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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

#261

Post by hathawsh »

adverbly wrote: post #256
hathawsh wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add some important evaluations. These are some less obvious, deeper aspects of intellectual humility: 10) I accept that someone with less experience may have better ideas than I have, even in my own field of expertise. 11) Even if I am not certain of myself, I am willing to suggest and defend my ideas because they deserve equal treatment. 12) I am willing to forgo new ideas when they hurt momentum too much. 1…

Care to explain the difference between 12 and 13?

12 is about recognizing when you're changing too quickly, 13 is about recognizing when you're changing too slowly. A lack of intellectual humility can impede you either way.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#262

Post by xsmasher »

yters wrote: post #74
pseudolus wrote: post #12

It's a finding more pithily stated by the poet W.B. Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity" - The Second Coming (poem).

Is Yeats saying lack of conviction is a good thing? Or commenting on the fact that the wrong people have conviction?

I have always read that as "The good people are paralyzed by doubt (right now)" - a bad thing for them and for us. The context is a list of ways the world is falling apart.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#263

Post by hinkley »

crispyambulance wrote: post #159
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…

It's really interesting to get a retrospective, once you get to know your co-workers/managers, on what they were thinking when hiring you. It is DEFINITELY NOT what you might expect! I was once was hired as a "career-changer" because I had worked in one of my early jobs as a science museum staff-member doing demonstrations for school groups. For some reason, the hiring manager thought that was indicative of communica…

Maybe not formative but selective.

If you lasted at that job it meant you already had those attributes.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#264

Post by dang »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #260
dang wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any comment of the form, "Yes, I am aware that you can do stupid thing X, but I was talking about intelligent thing Y" is rude and a flame.

... when "stupid thing X" is making an argument that doesn't address the problem, and "you can do stupid thing X" is actually an explanation of what the problem with that argument is, and it's also not calling anyone names, but just calling out fallacious reasoning as what it is: Fallacious reasoning? Fallacious reasoning might well be correlated with stupidity, but that doesn't make pointing out fallacious reasoning…

I'm afraid I'm not really following this. In a way it doesn't matter, though, because even if I missed some subtlety in perceiving your comment as rude, I can guarantee you that most readers would miss that subtlety as well. Since there are plenty of ways to make your substantive points, why not just choose ones that don't straddle that line?

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#265

Post by icebraining »

notduncansmith wrote: post #213
nemonemo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think curiosity implies intellectual humility but the converse is not necessarily true.

I think intellectual humility without curiosity is a form (or symptom) of depression.

Why do you think so? I've met plenty of people who lead a simple life and are fine with knowing they don't know much, especially in more traditional communities, where superfluous knowledge isn't valued.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#266

Post by somatic »

Sharlin wrote: post #88
Isamu wrote: post #28

A questionnaire from the article: 1) I am willing to admit if I don't know something. 2) I like to compliment others on their intellectual strengths. 3) I try to reflect on my weaknesses in order to develop my intelligence. 4) I actively seek feedback on my ideas, even if it is critical. 5) I acknowledge when someone knows more than me about a certain subject. 6) If someone doesn't understand my idea, it's probably b…

> Also (3) I don't get, because while I am extremely motivated by intellectual curiosity, I have maybe zero motivation to "develop my intelligence" like it was some kind of fitness thing. Given the amount of cognitive bias each of us has, I'd say an important part of intellectual curiosity is making effort to learn to think better. I mean, a flat-Earther 9/11-truther astrologer could still claim to be primarily motiv…

The flat-Earther 9/11-truther astrologer probably really is primarily motivated by "intellectual curiosity", he probably just has poor priors. Which is to say, he's seeing that world as he's seeing it, it's just that something in his lower intellectual foundation is rotten.

The interesting question is whether that specific bit of rotten reasoning is still accessible to alteration after one has passed through that specific phase of neuroplasticity.

Re: People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge

#267

Post by AmericanChopper »

dang wrote: post #254
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…

Please don't cross into rudeness in HN threads. Also, please do religious flamewar somewhere else, not here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I’ll take your feedback on rudeness, but I never made any posts promoting or deriding any particular religion, or religion in general.
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