On introspection biases: For minor things, I wouldn’t be surprised if I make errors in judging why I do them, because it can take a bit of rigor to do this well. But if something is important, I can use meta-cognition and ask myself a series of questions (carefully worded—this is a skill I have practiced), seeing how I feel after each, to determine why I am doing something. I carefully word them to prevent myself from taking them as suggestions. Instead, I make sure I interpret them as yes or no questions. For instance: “Does class make me feel attracted?” instead of “Should I feel attracted to class?”—it’s an important distinction to make, especially for certain topics like fears. “Am I afraid of spiders because I assume they’re poisonous?” will get a totally different reaction (assuming I am not afraid of them) than “Would I be afraid of spiders if I thought they are all poisonous?”
It takes a little concentration to get it right during introspection.
So we’ll start with class for example. I ask myself “Do I find class attractive?” and I can ask myself things like “Imagine a guy with lots of money asks me out. How do I feel?” and “Imagine a guy who has things in common with me asks me out, how do I feel?” If you ask enough questions for compare and contrast, you can get pretty good answers this way.
To make sure I’m not just having random reactions based on how I want to feel, I come up with real examples from my recent past. In the last year or so, I have been asked out by or dated a lot of different people with varying amounts of income. There were a lot of guys who are making 6 figures—this is because I tend to attract well paid IT guys. I liked some of them but didn’t like all of them. Some of the guys making 6 figures didn’t attract me whatsoever. So income doesn’t make me like a guy all by itself.
I can ask “Does having a high income make me like them more?”
The two top attractions of all time, for me, were to an underpaid writer and a college student.
I can ask “Does availability of men with lots of money have anything to do with it?”
After dating something like five or ten guys who make around 6 figures over the last year and someodd, the one I liked best actually makes a moderate income. There is another guy that does make a large income that I liked quite a bit. But if the fact that guys who make 6 figures are available was going to interfere, it wouldn’t make sense that I’d have liked the guy with a moderate income so much.
So, there are ways to determine what your real motivations are—but it takes skill, and requires more rigor that the quick answers these people are giving in the studies, for sure.
Believing oneself to be an exceptional case was a common failure mode among the subjects of studies summarized in Yvain’s article. When confronted with the experimental results showing how their behavior was influenced in ways unknown to them, they would either deny it outright or admit that it is a very interesting phenomenon that surely affected other people but they happened to be the lone exception to the rule.
That doesn’t really preclude your introspective skills (I actually believe such skills can be developed to an extent) but it should make you suspicious.
Have you done any reading on cognitive restructuring (psychotherapy)? It’s interesting that people on this forum believe this is impossible when a method exists as a type of psychotherapy. Have you guys refuted cognitive restructuring or are you just unaware of it?
I’m aware of cognitive restructuring. Note that I haven’t said that introspection is completely useless or even that the specific type of introspection you describe is totally impossible, just that you are very confident about it and there’s a common pattern of extreme overconfidence.
So we’ll start with class for example. I ask myself “Do I find class attractive?” and I can ask myself things like “Imagine a guy with lots of money asks me out. How do I feel?” and “Imagine a guy who has things in common with me asks me out, how do I feel?” If you ask enough questions for compare and contrast, you can get pretty good answers this way.
This type of hypothetical questioning is notoriously unreliable, people ofter come up with answers that don’t reflect their actual reactions, If you read closely Yvain’s article already gives several examples. It’s also one of the methodologies that my psychology teachers highlighted as sounding good, but being largely unreliable.
To make sure I’m not just having random reactions based on how I want to feel, I come up with real examples from my recent past. In the last year or so, I have been asked out by or dated a lot of different people with varying amounts of income. There were a lot of guys who are making 6 figures—this is because I tend to attract well paid IT guys. I liked some of them but didn’t like all of them. Some of the guys making 6 figures didn’t attract me whatsoever. So income doesn’t make me like a guy all by itself.
This is better, but between the general unreliabilityof memory and the number other factors that would need to be controlled for its still not that great. Particularly since you do feel attracted to men who are more dominate as debaters.
It occurs to me that since this debate is about me and my subjective experiences, there’s really no way for either of us to win. Even if we got a whole bunch of people with different incomes and did an experiment on me to see which ones I was more attracted to, the result of the experiment would be subjective and there would be no way for anyone to know I wasn’t pretending.
I still think that there are ways to know what’s going on inside you with relatively good certainty. Part of the reason I believe this is because I’m able to change myself, meaning that I am able to decide to feel a different way and accomplish that. I don’t mean to say I can decide to experience pleasure instead of pain if I bang my toe, but that I am able to dig around in the belief system behind my feelings, figure out what ideas are in there, improve the ideas, and translate that change over to the emotional part of me so that I react to the new ideas emotionally. If I was wrong about my motivations, this would not work, so the fact that I can do this supports the idea that I’m able to figure out what I’m thinking with a pretty high degree of accuracy. I would like to write an article about how I do this at some point because it’s been a really useful skill for me, and I want to share. But right now I’ve got a lot on my plate. I think it’s best for us to discontinue this debate about whether or not my subjective experiences match my perceptions or your expectations, and if you want to tear apart my writings on how I change myself later, you can.
