From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Mon Aug 26 2002 - 14:24:21 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
Everything that works is a form of rationality; works because it is
rational; and is rational because it works.
<snipped an excellent and somewhat poetic exposition of a very broad
definition of rationality>
### I like Eliezer's post, not surprisingly, since a few months before I
posted the following:
> How about the following set of definitions:
>
> 1. Information - undefined, to be treated as a primitive concept here.
>
> 2. Knowledge - information describing a true, predictive mapping between
> actions and their results.
>
> 3. Intelligence - the ability to process information to produce knowledge.
>
> 4. Rationality - the intelligent ability to use knowledge about self and
> non-self and other relevant information to choose actions leading to the
> achievement of goals.
While Eliezer's approach is broader than the suggestion I made, it does
capture the essential similarity - the understanding of rationality as a way
of binding a goal, a set of data, and an action leading non-randomly to the
achievement of the goal. Be it conscious deliberation, or the use of
hardwired instincts, we do call it rational if it works in a reliable
manner.
Rafal
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