While this is certainly a nasty pitfall of rationalization, it is necessary to rehearse the evidence from time to time, for those of us without perfect memories. Otherwise, we end up in the situation “I know there was a good reason I believed this but I don’t remember what it was”; this occurs to me far too often. Retracing all of the evidence that led to a particular belief is terribly time-consuming and impractical (“I know this was in a neuroscience book I read three years ago...”). Forgetting why you hold a particular belief is almost as bad as having no reason at all, and every rationalist should naturally strive to avoid this. Of course, the time to rehearse why you hold a particular belief is not when being confronted with opposing arguments.
As noted above, rehearsing all the evidence against your position alongside your own should be a counter. As in the article’s example, the math should not be “1 vs 3 every time”, but it should not be “1 vs 3 the first time, 1 vs 0 the second and subsequent times” either. It should be “1 vs 3, then 2 vs 3, then...”
In actual debate practice, it might confuse the other person that you’re listing their points for them, but I’ve found it a helpful practice anyway.
An alternative to rehearsing is retesting. Not always practical, but sometimes practical. Retesting can go much quicker than the initial discovery, because often it is much easier to (re-)verify a solution than it is to come up with it. (this has an obvious surface relationship to the P versus NP problem)
While this is certainly a nasty pitfall of rationalization, it is necessary to rehearse the evidence from time to time, for those of us without perfect memories. Otherwise, we end up in the situation “I know there was a good reason I believed this but I don’t remember what it was”; this occurs to me far too often. Retracing all of the evidence that led to a particular belief is terribly time-consuming and impractical (“I know this was in a neuroscience book I read three years ago...”). Forgetting why you hold a particular belief is almost as bad as having no reason at all, and every rationalist should naturally strive to avoid this.
Of course, the time to rehearse why you hold a particular belief is not when being confronted with opposing arguments.
As noted above, rehearsing all the evidence against your position alongside your own should be a counter. As in the article’s example, the math should not be “1 vs 3 every time”, but it should not be “1 vs 3 the first time, 1 vs 0 the second and subsequent times” either. It should be “1 vs 3, then 2 vs 3, then...”
In actual debate practice, it might confuse the other person that you’re listing their points for them, but I’ve found it a helpful practice anyway.
Upvoted because of this line.
An alternative to rehearsing is retesting. Not always practical, but sometimes practical. Retesting can go much quicker than the initial discovery, because often it is much easier to (re-)verify a solution than it is to come up with it. (this has an obvious surface relationship to the P versus NP problem)