If you can have one thought, than another thought, and the link between the two is only 90% correct, not 99.9% correct...
Then, you don’t know how to think.
[...]
You can’t build a computer if each calculation it does is only 90% correct. If you are doing reasoning in sequential steps, each step better be 100% correct, or very, very close to that. Otherwise, after even a 100 reasoning steps (or even 10 steps), the answer you get will be nowhere near the correct answer.
This is a nice thing to think about. I’m sure you’re aware of it, and some of this will overlap with what you say, but here are the strategies that come to mind, which I have noticed myself following and sometimes make a point of following, when I think I need to:
Take multiple different trains of thought—maximizing the degree to which their errors would be independent—and see if they end up in the same place. Error correction with unreliable hardware is a science.
Whenever you generate an “interesting” claim, try to check it against the real world.
Consider claims “interesting” when they would have significant (and likely observable) real-world consequences, and when they seem “surprising” (this sense built via experience).
Have a sense of how confident you are in each step of the chain of reasoning. (Also built via experience.)
Practice certain important kinds of thinking steps to lower your error rate. (I didn’t do this deliberately, but there were logic puzzle books and stuff lying around, which were fun to go through.)
This is a nice thing to think about. I’m sure you’re aware of it, and some of this will overlap with what you say, but here are the strategies that come to mind, which I have noticed myself following and sometimes make a point of following, when I think I need to:
Take multiple different trains of thought—maximizing the degree to which their errors would be independent—and see if they end up in the same place. Error correction with unreliable hardware is a science.
Whenever you generate an “interesting” claim, try to check it against the real world.
Consider claims “interesting” when they would have significant (and likely observable) real-world consequences, and when they seem “surprising” (this sense built via experience).
Have a sense of how confident you are in each step of the chain of reasoning. (Also built via experience.)
Practice certain important kinds of thinking steps to lower your error rate. (I didn’t do this deliberately, but there were logic puzzle books and stuff lying around, which were fun to go through.)