If you have a three hour one-shot, then I would be strongly inclined to focus on as few things as possible, while still pointing to the shape of the skillset. I expect the central challenge will be getting them to internalize the idea that different ways of thinking even exist. I would break it down into three things, which can each occupy ~1 hour:
Demonstrate how they way they think right now is wrong, via a cognitive bias.
Demonstrate a specific technique for overcoming that bias.
Argue that reality in fact has joints, and they can in fact be cleaved. Preferably with examples.
I expect the best results will come from hammering on the notion that thinking is a thing you can do on purpose, doing it by reflex leads to predictably wrong answers in a lot of cases, and doing it better is possible. If the choice of bias and technique for overcoming it is something they can immediately apply, so much the better.
Not sure I understand the “reality has joints that can be cleaved”-thing but sounds like a possibly valuable framing.
Do you mean that reality can be broken down into different gears and one can find out how the gears interact?
Would an illustration of this be a look at how humans, on a biological level, could be described as “selfish-gene”-style driven and, possibly, on a mental level modeled as multi-agent minds?
If you have a three hour one-shot, then I would be strongly inclined to focus on as few things as possible, while still pointing to the shape of the skillset. I expect the central challenge will be getting them to internalize the idea that different ways of thinking even exist. I would break it down into three things, which can each occupy ~1 hour:
Demonstrate how they way they think right now is wrong, via a cognitive bias.
Demonstrate a specific technique for overcoming that bias.
Argue that reality in fact has joints, and they can in fact be cleaved. Preferably with examples.
I expect the best results will come from hammering on the notion that thinking is a thing you can do on purpose, doing it by reflex leads to predictably wrong answers in a lot of cases, and doing it better is possible. If the choice of bias and technique for overcoming it is something they can immediately apply, so much the better.
Not sure I understand the “reality has joints that can be cleaved”-thing but sounds like a possibly valuable framing.
Do you mean that reality can be broken down into different gears and one can find out how the gears interact?
Would an illustration of this be a look at how humans, on a biological level, could be described as “selfish-gene”-style driven and, possibly, on a mental level modeled as multi-agent minds?
It’s a reference to some posts in Rationality: A-Z