What's the book that most influenced you on critical/rational thinking?
The website promotes a list (http://rationality.org/reading/). I have only read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and I am looking for HN users favorites.
Checklist of Rationality Habits
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Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#42What's the book that most influenced you on critical/rational thinking? The website promotes a list ( http://rationality.org/reading/ ). I have only read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and I am looking for HN users favorites.
There's a book called Seeking Wisdom be Peter Bevelin that I really enjoyed. He also has useful lists of checklists in the back.
Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#43I used to think this checklist was misguided. My mental model of improving my rationality was something like acquiring lots and lots of impressive and clever tools and then training myself to apply them in context appropriate places. I've come around to a model much more in line with this checklist though. Something like: 1. Noticing behavioral patterns 2. Thinking hard and doing research on the pattern, whether it l…
Your comment reminded me of the Meyers-Briggs model's concepts of introverted thinking and extraverted thinking. The extraverted thinker (NTJ) seeks out common, objective methodologies, while the introverted thinker (NTP) finds it easier to become comfortable with a more subjective, philosophical approach. You might then expect an INTJ to learn and hold to rules that seem to have authority or at least some critical thinking behind them, and an INTP could be expected to back off and start poking holes in those rules.
An important part of INTJ maturity is accepting that their own approach may fall short and examining the basis of other beliefs regarding the system or framework they instinctively favor. Or just learning why the lack of adherence to such a framework might be acceptable. INTJs, for example, are urged to learn about different personality preferences so they don't grow impatient with just about every other type. It's easy for INTJs to wonder why their ENFP friend just won't act logically.
In the case of the INTJ, the role of extraverted thinking, commonly called systems thinking, is crucial: It can replace their instinctive (and at times compulsive or otherwise destructive) emotional response to circumstances that make them feel anxiety. So when a more mature INTJ is feeling anxious about a situation or circumstance, they usually fall back on their extraverted thinking to help them examine rationally and build a model around it. Otherwise they might find themselves falling into compulsive behaviors, losing their grip on the situation.
Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#44I'm distressed by how unscientific a lot of this stuff is. It's all good advice, but some of it seems to come from some pretty naive perceptions of how consciousness and the brain work. The example in 3.1, for example: > Recent example from Anna: Jumping off the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas in a wire-guided fall. I knew it was safe based on 40,000 data points of people doing it without significant injury, but to p…
The existence of a mechanism for processing fear may be rational, but this doesn't mean fear is rational.
Similarly, if you are trying to destroy a small target and you know it lies in a 10 km^2 area, it may be optimal to employ a carpet-bombing strategy over the whole area. This doesn't mean that any of the individual bombs are optimized: most of them will fall nowhere near the target, and they are 'irrational' in support of a broader rationalization strategy.
This has to do with the fact that you only have enough information to narrow the target to such a wide area. With more information, you can optimize the individual bombs and maybe switch strategies away from carpet bombing.
Our fear processing machinery is a carpet bombing strategy that drops specific fears in our way that we have to deal with. Overall it is better than nothing, but since we are trying to _improve_ our strategy, we are forced to conclude that it is not an ideal methodology. We have to collect more information, and we have to ensure that this new information is accounted for in the decision-making process. This means fighting your reflexes. You cannot do better than nature by idolizing it.
Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#45What's the book that most influenced you on critical/rational thinking? The website promotes a list ( http://rationality.org/reading/ ). I have only read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and I am looking for HN users favorites.
There's a book called Seeking Wisdom be Peter Bevelin that I really enjoyed. He also has useful lists of checklists in the back.
Thanks. Seems out of print on Amazon [1]. Adding it to my wishlist anyway, maybe I buy a used one.
[1] www.amazon.com/Seeking-Wisdom-Darwin-Munger-3rd/dp/1578644283/
Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#46I used to think this checklist was misguided. My mental model of improving my rationality was something like acquiring lots and lots of impressive and clever tools and then training myself to apply them in context appropriate places. I've come around to a model much more in line with this checklist though. Something like: 1. Noticing behavioral patterns 2. Thinking hard and doing research on the pattern, whether it l…
Your comment reminded me of the Meyers-Briggs model's concepts of introverted thinking and extraverted thinking. The extraverted thinker ( NTJ) seeks out common, objective methodologies, while the introverted thinker ( NTP) finds it easier to become comfortable with a more subjective, philosophical approach. You might then expect an INTJ to learn and hold to rules that seem to have authority or at least some critical…
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Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#47I used to think this checklist was misguided. My mental model of improving my rationality was something like acquiring lots and lots of impressive and clever tools and then training myself to apply them in context appropriate places. I've come around to a model much more in line with this checklist though. Something like: 1. Noticing behavioral patterns 2. Thinking hard and doing research on the pattern, whether it l…
Your comment reminded me of the Meyers-Briggs model's concepts of introverted thinking and extraverted thinking. The extraverted thinker ( NTJ) seeks out common, objective methodologies, while the introverted thinker ( NTP) finds it easier to become comfortable with a more subjective, philosophical approach. You might then expect an INTJ to learn and hold to rules that seem to have authority or at least some critical…
You do realize the Meyer-Briggs typology has been abandoned in favor of more meaningful tests? At this point it's basically a scientific-ish version of astrology.
Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#48Who told them that we have any kind of "parallel threads of consciousness" to run "chekers" for these "rational heuristics" or "pattern matchers" on an input stream? Another variety of "multitasking" nonsense. On paper it is all logical and "rational". Now try to run this in your mind in so-called state of "flow". Don't have a flow? That means you don't have your attention focused. All the classic attention experimen…
Certainly all of this would be completely impractical if it required a "parallel thread of consciousness" (where did you get that phrase). Thankfully recognizing situations isn't something that has to take conscious attention. If I'm walking down the street and someone I pass is wearing a gorilla costume that fact will be promoted to my conscious attention by other parts of my brain without me having to consciously think to myself "is this a gorilla" whenever I see someone. The idea here is to train yourself to notice when, say, you're confused the same way you'd notice a gorilla costume and only then deal with the issue consciously.
Of course automatic recognition isn't perfect as the video you're referring to shows. But recognizing something most of the time is far superior to never recognizing it.
And I think a better model for the human brain is a hard core with a single thread embedded in a much larger FPGA fabric that can issue it interrupts. Only a tiny fraction of the sense data that enters our brain actually impinged on our conscious awareness and the directives that our consciousness issues such as "pick up that cup" are multiplied hugely in complexity as they are translated into precisely calibrated exertion rates for dozens of separate muscles over time.
Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know whether this counts as highly rational, highly contrarian, or just annoying. I am confidant that any attempt to rule out the third possibility will fail.
> > I don't know whether this counts as highly rational, highly contrarian, or just annoying. > I am confidant that any attempt to rule out the third possibility will fail. To be sure, as the highly rational being that I am :-), I recognise that it is annoying; my question is whether it is just annoying, i.e., without any corresponding benefit.
If being contrarian interferes with your real goals, it isn't rational. As a reality check, I will happily fire someone who cannot control it after having been given sufficient support to redirect it. They waste so much time.
I find De Bono's six thinking hats as a nice way to view how best to work rationally in a team. Contrarians only have one hat and miss the other five.
The problems I have seen include:
dominating discussion (a contrarian has something to argue in every situation, sometimes you need to cover some ground in broad strokes to get some feel of whats involved but a contrarian latches on the first point of uncertainty),
off-topic (to stray from the high priority issue to argue in depth some low priority secondary issue),
arguing from ignorance (they see argument as 'their way of learning' but in a group situation its very selfish, they should take effort to become better informed offline)
negativity (its unrelentingly depressing and critical - picking holes and killing any newborn idea that might need some nurturing before looking at more critically otherwise you can give up on it too soon)
personality clashes (there will be inevitable issues of butting heads with different personality types who feel criticism personally or consider arguments as fights or need negatives presented in a status aware manner etc.)
Something that might concern you is that reflexive contrarians are very predictable and hence exploitable. The manipulator can basically dangle a designed target in front of them and the contrarian will say whatever is wanted. Reflex is not going to be rational at a high level because the frame its operates in is too narrow and shallow.
Re: Checklist of Rationality Habits
#50Who told them that we have any kind of "parallel threads of consciousness" to run "chekers" for these "rational heuristics" or "pattern matchers" on an input stream? Another variety of "multitasking" nonsense. On paper it is all logical and "rational". Now try to run this in your mind in so-called state of "flow". Don't have a flow? That means you don't have your attention focused. All the classic attention experimen…
Certainly all of this would be completely impractical if it required a "parallel thread of consciousness" (where did you get that phrase). Thankfully recognizing situations isn't something that has to take conscious attention. If I'm walking down the street and someone I pass is wearing a gorilla costume that fact will be promoted to my conscious attention by other parts of my brain without me having to consciously t…
> Thankfully recognizing situations isn't something that has to take conscious attention.
Should I explain how all these rush or "pressure" based sales techniques work and how they are trying exploit and manipulate "too narrow window of attention" of a customer?