I believe that scientists can change fields easily and sometimes make bigger impact in the new fields they enter. I think it’s because people who move do not look at the same problem from the traditional point-of-view. This enables us to come up with unique solutions. We are not trapped by dogma and if we are bold we can rise quickly.
-- Aubrey de Grey
During a sleep experiment, I used to record my mental performance by a simple arithmetic game. Start with a 3 digit number, subtract 9, then 8, then 7...so on. Time yourself in the task. If the result is ±3 seconds to my average score, means I am quite active.
That’s a really nice view to have on emotions. And frankly, I’ve known it all along but never put it the way you have. Cheers!
What bothers me is that in case of ‘emotional expressions’ in a profession, it is possible to fake it and am sure we have seen examples of such (hypocrites) in our life. But may be in a given situation it is rational to fake it.
PS: Could you give the source of the Hitler example?
I enjoyed your article and as a scientist, I’ve been interested to understand this: what seems an intuitive method to use to solve a scientific problem is not seen as an intuitive method while solving ‘other’ problems.
By ‘other’, I mean things like psychological problems or problems that arise from conflicts amongst people. It may be obvious why it is not ‘intuitive’ but what goes beyond my understanding is most will not even consider using the scientific method for the latter types of problem ever.
Interesting piece.
I agree with Drahflow and utilitymonster here though. An argument needs to be made in the context of the audience. Unnecessary details about an argument may dilute the effect of your speech. And stating the obvious (which it may be to the audience) makes one look like an arrogant guy, who is assuming that the audience wouldn’t know.
Yet, I agree with you in the example you give about being truthful to kids. Making an argument based on truth and stating that truth may be a good way of dealing with kids. And as you claim it is showing in their development.
Yet in health, we see action as inherently dangerous; while in economics, we see inaction as inherently dangerous. Why?
That is a very good point, I must appreciate that you noticed it. I would say that one of the reasons that happens is because people resist change. In health, any action would mean there could be something wrong that can happen. Thus, it is made a mandate that every possible wrong be checked before such an action takes place. Hence, the inherent danger in action.
Where as in case of economics, actions are usually taken to stop a change from happening (Stimulus package, bailing out car companies, president goes shopping, etc.). Thus, inaction would be accepting change which people always oppose. Hence, the inherent danger in inaction.
So few of us really think. What we do is rearrange our prejudices.
-- George Vincent
I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.
-- A. R. Ammons
However, they are not any more boring than making DNA sequences, and that’s the current aim of most living systems.
Making a DNA sequence will count as (an extremely low level activity) [http://lesswrong.com/lw/xr/in_praise_of_boredom/] which is necessary to support non-boring activities. It is a very simple argument that these are the very activity we stop thinking about and concentrate on novel activities.
“Uhh..”
“You might want to get some coffee.”
I find this the most humorous bit in the post. Smarter than Yudokowsky? May be.
So… when your willpower is all gone, you continue doing the activity with… what?
Although, I have no desire to do it, I force myself to do it. So it can be argued that it is till your willpower to do it. But this willpower is not for the activity but for the sheer reason of doing a little more of an activity. Thus, this willpower is orthogonal to the willpower of doing the activity.
An article in the NY times is an interesting read, mentions something close to my technique.
Children ought to have fundamentally lower status, not just because they’re children per se, but because they’re stupid and useless.
I am not a parent myself but I’ve been told a lot of times by my parents and others that they have learnt a great deal from children. Thus, calling them useless is not fair.
Also, even now children in rural India are treated as future bread-earners. Thus, taking care of them and helping them grow is seen as an advantage to the parents.
Stupid, yes they may be but then weren’t we all?
I believe that each individual’s store of willpower is different. May be you are one of those individuals with a huge reserve and thus don’t find it a limited resource.
I’ve resolved not to die before my parents do, because I don’t want them to suffer the grief my death would cause.
How would you make sure that will not happen?
He may have, for his own reasons, not been happy with the ease with which he achieved something great. His selfishness at this point is not for the fact that he may still be able to contribute to the field and yet he chooses not to but for the fact that he will be happier if he had to work harder on something before achieving greatness. That is his value system. I think his choice is justifiable.
The second advantage claimed for naturalism is that it is equivalent to rationality, because it assumes a model of reality in which all events are in principle accessible to scientific investigation.
If we’re taking the US as a reference point, I would argue that adults should be punished a lot less for most crimes...
Could you elaborate?
I’m going to be talking about more mundane situations, and the point I want to make is that beliefs are very different objects from the act of communicating those beliefs.
Isn’t this what happens in a courtroom drama? The lawyers bend facts by the way they communicate it to maximize the utility of their argument. I haven’t observed a real court case but can come up with scores of examples from bollywood movies!
I believe it is possible to increase one’s willpower reserve. I follow a simple technique to that effect. Every time my willpower to do something is over, I stretch myself to do that activity a little longer. Next time, I find myself stretching it beyond that and so on until I have a sufficient reserve of willpower for that activity.
The point of this post was to show that persisting at something while being irrational can only cause harm. Of course, “Never give up” is not bad advice, but Eliezer’s advice is be rational and accept defeat when you need to.