It looks to me that they managed to train people to suck less at dealing with life. That’s not at all the same thing as becoming luckier.
Wiseman’s central argument is that the two are the same- that is, the persistent personal characteristic that people identify as luck (“both Sam and I think I’m lucky, both Sam and I think he’s unlucky”) is a collection of trainable subskills. Or, to look at it another way, “luck is how your approach to the world looks from the inside.”
The word—in its persistent sense—conventionally refers to some kind of vague acausal blessing looming over a person’s life. Given that we can rule that out on reductionist grounds, why not repurpose it within this context to refer to the unconscious habits that contribute to generating the circumstances that people subjectively think of as lucky?
The word—in its persistent sense—conventionally refers to some kind of vague acausal blessing looming over a person’s life.
Well, not to me. Luck for me means a favorable outcome of something over which I had no control. Not that many people consider themselves persistently lucky or unlucky—for most luck varies.
Given that we can rule that out on reductionist grounds
You can rule out what? Given random variables, in hindsight some people will have been lucky and some will have been unlucky.
to refer to the unconscious habits that contribute to generating the circumstances that individuals subjectively think of as lucky?
So which word will you use for winning the lottery, having your vacation end one day before the tsunami hit, or having been born a citizen of the sole remaining superpower?
I actually gave some thought to distinguishing between ‘cosmic luck’ - which would be what your describing—and ‘local luck’, but at the end of the day it didn’t seem worth belaboring the point. Clearly, if a meteorite crashes through your car windshield and kills you, there just isn’t much you can do about that. But given the vast uncertainty each of us faces, it seems reasonable to assume that there are better and worse ways of interacting with it. I would argue that Dr. Wiseman’s work has gone part of the way toward verifying that this is the case. From what I can tell, the traits and habits characterizing both the lucky and unlucky groups were remarkably stable within-group. Seems unlikely to be a coincidence.
Replace all “lucky person” with “winner” and all “unlucky person” with “loser”. As far as I can see, this is much closer to what is meant here. “Lucky” people don’t get better random rolls, they just deal with life better—and “unlucky” people suck at life, that’s all.
So which word will you use for winning the lottery, having your vacation end one day before the tsunami hit, or having been born a citizen of the sole remaining superpower?
I often wonder whether the ability to seek out, improve, and employ subskill training is itself a trainable subskill—and whether it is or not, what’s a good way to improve one’s trainable subskills if one’s ability to seek out, improve, and employ subskill training is compromised?
Ability to teach what you already know to people who are paying attention is certainly a trainable skill.
Ability to learn specific cases within a given field is almost certainly a trainable skill; with the common elements tucked away in long-term memory, there’s more short-term memory available for whatever makes the specific case unusual.
Ability and willingness to pay attention is probably a trainable skill, with other limiting factors.
Fully-generalized ability to learn is… difficult to disentangle from general intelligence. The big gains so far in general intelligence seem to be either genetic, or a matter of removing penalties like malnutrition and lead poisoning. If we had a proven, generalized way to learn how to learn faster, iterating it would pretty much be the Singularity.
Wiseman’s central argument is that the two are the same- that is, the persistent personal characteristic that people identify as luck (“both Sam and I think I’m lucky, both Sam and I think he’s unlucky”) is a collection of trainable subskills. Or, to look at it another way, “luck is how your approach to the world looks from the inside.”
Ah, well, so he redefined the word “lucky” for his particular purposes.
People might identify as luck a “persistent personal characteristic”, but at the same time they identify as luck many other things as well.
The word—in its persistent sense—conventionally refers to some kind of vague acausal blessing looming over a person’s life. Given that we can rule that out on reductionist grounds, why not repurpose it within this context to refer to the unconscious habits that contribute to generating the circumstances that people subjectively think of as lucky?
The outcomes are the same, after all.
Well, not to me. Luck for me means a favorable outcome of something over which I had no control. Not that many people consider themselves persistently lucky or unlucky—for most luck varies.
You can rule out what? Given random variables, in hindsight some people will have been lucky and some will have been unlucky.
So which word will you use for winning the lottery, having your vacation end one day before the tsunami hit, or having been born a citizen of the sole remaining superpower?
I actually gave some thought to distinguishing between ‘cosmic luck’ - which would be what your describing—and ‘local luck’, but at the end of the day it didn’t seem worth belaboring the point. Clearly, if a meteorite crashes through your car windshield and kills you, there just isn’t much you can do about that. But given the vast uncertainty each of us faces, it seems reasonable to assume that there are better and worse ways of interacting with it. I would argue that Dr. Wiseman’s work has gone part of the way toward verifying that this is the case. From what I can tell, the traits and habits characterizing both the lucky and unlucky groups were remarkably stable within-group. Seems unlikely to be a coincidence.
Let me suggest an experiment.
Replace all “lucky person” with “winner” and all “unlucky person” with “loser”. As far as I can see, this is much closer to what is meant here. “Lucky” people don’t get better random rolls, they just deal with life better—and “unlucky” people suck at life, that’s all.
Serendipitous ;)
I often wonder whether the ability to seek out, improve, and employ subskill training is itself a trainable subskill—and whether it is or not, what’s a good way to improve one’s trainable subskills if one’s ability to seek out, improve, and employ subskill training is compromised?
Ability to teach what you already know to people who are paying attention is certainly a trainable skill.
Ability to learn specific cases within a given field is almost certainly a trainable skill; with the common elements tucked away in long-term memory, there’s more short-term memory available for whatever makes the specific case unusual.
Ability and willingness to pay attention is probably a trainable skill, with other limiting factors.
Fully-generalized ability to learn is… difficult to disentangle from general intelligence. The big gains so far in general intelligence seem to be either genetic, or a matter of removing penalties like malnutrition and lead poisoning. If we had a proven, generalized way to learn how to learn faster, iterating it would pretty much be the Singularity.