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The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

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Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#41

Post by Fellshard »

watwut wrote: post #24
Fellshard wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're also seeing an increasing number of cases where high-profile experts are making high-profile claims that then fold in full public view; or experts that make contradictory claims, under which case: from the perspective of a non-expert, who's right? Education is essential, and yet is not a panacea for thinking well. So when experts can't seem to give people a straight answer, they'll simply turn to their peer gro…

First problem is expecting expert answer to be simple, easy to understand, without asterisks and conditions. Experts often disagree about nuances or have competing theories. Second issue is tendency to take the first confident guy with simple answer as expert. The folding expert is pretty often not considered expert by people who deal with the field - he is typically just someone confident and well spoken.

And how is the layman supposed to differentiate between the two? It's a fairly intractable problem. Credentializing ends up having the opposite effect of creating an orthodoxy that freezes the ability to think.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#42

Post by dsizzle »

omreaderhn wrote: post #26
red_admiral wrote: post #17

Since this is freshman-level "think, don't believe", here's an equally valid counterargument at roughly the same level. In Heinrich's book "The Secret of our Success" on cumulative cultural evolution, he gives an example of pre-Columbus American cultures whose diet was based on bitter manioc (a.k.a. cassava). Like the name suggests, in its raw form it's too bitter to eat, but these cultures evolved a set of tradition…

Nassim Taleb's "Lindy Effect" I think is an interesting take on how to mediate between these two modes. The general idea is that the older a (still followed) tradition is the more likely it is to contain some eternal truths that should be respected even if you yourself can't understand them directly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

As the Wikipedia link shows, it's not actually Taleb's coinage.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#43

Post by FeepingCreature »

guscost wrote: post #40
red_admiral wrote: post #17

Since this is freshman-level "think, don't believe", here's an equally valid counterargument at roughly the same level. In Heinrich's book "The Secret of our Success" on cumulative cultural evolution, he gives an example of pre-Columbus American cultures whose diet was based on bitter manioc (a.k.a. cassava). Like the name suggests, in its raw form it's too bitter to eat, but these cultures evolved a set of tradition…

This is an excellent counterargument. Here is another one: You will never be a completely rational being, no matter how hard you try. You are very good at tricking yourself, and it happens all the time. If you attempt to "think, don't believe", you will fail, and along the way yield all control over what you believe.

That's not an argument, just a sequence of assertions.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#44

Post by guscost »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #43
guscost wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent counterargument. Here is another one: You will never be a completely rational being, no matter how hard you try. You are very good at tricking yourself, and it happens all the time. If you attempt to "think, don't believe", you will fail, and along the way yield all control over what you believe.

That's not an argument, just a sequence of assertions.

Each assertion is true. The last one is the argument, the first two are just context.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#45

Post by DubiousPusher »

guscost wrote: post #40
red_admiral wrote: post #17

Since this is freshman-level "think, don't believe", here's an equally valid counterargument at roughly the same level. In Heinrich's book "The Secret of our Success" on cumulative cultural evolution, he gives an example of pre-Columbus American cultures whose diet was based on bitter manioc (a.k.a. cassava). Like the name suggests, in its raw form it's too bitter to eat, but these cultures evolved a set of tradition…

This is an excellent counterargument. Here is another one: You will never be a completely rational being, no matter how hard you try. You are very good at tricking yourself, and it happens all the time. If you attempt to "think, don't believe", you will fail, and along the way yield all control over what you believe.

I vociferously agree.

For me, this is sort of the ultimate somewhat Zen like lesson I've distilled from the skeptical movement. It's good to know you have these faiths and biases. But it's only less naive to think you have the time or the capacity to out-think them all.

It's troubling to me that I see a lot of the folks in the modern rationalist movement go hard at other people for not being "rational" or not using "facts" when what they should've learned is to be tremendously suspicious of their own conclusions and to hold them very loosely.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#46

Post by FeepingCreature »

guscost wrote: post #44
FeepingCreature wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an argument, just a sequence of assertions.

Each assertion is true. The last one is the argument, the first two are just context.

I don't know what to tell you.

This is not how logic works.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#48

Post by _jal »

munichpavel wrote: post #11
rytill wrote: post #3

The buffet line analogy doesn’t really work. Since you can’t go backwards or look too far ahead, you take the items at the beginning that are above your satisfaction threshold, not knowing whether there will be items further along that satisfy you.

I like the buffet analogy. It is a good example of "choice architecture" a la Cass and Sunstein from "Nudge". Nudge is one of a number of works arguing that we factor in more than economically rational criteria--such as marginal cost of going backwards in the buffet line--when making decisions. While Cass and Sunstein argue for government action in framing healthier choices, this post puts the onus on us to a.) recog…

The funny thing about governmental "nudges". The vast majority of them - and there are a lot of them - are already used a lot, to meet unwritten administrative goals.

A small example is the DMV person failing to tell you about an option you have that costs them more work. A big one is the Rick Scott administration's design of the unemployment system in Florida:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/florida-unemployment...

I applaud the idea of deliberately thinking about this stuff; one reason why governmental programs go off the rails is that programs are implemented in bad faith (or just "lazy faith"). So insofar as you actually want competent government, bringing attention to this stuff is positive. I'm a bit less optimistic about improving individual behavior that way, but then I'm a pessimist about that topic in general.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#49

Post by ebiester »

To add to others’ disagreements, I think there are two related traps in independent thought First, there is a giant pyramid of knowledge that experts have absorbed that the independent thinker hasn’t evaluated. Second, we underestimate the pyramid of knowledge required for independent thought.

This doesn’t mean that a non-recognized expert cannot cultivate this knowledge independently, but rather that it is exceedingly difficult to have both and independent and valuable opinion of a wide variety of topics. Now, while this does not account for the possibility of blind spots in fields or bias in experts, it does mean that to have truly independent yet accurate thoughts, you must account for that expertise in the thinking, which is a large task.

Do I think it makes more sense to directly read experts rather than secondary and tertiary sources when creating opinions? Yes! However, that isn’t independent thought. Perhaps my counter-proposal is independent thought in areas of expertise, educated opinions based on expertise on topics about which you care, and maintain humility in areas outside that sphere.

Re: The Modern-Day Mind-Killer

#50

Post by yellowapple »

Smithalicious wrote: post #36

The buffet example is bad. You can't really go back in a buffet, so it's a gamble where the certain outcome those first things (which you can see). Furthermore it doesn't factor in the cost of having to walk more to get the later items. My only take away from it is that people don't really have as strong a preference for buffet food as they might think. I'd also wager that avoiding "bad" food is much more important t…

Not to mention that the way the article presents that "study" doesn't make it sound like they controlled for the very real possibility of "everything in the buffet is appealing to around 75% of buffet eaters, so any reordering will result in 75% grabbing the first thing they see".

Plus, the point of a buffet (for me at least, being the fatass I am) is to try a little bit of everything, so unless it's something I already know I don't like, I'm probably gonna grab it.

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