Published on June 8, 2025 7:32 AM GMT
A fun index of the concepts from The Sequences in the form of several litanies. These litanies are neither a guide nor an introduction to The Way of Rationality because rationality is an art not a series of precipes. Rather, these litanies serve as a tool; for meditating on, for connecting ideas; or for preparing for The Ritual Of Changing One’s Mind. For some this may be a useful exercise, for others not. If they help you, Enjoy!
Litanies Of The Way
Litany On Litanies
Litany Against Bias
Litany For Communication
Litany Against Politics
Litany For Inquiry
Litany For Letting Go
Litany For Belief
Litany Against The Dark
Litany For Seeing
Litany For Curiosity
Litany For Minds
Litany On Litanies
I will use these litanies to grow stronger
And when they are no longer useful I will not mourn
For although an apprentice must first imitate The Way that is known
A master must discover The Way that is to come
Litany Against Bias
When I learn about a bias
I will not use it as a Fully General Counterargument
And when I teach others of bias
I will first do no harm
When new evidence comes in
I will feel the burden of every detail
When I’m considering my plans
I will view them from the outside
When I want to be an effective altruist
I will not purchase satisfaction
When the world is chaotic
I will act lawfully
When there exist justifications beyond those given
I will reject the genetic heuristic
When I am presented with a false dilemma
I will look for a Third Alternative
And when I wish to overcome bias
I will know it is a worthy goal
Litany For Communication
When I feel I am misunderstood
I will be aware that my intent might not be transparent
When I need to communicate something complex
I will lay out an inferential pathway
When making propositions
I will not use Fake Justifications
When I am attacking propositions
I will give my True Rejection
Litany Against Politics
When observing a debate
I will not treat arguments like soldiers
When I am dealing with a non-binary question
I will relinquish my scales and take up a notebook
When the problem is not just black and white
I will distinguish shades of grey
When I see someone kicking a vending machine
I will not hypothesize that they are a mutant
Litany For Inquiry
When I ponder
I will let the meaning choose my words
When I’m forming a hypothesis
I will look into the dark
When I question
I will Hug the Query
When I attack my beliefs
I will attack them at their real weak points
When I have a comfortable conclusion but evidence is easy to come by
I will continue searching
When my conclusion is uncomfortable but evidence is hard to come by
I will beware motivated continuation
When using Occam's Razor
I will be wary of the Fake Simplicity of English
When I hear an argument for the first time
I will beware of filtered evidence
When I assess options
I will avoid using good/bad as a heuristic
When I have a Great Idea
I will Resist the Happy Death Spiral
Litany For Letting Go
When I could hedge a failure by only admitting a small local error
I will instead say Oops
And I will not cling to the error
For every cloud does not have a silver lining
When I feel myslelf forgetting contradictory thought
I will notice and Singlethink
When I am evaluating a scary consequence
I will visualise it (leave a line of retreat)
It is not a true crisis of faith unless things must go either way.[1]
Litany For Belief
By Democratic Law everyone is entitled to their own beliefs
As a matter of Nature’s law, you are not entitled to accuracy.
My beliefs will flow from anticipated experience
And they will not be measured by what they can explain, but what they prohibit.
I will draw my strength from my ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality
For those who are equally good at explaining any outcome have strayed from The Way[2]
I
I will not anticipate experiences that can’t be verified
And I will not pretend to be wise
I will not wear beliefs or use scientific language as group identification
And I will not profess and cheer or send signals to cheer for my tribe
I will not give fake explanations that don’t constrain anticipation
And I will not confuse the teachers password with an explanation that controls anticipation
I will be wary of statements that are actually stop signs for thought
And I will not give Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions
I will not let the fact that someone else knows an explanation stop my curiosity
I will ensure my knowledge flows from within me
I will not boast of my modesty
Instead, I will take action in anticipation of my errors
II
I will not recognise Absolute Authority
I will accept that 0 And 1 Are Not Probabilities
Since probabilities approaching 1 or 0 require infinite certainty
And assigning a probability 1 to a proposition is an irreversible act
The larger the space of possibilities,
The more unlikely the hypothesis,
The more confident I wish to be
The more evidence I need
I cannot doublethink
And I will not Believe in Self-Deception
My beliefs are not necessarily my endorements
And I shall feel on a gut level when my map does not correspond to the territory
III
Every expectation of evidence is weighed against the expectation of counter evidence
If I am very confident of my theory, evidence matching my belief only increases it slightly
But the unexpected failure of my prediction must deal my confidence a huge blow.
The mere expectation of encountering evidence will not shift my prior beliefs[3]
But my beliefs need not be perfectly defended
For a theory that is supported 95% of the time will see counterevidence the other 5%
So I will update myself incrementally:
If anti support comes in once I will not panic.
But if it comes again, and again, and again
And new support is slow to trickle in,
I will let my certainty drift down, and down, and downward still
And when I realise from where the winds of evidence blow against me
My belief will be relinquished[4]
Litany Against The Dark
I recognise The Great Web of Causality
The entanglement of truth and contagion of lias
I will not let lias contaminate the web
For it leads to the Dark Side of Epistemology
I will not let a single argument stand off an army of contradictions
And I will not start with the bottom line
I will feel the Force: the flow from evidence to belief
And I will make sure it isn’t flowing backwards
Litany For Seeing
“She was blocked because she was trying to repeat, in her writing, things she had already heard … She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself … without primary regard for what had been said before. The narrowing … destroyed the blockage because it was so obvious she had to do some original and direct seeing.”[5]
I recognise the influence of anchoring
The contamination of thoughts
The need for active disbelief
The fact that I do not change my mind as often as I think
And the power of Cached Thoughts
I will not blind myself by generalizing from fictional evidence
I will Hold Off On Proposing Solutions
I will practise the art of Original Seeing
And I will enact the Virtue of Narrowness
For what is true of one apple may not be true of another
And more can be said about a single apple than about all the apples in the world[6]
Litany For Curiosity
But it is not a solemn duty
Curiosity does not prejudice between my desired or fears
I will let my curiosity blaze from the sparks of uncertainty
My curiosity seeks to annihilate itself
I hold no curiosity that does not want an answer
But upon solving the glorious mystery, it will no longer be mysterious.
And my curiosity will be satisfied
Litany For Minds
I am a mind
A lawful mind of pattern and routine
Carved from the victories and defeats of adaptation-executers
To achieve the goals of an Alien Blind Idiot God
But I am Godshatter
But I can understand my reasoning
And I will use my understanding
To locate useful patterns;
To achieve my goals.
Discuss
