Guide to cognitive biases • Hacker News Board

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#51

Post by lhorie » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

bradrn wrote: post #26

Uehreka wrote: post #18

When I see someone on Facebook/Twitter link to a site like this to demonstrate that the person they’re arguing with is “doing a fallacy”, I just accuse them of Appeal To Authority. I feel like these kinds of sites are often just used to shut someone down by saying that they’re doing something wrong, without actually going through the work of following through with why the “fallacy” makes their argument weak. Also, in…

Well, if you really want to go this route, you can beat them at their own game and accuse them of Arguing From Fallacy. (A nice illustration: https://theupturnedmicroscope.com/comic/logical-fallacies-ar... ) That being said, I do think it’s important to avoid fallacious reasoning — it helps in making arguments clearer. As mentioned above, just because someone uses a fallacy doesn’t mean their conclusion is wrong, but…

> accuse them of Arguing From Fallacy

But then, you're just doing an ad hominem...

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#52

Post by acituan » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

glial wrote: post #37

wombatmobile wrote: post #3

Why are there so many of these cognitive biases? Can we infer they persist widely because they confer some benefit?

This is an active area of research in the cognitive science world. First, 'bias' is defined with respect to an ideal rational actor with perfect information and infinite computing power. The reasons for this are mostly historical (rational animal, Homo economicus, etc), but it also serves as a useful baseline 'ideal observer' model to compare human behavior against. In the 1950s, Herbert Simon coined the term 'bounde…

> a cognitive bias is a way that a solution to unconstrained optimization differs from a solution to a corresponding constrained optimization problem

That is a narrow and incorrect definition IMHO. Two resource constrained solutions can also differ wildly in their rationality (or reality approximation if you will) and there is no resource unconstrained general intelligence in the universe so we wouldn’t even really know what that normativity looks like.

Biases are more of a classification of errors specific to our cognitive machinery; framing errors, recall errors, precision errors, proportionality errors, inference errors etc wrt the best we could have done with it.

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#53

Post by acituan » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #4

Is there somewhere a guide for preventing and/or overcoming these cognitive biases?

Practice cognitive behavioral therapy and specifically their cognitive distortions, eg fill in a “daily mood log” form (look it up). Reading about distortions propositionally is not going to get you better, you have to train yourself finding them in the context of your life. Turns out most of the time we are bummed there is a high chance of these biases being in play.

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#54

Post by AlbertCory » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

disease wrote: post #46

throwaway98797 wrote: post #17

What’s the use of this really? Many of these are used as ammunition for arguments vs. clarifing reasoning.

Pardon my cynicism, but you could use these as a guide for drawing money from people that are predisposed towards having many strong cognitive biases. There seems to be a near limitless number of people with money suffering from extreme social isolation in addition to narcissistic personality disorder. These people have little interest in reality and will happily give you their money if you play into these biases.

Bingo. These (the authors) are people with no ideas of their own, but they still need funding. So they "classify" other people's ideas and make some nice graphics.

Read "Thinking Fast and Slow" (which, to their credit, they do list as a resource) and skip the rest of their grant seeking.

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#55

Post by scns » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #19

calny wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow persuasive on this question. I don’t have a psych or neuro degree, but Crudely speaking and possibly butchering it: the mind reflects two types of thinking, which Kahneman terms System 1 (fast) and System 2 (slow). System 1 is closer to instinct and helps us respond quickly in, for example, fight or flight situations. System 2 requires significant mental effort to more…

Fair enough. I’ve read Kahnemann’s book, and hadn’t considered how to integrate it with TFA. The sheer number of cognitive biases presented in TFA, and the overlap of the categorisations had me bamboozled. But yeah, if these are System 1 staples then I can imagine how they might have made do for regular people for a long time. Some biases and prejudices affirm survival in a less civilised setting eg prehistoric tribe…

Check out this one on a large screen: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Cognitiv...

While still bamboozling, it brings some order and visual overview (in a beatiful way IMO), plus links for further study.

All credit for posting it belongs to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28168269

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#56

Post by _ktx2 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

projektfu wrote: post #42

magila wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME cognitive bias has become a popular talking point among the left which is used to dismiss those who disagree with them. I.e. if you don't buy into identity politics and other "woke" views it's because you are succumbing to cognitive biases.

