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Daniel Kahneman has died

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Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#301

Post by TedHerman »

meinersbur wrote: post #280
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…

Kahneman's book was praised a lot, but I found it more questionable than useful. It has its good parts, like elaborating on System 1 and System 2, but my favorite concept was regression to the mean. It might by obvious in some cases, but the book made me realize that it applies nearly everywhere. The bad parts include priming (e.g. the Florida effect) that like others mentioned could not be replicated. He sometimes p…

Some questions along these lines are not so easy. For example, iterated versions that take bankruptcy into account (game over) by using geometric mean instead of arithmetic mean; but that might not always be the optimal strategy [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.68.10.2493].

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#302

Post by furyofantares »

kristianbrigman wrote: post #295
furyofantares wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when you're talking to a real human that wants to hear your thoughts about Linda, it's much, much more likely that this is what they're asking and they didn't word it accurately.

That was the whole point of this particular episode… to highlight that ‘accurately’ involves hidden assumptions that you may or may not share with the listener. And then, try to identify if there is a systemic commonality in those hidden assumptions.

I don't think you're correct. I usually see it presented as evidence that people are modeling probability wrong.

> The conjunction fallacy (also known as the Linda problem) is an inference that a conjoint set of two or more specific conclusions is likelier than any single member of that same set, in violation of the laws of probability.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#303

Post by DrFalkyn »

richrichie wrote: post #193
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…

Does behavioral economics offer an alternative theory with useful predictions? Like, do we have an option pricing model that holds up better than models coming out of standard theory?

Those option pricing models (mostly) work because everyone uses them. Because (almost) everyone is convinced they work.

Convince everyone to use a different model and it will work.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#304

Post by DrFalkyn »

tonymet wrote: post #214
ls612 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Should” matters little in politics and war. What works for power will be done regardless of your morals. This is how the world works.

not all men think like this

Unfortunately it doesn't matter. The choice might be between dying on a hill or joining the party in the valley.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#305

Post by bumby »

adastra22 wrote: post #223
dredmorbius wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a school of thought which holds that economics is a subset of psychology. I'd thought that this was reflected in some university departmental organisation, with M.I.T. being the one that came to mind. Despite there being a behavioural economics section there, though, so far as I'm aware Economics remains its own department. Kahneman's training and primary focus were both in psychology, but he was awarded the…

Psychology is the study of the behavior of singular minds. Economics is the study the behavior of many minds acting independently.

To the multi-disciplinary point above, I think Kahneman's economic work is largely categorized as behavioral economics. That's not divorced from group dynamics, as it tries to understand how social preferences, social utility, and other psychological factors shape strategic decision-making behavior.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#306

Post by BeFlatXIII »

geokon wrote: post #244
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3rd third of the book: ??? I usually give up at this point History of science books thankfully stave off that final third until at least 80%. However, their final chapter or two universally manages to be a letdown. It's either wild optimistic speculation, hype for a theory that's debunked 5 years after publication, or a focus that accidentally happened to predict the course of science post-publication. The story is…

Counter example: The selfish gene The last 20% shifts in tone and goes into speculating on a general framework for genetic selection outside of biological systems. Very speculative, interesting, and birthed the term meme

I haven't read that one, but your description makes it sound to be the exception that proves the rule.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#307

Post by m463 »

brightball wrote: post #113
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.

an interesting michael lewis book.

(lots less controversial than Going Infinite)

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#309

Post by justwool »

blacklion wrote: post #281
bredren wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is exactly the kind of task that I want to deploy a long context window model on: "rewrite Thinking Fast and Slow taking into account the... I want something similar but for children's literature. From Ralph and the Motorcycle to Peter Pan, a lot of stuff doesn't hold up. The books provide plenty of utility. But many things don't hold up to modern thinking. LLMs provide the opportunity to embrace classic conten…

It will not be anything lice classic content anymore. You could not redact piece of art out of "old ideas". It is like re-drawing classics paintings but mask nipples and removing blood. And books which could be redacted this way without falling apart — well, don't read such books at all and don't feed them to the children. Literature for children must not be dumbed down, but exactly as for adults, but better.

Maybe use chatGPT to make this make sense.

Re: Daniel Kahneman has died

#310

Post by bredren »

blacklion wrote: post #281
bredren wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is exactly the kind of task that I want to deploy a long context window model on: "rewrite Thinking Fast and Slow taking into account the... I want something similar but for children's literature. From Ralph and the Motorcycle to Peter Pan, a lot of stuff doesn't hold up. The books provide plenty of utility. But many things don't hold up to modern thinking. LLMs provide the opportunity to embrace classic conten…

It will not be anything lice classic content anymore. You could not redact piece of art out of "old ideas". It is like re-drawing classics paintings but mask nipples and removing blood. And books which could be redacted this way without falling apart — well, don't read such books at all and don't feed them to the children. Literature for children must not be dumbed down, but exactly as for adults, but better.

It isn't redaction but reasonable and artful substitution. It isn't about dumbing down, but removing dumb ideas.
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