If all you have is a gut feeling of uncertainty, then you should probably stick with those algorithms that make use of gut feelings of uncertainty, because your built-in algorithms may do better than your clumsy attempts to put things into words.
I would like to add something to this. Your gut feeling is of course the sum of experience you have had in this life plus your evolutionary heritage. This may not be verbalized because your gut feeling (as an example) also includes single neurons firing which don’t necessarily contribute to the stability of a concept in your mind.
But I warn against then simply following one’s gut feeling; of course, if you have to decide immediately (in an emergency), there is no alternative. Do it! You can’t get better than the sum of your experience in that moment.
But usually only having a gut feeling and not being able to verbalize should mean one thing for you:
Go out and gather more information! (Read books to stabilize or create concepts in your mind; do experiments; etc etc)
You will find that gut feelings can change quite dramatically after reading a good book on a subject. So why should you trust them if you have the time to do something about them, viz. transfer them into the symbol space of your mind so the concepts are available for higher-order reasoning?
I’d like to add though, that the original phrase was “algorithms that make use of gut feelings… ”. This isn’t the same as saying “a policy of always submitting to your gut feelings”.
I’m picturing a decision tree here: something that tells you how to behave when your gut feeling is “I’m utterly convinced” {Act on the feeling immediately}, vs how you might act if you had feelings of “vague unease” {continue cautiously, delay taking any steps that constitute a major commitment, while you try to identify the source of the unease}. Your algorithm might also involve assessing the reliability of your gut feeling; experience and reason might allow you to know that your gut is very reliable in certain matters, and much less reliable in others.
The details of the algorithm are up for debate of course. For the purposes of this discussion, i place no importance on the details of the algorithm i described. The point is just that these procedures are helpful for rational thinking, they aren’t numerical procedures, and a numerical procedure wouldn’t automatically be better just because it’s numerical.
If all you have is a gut feeling of uncertainty, then you should probably stick with those algorithms that make use of gut feelings of uncertainty, because your built-in algorithms may do better than your clumsy attempts to put things into words.
I would like to add something to this. Your gut feeling is of course the sum of experience you have had in this life plus your evolutionary heritage. This may not be verbalized because your gut feeling (as an example) also includes single neurons firing which don’t necessarily contribute to the stability of a concept in your mind.
But I warn against then simply following one’s gut feeling; of course, if you have to decide immediately (in an emergency), there is no alternative. Do it! You can’t get better than the sum of your experience in that moment.
But usually only having a gut feeling and not being able to verbalize should mean one thing for you: Go out and gather more information! (Read books to stabilize or create concepts in your mind; do experiments; etc etc)
You will find that gut feelings can change quite dramatically after reading a good book on a subject. So why should you trust them if you have the time to do something about them, viz. transfer them into the symbol space of your mind so the concepts are available for higher-order reasoning?
This is excellent advice.
I’d like to add though, that the original phrase was “algorithms that make use of gut feelings… ”. This isn’t the same as saying “a policy of always submitting to your gut feelings”.
I’m picturing a decision tree here: something that tells you how to behave when your gut feeling is “I’m utterly convinced” {Act on the feeling immediately}, vs how you might act if you had feelings of “vague unease” {continue cautiously, delay taking any steps that constitute a major commitment, while you try to identify the source of the unease}. Your algorithm might also involve assessing the reliability of your gut feeling; experience and reason might allow you to know that your gut is very reliable in certain matters, and much less reliable in others.
The details of the algorithm are up for debate of course. For the purposes of this discussion, i place no importance on the details of the algorithm i described. The point is just that these procedures are helpful for rational thinking, they aren’t numerical procedures, and a numerical procedure wouldn’t automatically be better just because it’s numerical.