That’s funny. I consider myself “left” but find these dismissive charges of bias deployed a lot by libertarian debaters.

Libertarians might too, the two aren't mutually exclusive. I also don't think it's something to get defensive about. I'm left and I've certainly seen the behavior that the poster mentioned. That said, what I'd say to both of you (that I've learned as well) is that the left and the right are not monolithic groups and are highly fragmented in various ways. This can lead to the obvious misunderstanding the other side for the words and attitudes of a few and judging your own group (thinking highly or negatively) for your own perceived bedfellows rather than your actual bedfellows.

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#57

Post by lhorie » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

throwaway98797 wrote: post #17

What’s the use of this really? Many of these are used as ammunition for arguments vs. clarifing reasoning.

Knowing about them is supposed to be an introspection tool to help you make better arguments/philosophies. For example, I've seen some ex-christians who decided to turn atheists by learning more about cognitive biases, and then realizing that some of their former religious arguments were circular reasoning or appeal to authority or whatever.

There is a bit of a dunning-kruger effect to be sure: accusing other of cognitive biases that one just stumbled into on wikipedia is itself going off-topic. It takes a bit more effort to actually internalize it.

On a semi-related topic, I find it a bit weird the way people think about "winning an argument". People usually prize being "right", but if you think about it from a strictly selfish perspective, you don't really gain anything from that outcome, whereas learning seems like a better outcome.

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#58

Post by throwaway98797 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #57

throwaway98797 wrote: post #17

What’s the use of this really? Many of these are used as ammunition for arguments vs. clarifing reasoning.

Knowing about them is supposed to be an introspection tool to help you make better arguments/philosophies. For example, I've seen some ex-christians who decided to turn atheists by learning more about cognitive biases, and then realizing that some of their former religious arguments were circular reasoning or appeal to authority or whatever. There is a bit of a dunning-kruger effect to be sure: accusing other of cogn…

I’ve become disillusioned with knowledge in general.

A lot of what i know turns out to be wrong or disproven. I do just as well acting emotionally and impulsively as i do when i think logically.

Not to mention following what everyone is doing is fine most of the time. Starting to feel that knowledge is a trap. Only way out is to not play.

Only exception is for basic math/physica that I can grok.

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#59

Post by mistermann » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

bradrn wrote: post #26

Uehreka wrote: post #18

When I see someone on Facebook/Twitter link to a site like this to demonstrate that the person they’re arguing with is “doing a fallacy”, I just accuse them of Appeal To Authority. I feel like these kinds of sites are often just used to shut someone down by saying that they’re doing something wrong, without actually going through the work of following through with why the “fallacy” makes their argument weak. Also, in…

Well, if you really want to go this route, you can beat them at their own game and accuse them of Arguing From Fallacy. (A nice illustration: https://theupturnedmicroscope.com/comic/logical-fallacies-ar... ) That being said, I do think it’s important to avoid fallacious reasoning — it helps in making arguments clearer. As mentioned above, just because someone uses a fallacy doesn’t mean their conclusion is wrong, but…

> just because someone uses a fallacy doesn’t mean their conclusion is wrong, but it does mean that you can prove their argument wrong.

One way this can go wrong is if the two people are thinking at different levels of abstraction or dimensionality (variables), especially when one or both participants don't understand what that means (which seems to be "most" people in the general public).

Re: Guide to cognitive biases

#60

Post by mistermann » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #57

throwaway98797 wrote: post #17

What’s the use of this really? Many of these are used as ammunition for arguments vs. clarifing reasoning.

Knowing about them is supposed to be an introspection tool to help you make better arguments/philosophies. For example, I've seen some ex-christians who decided to turn atheists by learning more about cognitive biases, and then realizing that some of their former religious arguments were circular reasoning or appeal to authority or whatever. There is a bit of a dunning-kruger effect to be sure: accusing other of cogn…

> For example, I've seen some ex-christians who decided to turn atheists by learning more about cognitive biases, and then realizing that some of their former religious arguments were circular reasoning or appeal to authority or whatever.

Similarly, there are some people (a much smaller number I would expect) that have moved from atheism to "spirituality", for the same reasons.