Probably the best way to get better at StarCraft II is to find out what the current top-ranked players are doing and copy their build orders and mimic their training habits, and then practice incessantly, and once you’ve mastered the top-tier techniques, start inventing your own.
High-level players talk of “game sense,” the phenomenon where a player will simply “know” that their opponent is going to attempt a medivac drop into their mineral line in five seconds and react pre-emptively. Their actions are based on no obvious evidence, on nothing they are consciously aware of, but rather on a sense of the pattern and flow of a thousand past games. To me, this is a particularly striking example of expert performance, of the seemingly magical superpowers possessed by individuals who have put in their ~10,000 hours.
In real life, generally you become a good scientist by working for or with good scientists and modeling their habits. Likewise, probably, with computer programmers, mathematicians, musicians, engineers, artists, etc. I suppose it’s possible to be a total iconoclast and train yourself up to master level in your chosen discipline outside the establishment, but I would wager there are a lot more crackpots who think they’ve invented cold fusion than there are lone geniuses who … well, no counterexamples come to mind. Take any great genius of music, mathematics or science and you’re more than likely to find a great mentor.
This brings me to my real point: I think the difference between mastering rationality and playing at rationality may hinge on making the conscious choice to surround yourself with people whose rationality you admire. If possible, to work under someone who has mastered it. (It is entirely debatable whether such a person exists at this time.) I think it’s probably self-defeating to attempt to grow into a rationalist while, for example, all your family and friends are religionists. It would be like trying to learn carpentry in a shop populated by careless, unsafe workers. You’re human; their bad habits will rub off on you.
Since we don’t usually have the choice of drastically changing who we hang out with in a premeditated fashion, ironically, being active on LessWrong is probably the closest thing some people are going to get to implementing a useful self-reinforcing Rationality System!
Since we don’t usually have the choice of drastically changing who we hang out with in a premeditated fashion
If you live in the right place, going to LW meetups is an easy way to surround yourself with people more rational than yourself. In my experience, it’s been helpful at reinforcing the behaviors I want to reinforce.
Their actions are based on no obvious evidence, on nothing they are consciously aware of
Actually casters with a lot of game experience on the profi-level (Day9, iNcontrol) are able to explain to the layperson the chain of evidence that led to A knowing preemptively what B would do, so I disagree with that sentence. I agree with the rest of your post.
There are many things I can do more naturally because of my participation in LW (above and beyond reading the articles), but only a few of them are rationality-related. Maybe we should try to do more active learning of rationality—discussion of minor situations, homework, the like.
In real life, generally you become a good scientist by working for or with good scientists and modeling their habits. Likewise, probably, with computer programmers, mathematicians, musicians, engineers, artists, etc. I suppose it’s possible to be a total iconoclast and train yourself up to master level in your chosen discipline outside the establishment, but I would wager there are a lot more crackpots who think they’ve invented cold fusion than there are lone geniuses who … well, no counterexamples come to mind. Take any great genius of music, mathematics or science and you’re more than likely to find a great mentor.
Probably the best way to get better at StarCraft II is to find out what the current top-ranked players are doing and copy their build orders and mimic their training habits, and then practice incessantly, and once you’ve mastered the top-tier techniques, start inventing your own.
High-level players talk of “game sense,” the phenomenon where a player will simply “know” that their opponent is going to attempt a medivac drop into their mineral line in five seconds and react pre-emptively. Their actions are based on no obvious evidence, on nothing they are consciously aware of, but rather on a sense of the pattern and flow of a thousand past games. To me, this is a particularly striking example of expert performance, of the seemingly magical superpowers possessed by individuals who have put in their ~10,000 hours.
In real life, generally you become a good scientist by working for or with good scientists and modeling their habits. Likewise, probably, with computer programmers, mathematicians, musicians, engineers, artists, etc. I suppose it’s possible to be a total iconoclast and train yourself up to master level in your chosen discipline outside the establishment, but I would wager there are a lot more crackpots who think they’ve invented cold fusion than there are lone geniuses who … well, no counterexamples come to mind. Take any great genius of music, mathematics or science and you’re more than likely to find a great mentor.
This brings me to my real point: I think the difference between mastering rationality and playing at rationality may hinge on making the conscious choice to surround yourself with people whose rationality you admire. If possible, to work under someone who has mastered it. (It is entirely debatable whether such a person exists at this time.) I think it’s probably self-defeating to attempt to grow into a rationalist while, for example, all your family and friends are religionists. It would be like trying to learn carpentry in a shop populated by careless, unsafe workers. You’re human; their bad habits will rub off on you.
Since we don’t usually have the choice of drastically changing who we hang out with in a premeditated fashion, ironically, being active on LessWrong is probably the closest thing some people are going to get to implementing a useful self-reinforcing Rationality System!
If you live in the right place, going to LW meetups is an easy way to surround yourself with people more rational than yourself. In my experience, it’s been helpful at reinforcing the behaviors I want to reinforce.
Actually casters with a lot of game experience on the profi-level (Day9, iNcontrol) are able to explain to the layperson the chain of evidence that led to A knowing preemptively what B would do, so I disagree with that sentence. I agree with the rest of your post.
There are many things I can do more naturally because of my participation in LW (above and beyond reading the articles), but only a few of them are rationality-related. Maybe we should try to do more active learning of rationality—discussion of minor situations, homework, the like.
Well, there was Roger Apéry...
And the Wright Brothers, if you count them.