Rationality that focused on coming to new information through pure thought, instead of empirical evidence. I don’t know more about it than that.
The rationality I’m obsessed with is called Bayesian Rationality. I just watched this wonderful video which explains Bayesian Rationality expertly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R13BD8qKeTg
The guy explains using a metaphor of a man emerging from a cave for the first time and witnesses a sun rise. The man thinks, “What the heck?? Does that happen all the time?”. The more often he witnesses the sun rise, the more confident he gets that it always rises and always rises in the east. What are the chances it would do that 1,000 times in a row, but not the 1,001st? Almost zero, but not zero. It’s incredibly unlikely, but not impossible.
That’s how I try to think about the world.
- I can never be 100% certain, because there is always a non-zero chance of something else happening.
- I have to update what I believe based on what’s already happened.
- The world exists outside of my perception. My attention, or lack there of, does not alter the world.
- The world is comprehend-able with enough observation.