Your links are bookmarked, so if your purpose was to make sure I was aware of them, I’ve got them. Thanks.
This type of hypothetical questioning is notoriously unreliable
A. If you ask the right questions and juxtapose things so that you’re getting a more well-rounded view it is not the same thing as just asking yourself one question. You can use strategy with it, which is what I was trying to show in my example, but I guess you missed it.
B. I followed it up with “to make sure I’m not having random reactions”. You are seeming to argue against a piece of a technique as if it was the whole thing. That’s not getting anywhere.
Particularly since you do feel attracted to men who are more dominate as debaters.
No, that is your perception of what I said. I did not say “I want someone who can defeat everyone else in debate.” I said “I want someone who can defeat ME in debate.”
Do you see now how you took what I said and applied a pattern to it? I am getting tired of trying to show you this.
A. I didn’t miss it the problem is that the questions don’t give you accurate information to begin with.
B. No I’m pointing out that part of the technique adds little to nothing and that the remainder, while not as flawed, isn’t enough for the level of confidence you seem to exhibit.
I have a lot more I could say on this but won’t.
No, that is your perception of what I said. I did not say “I want someone who can defeat everyone else in debate.” I said “I want someone who can defeat ME in debate.”
Do you see now how you took what I said and applied a pattern to it? I am getting tired of trying to show you this.
These are also serious misunderstandings of my points, but that brings me around to my final conclusion.
I may be misunderstanding you ( I’m almost certain you’ve been misunderstand me), which makes me feel even more confident when I say that I see no benefit in engaging you further, at least on this topic . Since you raised points A&B before this notification I decided to post the short version of my reply to them anyways, but I was already doubting the wisdom of bothering with this post’s grandparent. Your subsequent posts, here and in other threads have made up my mind.
edit-your parallel post has reduced my disinfest in talking to you generally, but still leaves me thinking that this particular conversation is a dead end.
These are also serious misunderstandings of my points
Hmm. Perhaps I will understand the nature of these misunderstandings at some point in the future.
I may be misunderstanding you
This is common for me, unfortunately. I’m not sure what to do about it, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
your parallel post has reduced my disinfest in talking to you generally
Okay. Well thanks for not deeming me useless to talk to.
I have bookmarked the list of biases you gave me. On first glance it looks like I’m familiar with these but I will review them further at some point to see if I am unaware of or have forgotten any. Here is a link for you, too: cognitive restructuring—it’s a psychotherapy technique very much like what we’ve been discussing. I hope I have opened your mind a little bit to the possibility that a person (perhaps you) might be able to gain access to their inner thoughts and feelings and re-write themselves. I believe there is also a method that helps one get closer to enlightenment which is taught by Buddhists, but I can’t remember what that’s called. I do not feel our discussion a complete waste of time, but, as I mentioned, I agree that continuing to disagree would not be useful.
On introspection biases: For minor things, I wouldn’t be surprised if I make errors in judging why I do them, because it can take a bit of rigor to do this well. But if something is important, I can use meta-cognition and ask myself a series of questions (carefully worded—this is a skill I have practiced), seeing how I feel after each, to determine why I am doing something. I carefully word them to prevent myself from taking them as suggestions. Instead, I make sure I interpret them as yes or no questions. For instance: “Does class make me feel attracted?” instead of “Should I feel attracted to class?”—it’s an important distinction to make, especially for certain topics like fears. “Am I afraid of spiders because I assume they’re poisonous?” will get a totally different reaction (assuming I am not afraid of them) than “Would I be afraid of spiders if I thought they are all poisonous?”
It takes a little concentration to get it right during introspection.
So we’ll start with class for example. I ask myself “Do I find class attractive?” and I can ask myself things like “Imagine a guy with lots of money asks me out. How do I feel?” and “Imagine a guy who has things in common with me asks me out, how do I feel?” If you ask enough questions for compare and contrast, you can get pretty good answers this way.
To make sure I’m not just having random reactions based on how I want to feel, I come up with real examples from my recent past. In the last year or so, I have been asked out by or dated a lot of different people with varying amounts of income. There were a lot of guys who are making 6 figures—this is because I tend to attract well paid IT guys. I liked some of them but didn’t like all of them. Some of the guys making 6 figures didn’t attract me whatsoever. So income doesn’t make me like a guy all by itself.
I can ask “Does having a high income make me like them more?”
The two top attractions of all time, for me, were to an underpaid writer and a college student.
I can ask “Does availability of men with lots of money have anything to do with it?”
After dating something like five or ten guys who make around 6 figures over the last year and someodd, the one I liked best actually makes a moderate income. There is another guy that does make a large income that I liked quite a bit. But if the fact that guys who make 6 figures are available was going to interfere, it wouldn’t make sense that I’d have liked the guy with a moderate income so much.
