Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Need for cognition

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 116 posts

Re: Need for cognition

#91

Post by xyzelement »

alpaca128 wrote: post #90
xyzelement wrote: post #80

This maps to something I've noticed. There's a pattern where human beings are wired to enjoy things that are important for their survival and thriving, but that these instincts are easily hijacked for aimless gratification. Eating junk food (vs stuff that gives you health and energy) or whacking off to porn (instead of healthy relationships and procreation) are examples of this. Anyway "the need for cognition"... I n…

> So they are sort of scratching their itch for cognition, but not in a way that makes their life better in an objective way Maybe they wouldn't enjoy doing it professionally or don't care about "objectively" min-maxing their careers. Nothing wrong with that imho.

I over indexed on the "financial" part, I am talking about people who aren't living great lives in general despite being very smart. They are scratching their cognitive itch, but only in ways that doesn't do anything concrete for them (not just money.)

Re: Need for cognition

#92

Post by wruza »

xyzelement wrote: post #80

This maps to something I've noticed. There's a pattern where human beings are wired to enjoy things that are important for their survival and thriving, but that these instincts are easily hijacked for aimless gratification. Eating junk food (vs stuff that gives you health and energy) or whacking off to porn (instead of healthy relationships and procreation) are examples of this. Anyway "the need for cognition"... I n…

Real life puzzles are barely purely logical and there’s a lot of competition and superiority that simply bs you over and uses other methods to undermine your effort.

I solve mathdoku before bedtime for fun, but when it comes to “business” I usually want to take a board and smash these smiling snakefaces with it, because that is the most logical move. E.g. in chess they call it “simplification”. Unfortunately that’s illegal, so the best bet is to leave cognition at home.

but not in a way that makes their life better in an objective way (which is most likely the reason we have this drive)

Most of our features are essential for small groups of 10-100 humans. Individual successes are irrelevant for survival. A whole group wins (over another group) when one ape solves a puzzle and shares benefits.

Re: Need for cognition

#93

Post by Waterluvian »

This might be the problem I have with my in-laws. They’re good and mostly happy people but they’re incredibly… simple? Visiting with them is one of the most excruciating things in my life. All they want to do is talk about complete drivel. Gossip about the neighbour’s garbage cans or their visit to Costco.

I’m not judging. It makes them happy. Great. But spending hours there I just feel my brain dying. It’s not for me.

But the opposite happens at my family’s dinner table. My poor wife once commented, “my brain began dying about 30 mins into you and your brothers discussing the philosophy of his Supreme Court brief.”

Furthermore: my incessant “need for cognition” is kind of screwing me up. I can’t sleep without medication anymore. My brain will not go to sleep on its own. I think and think and think. My wife puts on a stupid firefighter show where nobody ever wears helmets and passes out in ten minutes.

Re: Need for cognition

#94

Post by Teever »

xyzelement wrote: post #80

This maps to something I've noticed. There's a pattern where human beings are wired to enjoy things that are important for their survival and thriving, but that these instincts are easily hijacked for aimless gratification. Eating junk food (vs stuff that gives you health and energy) or whacking off to porn (instead of healthy relationships and procreation) are examples of this. Anyway "the need for cognition"... I n…

In some of his better known work, a then little known mathematician wrote about this sort of behaviour, the deep underlying societal causes, and proposed explosive solutions to the problem:

" We use the term “surrogate activity” to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the “fulfillment” that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person’s pursuit of goal X is a surrogate activity."

https://medium.com/chris-messina/surrogate-activities-the-po...

Re: Need for cognition

#95

Post by Xcelerate »

Waterluvian wrote: post #93

This might be the problem I have with my in-laws. They’re good and mostly happy people but they’re incredibly… simple? Visiting with them is one of the most excruciating things in my life. All they want to do is talk about complete drivel. Gossip about the neighbour’s garbage cans or their visit to Costco. I’m not judging. It makes them happy. Great. But spending hours there I just feel my brain dying. It’s not for m…

> My poor wife once commented, “my brain began dying about 30 mins into you and your brothers discussing the philosophy of his Supreme Court brief.”

