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People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

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Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#221

Post by AmericanChopper »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #220
AmericanChopper wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general meaning of the word is belief in any idea that you can’t prove. Belief in scientific knowledge requires no more or no less faith than belief in any religious system.

Yes, I am aware that you can use equivocation fallacies to explain that we can't know anything and all claims are equally likely to be true. I was talking about what a wise person would do, though.

There is no equivocation fallacy here at all. You have also failed to understand anything I’ve said. I’ve made no claims whatsoever about the likelihood of anything being true, not even any claims about the likelihood of anything being false. I’ve only asserted that it is impossible to prove any absolute truth. It seems you have taken this as some sort of insult to the merit of some truth that you must believe. Which I find highly ironic given the topic of this thread is the virtue of intellectual humility.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#222

Post by lhnz »

vishnugupta wrote: post #219
ogn3rd wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an interviewer at one of the FAANG companies I can confirm this is one tactic we use as well. A lot of people are very confident spewing trash for as long as you'll let them.

After they said "I don't know" I'd then encourage (or nudge) them to derive a solution. It gave me a very good insight into their thought process and their ability to apply their knowledge to solve an unseen problem. For instance, students (during campus interview) would at some point reach a dead end while explaining process scheduler. However after encouraged to work it out about 70% ended up with some version of t…

It depends on what you mean by derive a solution. If a candidate doesn't know an algorithm they couldn't be expected to derive it on the spot.

In many cases the popular algorithms were carefully designed by Computer Scientists as part of their research. People don't pass that type of test because of the ability to derive solutions on the spot, they pass based on their skill at rote memorisation and application.

(I absolutely agree that if despite not knowing they show signs of being able to reason their way towards something sensible - robust, likely to be efficient, etc - that is a very good sign.)

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#223

Post by eklavya »

1024core wrote: post #7

There's a saying in some Indian languages, which I'll paraphrase: the tree which bears a lot of fruit is always bent over . In other words, the person (tree) with lots of knowledge (fruit) is humble (bent over).

नमन्ति फलिनो वृक्षाः नमन्ति गुणिनो जनाः |

शुष्क काष्ठस्य मूर्खश्च न नमन्ति कदाचन् ||

Namanti phalino vrukshaah namanti gunino janaah.

Shushka kaashthasya moorkhashchas nsa namanti kadaachan.

Meaning: noble and virtuous persons are always humble and and are always committed to help others and compares them to a tree bowing down with the weight of its fruits. In contrast dull and foolish persons are always rigid and unadjusting like dried wood.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#224

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #221
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am aware that you can use equivocation fallacies to explain that we can't know anything and all claims are equally likely to be true. I was talking about what a wise person would do, though.

There is no equivocation fallacy here at all. You have also failed to understand anything I’ve said. I’ve made no claims whatsoever about the likelihood of anything being true, not even any claims about the likelihood of anything being false. I’ve only asserted that it is impossible to prove any absolute truth. It seems you have taken this as some sort of insult to the merit of some truth that you must believe. Which…

> I’ve only asserted that it is impossible to prove any absolute truth.

No, you have also asserted that there is no way to distinguish different levels of justification for "non-absolute truths", or else your whole argument makes no sense. Which is also exactly what an equivocation fallacy is: Claiming that two things are the same because you can decide to ignore the differences.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#225

Post by hombre_fatal »

te_platt wrote: post #134

A few years ago the guy I was sharing an office with at work was cleaning off his desk and found a stack of resumes. He said they were all from the batch that I was hired from and asked if I wanted to know why I was picked. Very cautiously I said yes. He told me I was the only one who when really pushed during the technical interview said "I don't know". Their initial strategy had been to start easy on some topic and…

We HNers really love these kinds of submissions since we think we're so smart.

The top comment is literally someone bragging about how they once got a job with their superior applause-worthy character of saying "idk".

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#226

Post by hliyan »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #225
te_platt wrote: post #134

A few years ago the guy I was sharing an office with at work was cleaning off his desk and found a stack of resumes. He said they were all from the batch that I was hired from and asked if I wanted to know why I was picked. Very cautiously I said yes. He told me I was the only one who when really pushed during the technical interview said "I don't know". Their initial strategy had been to start easy on some topic and…

We HNers really love these kinds of submissions since we think we're so smart. The top comment is literally someone bragging about how they once got a job with their superior applause-worthy character of saying "idk".

"More intellectual humility was also associated with less “social vigilantism”, defined as seeing other people’s beliefs as inferior."

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#227

Post by AmericanChopper »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #224
AmericanChopper wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no equivocation fallacy here at all. You have also failed to understand anything I’ve said. I’ve made no claims whatsoever about the likelihood of anything being true, not even any claims about the likelihood of anything being false. I’ve only asserted that it is impossible to prove any absolute truth. It seems you have taken this as some sort of insult to the merit of some truth that you must believe. Which…

> I’ve only asserted that it is impossible to prove any absolute truth. No, you have also asserted that there is no way to distinguish different levels of justification for "non-absolute truths", or else your whole argument makes no sense. Which is also exactly what an equivocation fallacy is: Claiming that two things are the same because you can decide to ignore the differences.

I made no such assertion. I’m made no comments that attempted to ignore the differences that exist between different belief systems, nor made any comments that said you couldn’t qualitatively differentiate them. Simply that you can’t use the truth as the basis of that differentiation. All belief systems, whether they’re a belief in science as a source of truth, or a religion as a source of truth, are based on assertions that cannot be proven, and are therefor all equally unprovable. This is a perfectly rational equivalence, and doesn’t present a fallacy on any level. If you were more intellectually humble this might be easier for you to accept, but as it stands, you are no different from anybody else who chooses to reject the limits of their knowledge.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#228

Post by hliyan »

ubershmekel wrote: post #174
mncharity wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago I saw someone doing a community outreach lecture tour, for Next Generation Science Standards. On behalf of NSF I think. She was getting hostile questions, many of the too-broken-to-even-be-wrong variety. Ones where normally I'd just shake my head, perhaps think "nutter", and hope the speaker was able to move on without getting bogged down. She addressed the questions with a grace, and insight, and empathy,…

I learned this lesson from the videos of the Harvard course on justice. The lecturer got explanations that I thought at the time were laughable, but somehow in his response he rephrased them to be reasonable and a great platform to deepen the conversation. It requires a great deal of empathy and intelligence to do that and I try my darndest to read as much sense as possible from any question directed my way. Here's a…

That lecturer was truly amazing. I thought the trolly car thought experiment was something that is not worth much more than a few minutes thought, but he not only proved otherwise, but was patient enough to ask questions and wait for the class to stumble slowly through the arguments.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#230

Post by bitexploder »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #218
bitexploder wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing when I interview people. I don’t know is a sign of confidence to me. It is the right answer in so many situations. Unless you have a reasonable shot at deriving the answer on the spot, it’s what more people should be saying, and not only in interviews.

Agree. Although a better answer is (sometimes) I don't know, but... and some indication of how they might get to the answer.

That’s my usual prompt. How much do you know about the domain, how long will it take you to know.
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