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

Daniel Kahneman has died

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 324 posts

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#111

Post by pigscantfly »

cranium wrote: post #24
mistercow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth noting that many of the results in Thinking, Fast and Slow didn’t hold up to replication. It’s still very much worth reading in its own right, but now implicitly comes bundled with a game I like to call “calibrate yourself on the replication crisis”. Playing is simple: every time the book mentions a surprising result, try to guess whether it replicated. Then search online to see if you got it right.

For what it's worth, Kahnman answered a post that scrutinized the effect of priming: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...

Thanks for sharing this -- I read the book maybe a decade ago and largely discounted it as non-replicable pop-sci; this changed my opinion of Kahneman's perspective and rigor (for the better!)

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#112

Post by derbOac »

zug_zug wrote: post #15
mistercow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth noting that many of the results in Thinking, Fast and Slow didn’t hold up to replication. It’s still very much worth reading in its own right, but now implicitly comes bundled with a game I like to call “calibrate yourself on the replication crisis”. Playing is simple: every time the book mentions a surprising result, try to guess whether it replicated. Then search online to see if you got it right.

Yeah I wouldn't read too much into any single study. But what I would defend vigorously is System1 / System2 distinction as something so clear/fundamental that you can see it constantly once you understand it.

... except the distinction was being made in various forms long before Kahneman, and does get questioned. When you start to poke at it, what's intuitive starts to seem less so.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17456916124606...

(that's a link to a defense of dual process theories, but it makes clear there's increasing criticism of them)

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#113

Post by brightball »

zug_zug wrote: post #6

I'm not one to give an exaggerated eulogy nor rhapsodize about all those "Books with a white cover and a weird picture" -- but I will say I read thinking fast and slow for the first time last year, after decades of resisting, and felt it covered some generally profound ideas that still are relevant as ever and not widely understood. (Though at some point, maybe the 2nd half of the book, drags on and you can skip most…

The Undoing Project is a solid read about his life and work too.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#114

Post by yboris »

arrowsmith wrote: post #72
paulpauper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes wish that more books were like "The Mom Test" - just long enough to say what they need, even if that makes for a short book. most non fiction could be well-summarized as a lengthy blog post

I'd go further: many non-fiction books could be losslessly compressed into a tweet. (Looking at you, The Checklist Manifesto )

Reading a book, say 10 hours, is like a meditation on an idea: you get numerous examples of it and a variety ways of thinking about it.

Our brains learn best when they encounter something often across time (spaced repetition).

Reading a single tweet may summarize the book, but the chances of you recalling the idea in an appropriate situation is much lower than if you had spent hours on it.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#117

Post by yawboakye »

andrelaszlo wrote: post #105
yawboakye wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

psychology isn’t science. it’s a grave mistake to read/interpret it a such. does that mean it’s useless? of course not: some of the findings (and i use findings very loosely) help us adjust our prior probabilities. if we’re right in the end, we were lucky. otherwise we just weren’t.

That's an unexpected position for me. How do you define science? Could it be a science, according to you, or is there something fundamentally non-scientific about it?

it’s fundamentally unscientific at this point. much of our current science lies in the realm of natural law. so far we haven’t found any laws that govern human behavior. what we know, with considerable certainty, is that behavior can be positively influenced. but at the point of action, nothing we know of compels any specific/predictable behavior. until we have found rigid laws of reasons that apply to both the brute and the civilized, any ‘discoveries’ of psychology are reports of someone’s idiosyncrasies, imho.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#118

Post by abirch »

suriyaG wrote: post #28

kahneman was such a fascinating personality. Other than "Thinking fast and slow", I highly recommend "The Undoing Project" by Michael Lewis about Kahneman and Tversky's incredible journey changing the standard economic theory. Some interesting talks with Daniel Kahneman - https://www.edge.org/adversarial-collaboration-daniel-kahnem... - https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-... Kahneman himself…

Don't forget "Noise" it was a great read and great bridge between "Thinking Fast and Slow" with "Nudge"

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#119

Post by EthanHeilman »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #86
mistercow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth noting that many of the results in Thinking, Fast and Slow didn’t hold up to replication. It’s still very much worth reading in its own right, but now implicitly comes bundled with a game I like to call “calibrate yourself on the replication crisis”. Playing is simple: every time the book mentions a surprising result, try to guess whether it replicated. Then search online to see if you got it right.

The general idea is very simple. Tactical vs strategic thinking are two different things and it’s good to be aware of that. I don’t know that that needs to be proven or disproven

19th Century definition of tactics aas being everything that happens within the range of cannons and strategy as everything that happens outside of cannon range, fits well to thinking fast (tactics) and slow (strategy).

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#120

Post by canjobear »

mistercow wrote: post #13
zug_zug wrote: post #6

I'm not one to give an exaggerated eulogy nor rhapsodize about all those "Books with a white cover and a weird picture" -- but I will say I read thinking fast and slow for the first time last year, after decades of resisting, and felt it covered some generally profound ideas that still are relevant as ever and not widely understood. (Though at some point, maybe the 2nd half of the book, drags on and you can skip most…

It’s worth noting that many of the results in Thinking, Fast and Slow didn’t hold up to replication. It’s still very much worth reading in its own right, but now implicitly comes bundled with a game I like to call “calibrate yourself on the replication crisis”. Playing is simple: every time the book mentions a surprising result, try to guess whether it replicated. Then search online to see if you got it right.

“When I describe priming studies to audiences, the reaction is often disbelief . . . The idea you should focus on, however, is that disbelief is not an option. The results are not made up, nor are they statistical flukes. You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true.”
Post reply on HN