Haha, my wife is similar—"If you and your dad start another four hour conversation about AI, I'm going to bed". My response: "You're more than welcome to discuss Solomonoff induction along with us."

Somehow we do manage to find topics that we both enjoy though.

Re: Need for cognition

#96

Post by Xcelerate »

topherPedersen wrote: post #3

Some people don't have this. A lot of people aren't very curious at all. Last night in Austin I saw a full self driving car from Cruise drive by with no driver while I was at a crosswalk. No one noticed or cared that a car just drove by with no one in it! It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, and the people around me did not notice or care.

> It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, and the people around me did not notice or care.

This reminds me of a flight I was on a few months ago. There was a new flight attendant on board, and amazingly it was also her first time traveling in an airplane. She was looking out the window and commented to another flight attendant about how astonishing it was that you could see the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas or the canyons in Utah from that vantage point. Then she paused, looked around the cabin, and asked "Why does everyone have their window shade down? This view is breathtaking." The other flight attendant laughed and replied, "They're all desensitized to it by now."

Re: Need for cognition

#97

Post by permo-w »

jawns wrote: post #5

I haven't looked at the research yet, but this feels like it may have some correlation with a psychological trait called dogmatism, which is a defined as exhibiting great certainty about the correctness of one's views and an unwillingness to consider new evidence, or an unwillingness to adjust one's views in light of new evidence. Obviously, they're not the same. NFC pertains more to the desire to go through the proc…

perhaps it can be looked at as a function of bodily resource consumption. taking in new ideas and updating your priors is very, very energy intensive and I would guess requires the use of expensive bodily nutrients to build the pathways

since I'm guessing about the nutrient usage, I'm less comfortable including it in a hypothesis, but perhaps low NFC and high dogmatism are related to low maximum energy output or poor energy efficiency in the brain.

in my own personal experience, when I'm energy-tired, or ill, or depressed, I'm much less willing to approach new ideas, new experiences, or really anything that doesn't just follow pre-existing pathways

Re: Need for cognition

#98

Post by 65 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #93

This might be the problem I have with my in-laws. They’re good and mostly happy people but they’re incredibly… simple? Visiting with them is one of the most excruciating things in my life. All they want to do is talk about complete drivel. Gossip about the neighbour’s garbage cans or their visit to Costco. I’m not judging. It makes them happy. Great. But spending hours there I just feel my brain dying. It’s not for m…

> my incessant “need for cognition” is kind of screwing me up.

Hah. Same. I have to pace around for hours and hours a day, thinking about random shit. I do an unhealthy amount of pacing. I'm not anxiously pacing. Just thinking about stuff. At least I get my steps in.

Re: Need for cognition

#99

Post by tripdout »

xyzelement wrote: post #80

This maps to something I've noticed. There's a pattern where human beings are wired to enjoy things that are important for their survival and thriving, but that these instincts are easily hijacked for aimless gratification. Eating junk food (vs stuff that gives you health and energy) or whacking off to porn (instead of healthy relationships and procreation) are examples of this. Anyway "the need for cognition"... I n…

  whacking off to porn (instead of healthy relationships and procreation)
These two things are not mutually exclusive nor is there a correlation between them.

Re: Need for cognition

#100

Post by thekiptxt »

Waterluvian wrote: post #93

This might be the problem I have with my in-laws. They’re good and mostly happy people but they’re incredibly… simple? Visiting with them is one of the most excruciating things in my life. All they want to do is talk about complete drivel. Gossip about the neighbour’s garbage cans or their visit to Costco. I’m not judging. It makes them happy. Great. But spending hours there I just feel my brain dying. It’s not for m…

I understand what you’re saying and I can relate to some degree, but it’s hard to read comments like this and not think I’m browsing r/IAmVerySmart.

I have some friends with whom I might try to poke at the nuances of the philosophy of a Supreme Court decision, but I have other friends who would be bored out of their mind. They also have a need for cognition and love to tear topics apart, but _different_ topics.

Post reply on HN