So, there are ways to determine what your real motivations are—but it takes skill, and requires more rigor that the quick answers these people are giving in the studies, for sure.
Believing oneself to be an exceptional case was a common failure mode among the subjects of studies summarized in Yvain’s article. When confronted with the experimental results showing how their behavior was influenced in ways unknown to them, they would either deny it outright or admit that it is a very interesting phenomenon that surely affected other people but they happened to be the lone exception to the rule.
That doesn’t really preclude your introspective skills (I actually believe such skills can be developed to an extent) but it should make you suspicious.
Have you done any reading on cognitive restructuring (psychotherapy)? It’s interesting that people on this forum believe this is impossible when a method exists as a type of psychotherapy. Have you guys refuted cognitive restructuring or are you just unaware of it?
I’m aware of cognitive restructuring. Note that I haven’t said that introspection is completely useless or even that the specific type of introspection you describe is totally impossible, just that you are very confident about it and there’s a common pattern of extreme overconfidence.
This type of hypothetical questioning is notoriously unreliable, people ofter come up with answers that don’t reflect their actual reactions, If you read closely Yvain’s article already gives several examples. It’s also one of the methodologies that my psychology teachers highlighted as sounding good, but being largely unreliable.
This is better, but between the general unreliability of memory and the number other factors that would need to be controlled for its still not that great. Particularly since you do feel attracted to men who are more dominate as debaters.
It occurs to me that since this debate is about me and my subjective experiences, there’s really no way for either of us to win. Even if we got a whole bunch of people with different incomes and did an experiment on me to see which ones I was more attracted to, the result of the experiment would be subjective and there would be no way for anyone to know I wasn’t pretending.
I still think that there are ways to know what’s going on inside you with relatively good certainty. Part of the reason I believe this is because I’m able to change myself, meaning that I am able to decide to feel a different way and accomplish that. I don’t mean to say I can decide to experience pleasure instead of pain if I bang my toe, but that I am able to dig around in the belief system behind my feelings, figure out what ideas are in there, improve the ideas, and translate that change over to the emotional part of me so that I react to the new ideas emotionally. If I was wrong about my motivations, this would not work, so the fact that I can do this supports the idea that I’m able to figure out what I’m thinking with a pretty high degree of accuracy. I would like to write an article about how I do this at some point because it’s been a really useful skill for me, and I want to share. But right now I’ve got a lot on my plate. I think it’s best for us to discontinue this debate about whether or not my subjective experiences match my perceptions or your expectations, and if you want to tear apart my writings on how I change myself later, you can.
Your links are bookmarked, so if your purpose was to make sure I was aware of them, I’ve got them. Thanks.
Thanks for those links by the way, they are interesting.
A. If you ask the right questions and juxtapose things so that you’re getting a more well-rounded view it is not the same thing as just asking yourself one question. You can use strategy with it, which is what I was trying to show in my example, but I guess you missed it.
B. I followed it up with “to make sure I’m not having random reactions”. You are seeming to argue against a piece of a technique as if it was the whole thing. That’s not getting anywhere.
No, that is your perception of what I said. I did not say “I want someone who can defeat everyone else in debate.” I said “I want someone who can defeat ME in debate.”
Do you see now how you took what I said and applied a pattern to it? I am getting tired of trying to show you this.
A. I didn’t miss it the problem is that the questions don’t give you accurate information to begin with. B. No I’m pointing out that part of the technique adds little to nothing and that the remainder, while not as flawed, isn’t enough for the level of confidence you seem to exhibit. I have a lot more I could say on this but won’t.
These are also serious misunderstandings of my points, but that brings me around to my final conclusion. I may be misunderstanding you ( I’m almost certain you’ve been misunderstand me), which makes me feel even more confident when I say that I see no benefit in engaging you further, at least on this topic . Since you raised points A&B before this notification I decided to post the short version of my reply to them anyways, but I was already doubting the wisdom of bothering with this post’s grandparent. Your subsequent posts, here and in other threads have made up my mind. edit-your parallel post has reduced my disinfest in talking to you generally, but still leaves me thinking that this particular conversation is a dead end.
Hmm. Perhaps I will understand the nature of these misunderstandings at some point in the future.
This is common for me, unfortunately. I’m not sure what to do about it, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
Okay. Well thanks for not deeming me useless to talk to.
I have bookmarked the list of biases you gave me. On first glance it looks like I’m familiar with these but I will review them further at some point to see if I am unaware of or have forgotten any. Here is a link for you, too: cognitive restructuring—it’s a psychotherapy technique very much like what we’ve been discussing. I hope I have opened your mind a little bit to the possibility that a person (perhaps you) might be able to gain access to their inner thoughts and feelings and re-write themselves. I believe there is also a method that helps one get closer to enlightenment which is taught by Buddhists, but I can’t remember what that’s called. I do not feel our discussion a complete waste of time, but, as I mentioned, I agree that continuing to disagree would not be useful.