Map and Territory (Rationality: From AI to Zombies)

ISBN: 1939311233

Author: Yudkowsky, Eliezer

Condition: New

"If you live in an urban area, you probably don? need to walk very far to find a martial arts dojo."Why aren? there dojos that teach rationality?"Very recently-in just the last few decades-the human species has acquired a great deal of new knowledge about human rationality. Experimental investigations of empirical human psychology; and theoretical probability theory to interpret what our experiments tell us; and evolutionary theory to explain the conclusions."These fields give us new focusing lenses through which to view the landscape of our own minds. We have a shared vocabulary in which to describe problems and solutions."Humanity may finally be ready to synthesize the martial art of mind: to refine, share, systematize, and pass on techniques of personal rationality."When human brains try to do things, they can run into some very strange problems. Self-deception, confirmation bias, magical thinking-it sometimes seems our ingenuity is boundless when it comes to shooting ourselves in the foot.In Map and Territory, decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky asks what a ?artial art?of rationality would look like, beginning with the basic fighting stance-the orientation toward the world that lets us get the most bang for our cognitive buck, that best positions us to understand and react to brains?strange acts of self-destruction.