This is a great and very precise elaboration of lightness and how to deal with evidence and I think the idea to start gullible is very practical advice—esp. for aspiring rationalists. I do think that it needs some kind of disclaimer, some limitiation or sanity check to avoid going into some affective death spiral around some convincing looking but actually self sealing mind trap.
For me I can very much relate to your exposition. Apparently I’m also kind of advanced gullible. I’m told that I accept new ideas and concepts (new to me) too easily. I’m by now aware of that and I have established a kind of sanity check: I bounce new ideas against a sceptical friend.
My model of this is that acceptance of new information is like a system response to the strength of the evidence (however that is measured). Different people have different time constants in the response (take longer to process the same evidence). Different people also may have different K_I or K_D components in their response. Thus for some people a residual doubt may remain and others (like me) may overshoot the credence of the evidence—only to swing back equally fast once this is pointed out. Yes. This is probably not realistic model. Take it as metaphorical. Anyway I apparently have a quite small time constant (learn fast) and I overshoot (call me gullible) but I also integrate over time to arrive at a realistic picture of reality.
Nonetheles why didn’t I fall into some affective death spiral when younger? I could still have overshot into some mind-trap where I could have locked myself out of disconfirming evidence (I did at a time almost acquire a fully general counter argument). Why? I was lucky. Basically. I was interested in stuff that had a culture of solid scientific backing. Mostly. I also read a lot of science fiction—but that kind of helped the cause because the ‘science’ in science fiction doesn’t claim to be real. And I was steered clear of a lot of wrong stuff by my parents. So what to make of that? Learn stuff by reading good books by respected authorities with a solid scientific backing. There can’t go that much wrong with that. As long as you enjoy the read. Otherwise it can (subconsciously) turn you away from the truth which may feel hard.
This is a great and very precise elaboration of lightness and how to deal with evidence and I think the idea to start gullible is very practical advice—esp. for aspiring rationalists. I do think that it needs some kind of disclaimer, some limitiation or sanity check to avoid going into some affective death spiral around some convincing looking but actually self sealing mind trap.
For me I can very much relate to your exposition. Apparently I’m also kind of advanced gullible. I’m told that I accept new ideas and concepts (new to me) too easily. I’m by now aware of that and I have established a kind of sanity check: I bounce new ideas against a sceptical friend.
My model of this is that acceptance of new information is like a system response to the strength of the evidence (however that is measured). Different people have different time constants in the response (take longer to process the same evidence). Different people also may have different K_I or K_D components in their response. Thus for some people a residual doubt may remain and others (like me) may overshoot the credence of the evidence—only to swing back equally fast once this is pointed out. Yes. This is probably not realistic model. Take it as metaphorical. Anyway I apparently have a quite small time constant (learn fast) and I overshoot (call me gullible) but I also integrate over time to arrive at a realistic picture of reality.
Nonetheles why didn’t I fall into some affective death spiral when younger? I could still have overshot into some mind-trap where I could have locked myself out of disconfirming evidence (I did at a time almost acquire a fully general counter argument). Why? I was lucky. Basically. I was interested in stuff that had a culture of solid scientific backing. Mostly. I also read a lot of science fiction—but that kind of helped the cause because the ‘science’ in science fiction doesn’t claim to be real. And I was steered clear of a lot of wrong stuff by my parents. So what to make of that? Learn stuff by reading good books by respected authorities with a solid scientific backing. There can’t go that much wrong with that. As long as you enjoy the read. Otherwise it can (subconsciously) turn you away from the truth which may feel hard.
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At least! I think just a little bit more streamlining (removing e.g. the train-of-thought parts) and adding a summary break could suffice for Main.