Curated. This post feels to me like a kind of a survey of the mental skills and properties people do/don’t have for effectiveness, of which I don’t recall any other examples right now, and so is quite interesting. I think it’s both interesting from allowing someone to ask themselves if they’re weak on any of these, but also helpful in modeling others and answering questions of the sort “why don’t people just X?”. For all that we spend a tonne of time interacting with people, people’s internal mental lives are private, and so much like shower habits (I’m told) vary a lot more than externally observable behaviors.
I would like to see the “scope sensitivity” piece fleshed out more. I can see how it applies to eliminating annoyances that take 10 minutes every day and add up, but I don’t think that’s at the heart of rationality. I’d be curious how much mileage someone gets from just reflection on their own mind, and how much that can be done without invoking numeracy.
I’m not Critch, but to speak my own defense of the numeracy/scope sensitivity point:
IMO, one of the hallmarks of a conscious process is that it can take different actions in different circumstances (in a useful fashion), rather than simply doing things the way that process does it (following its own habits, personality, etc.). (“When the facts change, I change my mind [and actions]; what do you do, sir?”)
Numeracy / scope sensitivity is involved in, and maybe required for, the ability to do this deeply (to change actions all the way up to one’s entire life, when moved by a thing worth being moved by there).
Smaller-scale examples of scope sensitivity, such as noticing that a thing is wasting several minutes of your day each day and taking inconvenient, non-default action to fix it, can help build this power.
Curated. This post feels to me like a kind of a survey of the mental skills and properties people do/don’t have for effectiveness, of which I don’t recall any other examples right now, and so is quite interesting. I think it’s both interesting from allowing someone to ask themselves if they’re weak on any of these, but also helpful in modeling others and answering questions of the sort “why don’t people just X?”. For all that we spend a tonne of time interacting with people, people’s internal mental lives are private, and so much like shower habits (I’m told) vary a lot more than externally observable behaviors.
I would like to see the “scope sensitivity” piece fleshed out more. I can see how it applies to eliminating annoyances that take 10 minutes every day and add up, but I don’t think that’s at the heart of rationality. I’d be curious how much mileage someone gets from just reflection on their own mind, and how much that can be done without invoking numeracy.
I’m not Critch, but to speak my own defense of the numeracy/scope sensitivity point:
IMO, one of the hallmarks of a conscious process is that it can take different actions in different circumstances (in a useful fashion), rather than simply doing things the way that process does it (following its own habits, personality, etc.). (“When the facts change, I change my mind [and actions]; what do you do, sir?”)
Numeracy / scope sensitivity is involved in, and maybe required for, the ability to do this deeply (to change actions all the way up to one’s entire life, when moved by a thing worth being moved by there).
Smaller-scale examples of scope sensitivity, such as noticing that a thing is wasting several minutes of your day each day and taking inconvenient, non-default action to fix it, can help build this power.