How can you identify when you are “stuck”, and when going meta has greater marginal utility than continuing on your current level of thought?
One way I’ve done this is via the meta-level skill of recognizing a familiar pattern in the structure of my thoughts about a problem. This familiar pattern can be addressed with my existing meta-skills (which is one reason I remember it), and so I just apply them. This is what I think Eliezer means by “routine meta-thinking”.
It’s harder to identify when one should engage in original meta-level thinking. If you try to use the outside view, and recognize thinking patterns that can be treated on the meta-level, you most likely end up doing what I described above. If you can recognize a thinking pattern it means you’ve seen it (at least) a few times before, and probably know how to deal with it.
One could also approach this decision using a coarser outside view. You could ask yourself:
Generally, how much more productive am I when I go meta? How about when I go meta more than once?
Does going meta tend to be productive in this large class of problems? (i.e. in household problems, or in math problems)
An simple heuristic to use is to go meta periodically, with longer periods between higher meta-level thinking modes.
In this comment nickerst mentions using this heuristic in structured planning:
In my calendar, the habit I’ve written in is a bit of planning or “meta” time. Twice a week, I plan out a full week. By re-evaluating the course of action half-way through, I’m hoping it should be easier to track where I go off-track.
Once a month, this planning time must include meta-planning. During this time, the idea is to review that my planning method is the most effective. This is the time for reviewing the past month’s calendar, and also for reading any books on planning.
One way I’ve done this is via the meta-level skill of recognizing a familiar pattern in the structure of my thoughts about a problem. This familiar pattern can be addressed with my existing meta-skills (which is one reason I remember it), and so I just apply them. This is what I think Eliezer means by “routine meta-thinking”.
It’s harder to identify when one should engage in original meta-level thinking. If you try to use the outside view, and recognize thinking patterns that can be treated on the meta-level, you most likely end up doing what I described above. If you can recognize a thinking pattern it means you’ve seen it (at least) a few times before, and probably know how to deal with it.
One could also approach this decision using a coarser outside view. You could ask yourself:
Generally, how much more productive am I when I go meta? How about when I go meta more than once?
Does going meta tend to be productive in this large class of problems? (i.e. in household problems, or in math problems)
An simple heuristic to use is to go meta periodically, with longer periods between higher meta-level thinking modes.
In this comment nickerst mentions using this heuristic in structured planning: