But I thought heuristics were about experience-based techniques, of the type ‘when X occurs, there’s a pretty good chance that Y happens as well’. The example heuristics do not really follow that pattern.
‘Sign up for cryonics’ does not seem like a heuristic at all—how does it follow from experience? Also, for me to trust them, heuristics have to be supported by facts—either my own experiences or some trusted other party. I’d only use Dale Carnegie lessons after some own experimentation with them—no matter how plausible they sound. There are simply too many untrue ‘heuristics’ not be a bit skeptical—think about phrenology for example.
It’s true that we don’t have any experience telling us we will survive if we sign up for cryonics, so there’s no way to even estimate its chances of success.
We do however have lots of experience making it very clear we are definitely dead if we don’t.
My point was not so much about cryonics perse, but with the fact that most of the example ‘heuristics’ and many of the ones posted, are not heuristics at all—but more like little ‘wisdoms’.
I understand the reasoning of the procryonics. But heuristics are not about reasoning—they are about experience. The interesting point of some heuristics is that we do not not really understand this reasoning—we just see the correlations. But if there is no experience, no correlation, there is no heuristic.
Even the examples that actually have some evidence are problematic. E.g., only by reasoning you can get from ‘people are susceptible to priming’ to ‘Make important decisions in a quiet, featureless room’ (example 1). For a real heuristic, we’d need to see correlation between the quality of decisions and the kind of room they were made in, not some psy paper + reasoning.
This article would could have been better had it started with a clear definition of what it considers a ‘heuristic’ and then proceed from there.
If heuristic is adaptive, it takes a form depending on experience, more optimal than a fixed procedure, sometimes successful, sometimes terribly wrong. Simpler kinds may not be adaptive.
You use a heuristic because it’s useful, and “proof” of usefulness may involve any connection between concepts at all, only extreme cases of such connections constitute direct experience.
Good quality heuristics would indeed be useful.
But I thought heuristics were about experience-based techniques, of the type ‘when X occurs, there’s a pretty good chance that Y happens as well’. The example heuristics do not really follow that pattern.
‘Sign up for cryonics’ does not seem like a heuristic at all—how does it follow from experience? Also, for me to trust them, heuristics have to be supported by facts—either my own experiences or some trusted other party. I’d only use Dale Carnegie lessons after some own experimentation with them—no matter how plausible they sound. There are simply too many untrue ‘heuristics’ not be a bit skeptical—think about phrenology for example.
Now I’ll think about some heuristics...
It’s true that we don’t have any experience telling us we will survive if we sign up for cryonics, so there’s no way to even estimate its chances of success.
We do however have lots of experience making it very clear we are definitely dead if we don’t.
My point was not so much about cryonics perse, but with the fact that most of the example ‘heuristics’ and many of the ones posted, are not heuristics at all—but more like little ‘wisdoms’.
I understand the reasoning of the procryonics. But heuristics are not about reasoning—they are about experience. The interesting point of some heuristics is that we do not not really understand this reasoning—we just see the correlations. But if there is no experience, no correlation, there is no heuristic.
Even the examples that actually have some evidence are problematic. E.g., only by reasoning you can get from ‘people are susceptible to priming’ to ‘Make important decisions in a quiet, featureless room’ (example 1). For a real heuristic, we’d need to see correlation between the quality of decisions and the kind of room they were made in, not some psy paper + reasoning.
This article would could have been better had it started with a clear definition of what it considers a ‘heuristic’ and then proceed from there.
If heuristic is adaptive, it takes a form depending on experience, more optimal than a fixed procedure, sometimes successful, sometimes terribly wrong. Simpler kinds may not be adaptive.
You use a heuristic because it’s useful, and “proof” of usefulness may involve any connection between concepts at all, only extreme cases of such connections constitute direct experience.