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The author gives an example of this afterwards (analysing shares in a pachinko company). Essentially, you identify numerous hypothetical scenarios, analyse the

by ldjb 5y ago

The author gives an example of this afterwards (analysing shares in a pachinko company). Essentially, you identify numerous hypothetical scenarios, analyse the impact they would have, and use that information to decide whether a particular course of action is a good idea or not.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago
I read the article and the example - I don't see it as an example of what he lays out. As you say - he laid out a bunch of questions and answered them. How is that testing anything against noisy data? Why are they intermediate steps? Where is the feedback loop? What if his answers are wrong and/or what if his sense for how likely they are is wrong?
- lxdesk 5y ago
  What he calls "world construction" involves the development of a rubric custom to the problem. This creates a faster feedback loop inside of the larger, noisier one. Your feedback is now guided around the question of "what makes the rubric itself better?" This can be done on principle, with limited access to external information. Philosophical thinking is eminently suited to this style of problem, but it can be supplemented with short-term empirical studies that add some falsifying points and narrow your cone of uncertainty. At the end you've generated a list of yes/no questions forming the rubric of whether the course of action is likely to succeed. It can be turned into a ranking score, or a pass-fail threshold. If you're frustrated by the idea of just making it up on principle, that's a frustration with philosophy itself; it rarely "works" until you accept some pragmatic premises around what is "good" or "true". The point of having a large number of questions, using a wide variety of perspectives, is that they test the overall coherency of the premise. Something can work fine from one perspective, and then completely fail in another. When that happens, it's a good sign that you have more to improve. It's quite an important life skill to practice. It's easy to go along with the crowd, but this is a way of breaking away from it.
  - danielmarkbruce 5y ago
    You may well be right - i just literally don't understand what you are saying. It's too abstract. Can you explain it using his stock example?

by ldjb 5y ago

danielmarkbruce 5y ago

I read the article and the example - I don't see it as an example of what he lays out. As you say - he laid out a bunch of questions and answered them. How is that testing anything against noisy data? Why are they intermediate steps? Where is the feedback loop? What if his answers are wrong and/or what if his sense for how likely they are is wrong?

lxdesk 5y ago
What he calls "world construction" involves the development of a rubric custom to the problem. This creates a faster feedback loop inside of the larger, noisier one. Your feedback is now guided around the question of "what makes the rubric itself better?" This can be done on principle, with limited access to external information. Philosophical thinking is eminently suited to this style of problem, but it can be supplemented with short-term empirical studies that add some falsifying points and narrow your cone of uncertainty. At the end you've generated a list of yes/no questions forming the rubric of whether the course of action is likely to succeed. It can be turned into a ranking score, or a pass-fail threshold. If you're frustrated by the idea of just making it up on principle, that's a frustration with philosophy itself; it rarely "works" until you accept some pragmatic premises around what is "good" or "true". The point of having a large number of questions, using a wide variety of perspectives, is that they test the overall coherency of the premise. Something can work fine from one perspective, and then completely fail in another. When that happens, it's a good sign that you have more to improve. It's quite an important life skill to practice. It's easy to go along with the crowd, but this is a way of breaking away from it.
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  You may well be right - i just literally don't understand what you are saying. It's too abstract. Can you explain it using his stock example?