Introduction to Meta-Rationality

* Book: In the Cells of the Eggplant. David Chapman.

URL = https://metarationality.com/

Description

"In the Cells of the Eggplant is an introduction to meta-rationality: ways of using rational systems more effectively by examining their relationships with their surrounds.

Meta-rationality operates in the territory beyond the boundaries of fixed understanding. It recognizes, works with, and transcends the limits of rationality. It evaluates, selects, combines, modifies, discovers, and creates rational methods.

As of mid-2020, only the first two Parts of The Eggplant, out of five, are complete. I have posted them here on the web. When it is finished, I will publish The Eggplant in paperback and as a Kindle ebook. That may be years off.

The book gradually builds a complex, densely connected conceptual structure. It is not well-suited to reading in pieces. I recommend starting at the beginning and reading forward in order."

Contents

"Pages marked with ⚒︎ are unfinished.

META-RATIONALITY: AN INTRODUCTION

Is this book for you? How meta-rationality can level up your work in science, technology, and engineering.

PART ONE: TAKING RATIONALISM SERIOUSLY

The hope that systematic rationality can reliably provide certainty, understanding, and control fails when it encounters nebulosity.

PART TWO: TAKING REASONABLENESS SERIOUSLY

Everyday reasonableness is the foundation of technical, formal, and systematic rationality.

⚒︎ PART THREE: TAKING RATIONALITY SERIOUSLY

A pragmatic understanding of how systematic rationality works in practice can help you level up your technical work.

INTERLUDE: ONTOLOGICAL REMODELING

Reconfiguring categories, properties, and relationships is a meta-rational skill—key in scientific revolutions.

⚒︎ PART FOUR: TAKING META-RATIONALITY SERIOUSLY

The heart of the meta-rationality book: what meta-rationality is, why it matters, and how to do it.

⚒︎ PART FIVE: TAKING RATIONAL WORK SERIOUSLY

Putting meta-rationality to work, in statistics, experimental science, software development, and entrepreneurship.