Yes—and to me, that’s a perfect illustration of why experiments are relevant in the first place! More often than not, the only reason we need experiments is that we’re not smart enough. After the experiment has been done, if we’ve learned anything worth knowing at all, then hopefully we’ve learned why the experiment wasn’t necessary to begin with—why it wouldn’t have made sense for the world to be any other way. But we’re too dumb to figure it out ourselves! --Scott Aaronson
roland
Karma: 502
Taken!
We’re punters, not quarterbacks.
Please note that LW is not only read by americans and a lot of people from other countries have no idea what a punter and quarterback actually do. I had to look it up(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punter_%28football%29) but even so I’m not sure if I get the point you are trying to make.
EDIT: Great article, btw!
The thing is, it can take a long time until the deep theory to support a given practical advice is discovered and understood. Moving forward through trial and error can give faster and as effective results.
If you look at human history you will find several examples like the making of steel where practical procedures where discovered through massive experimentation centuries before the theoretical basis to understand them.
Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.
-- Peter Drucker
I think the most important argument is missing. If you repeat an affirmation every night or just think about it, what happens in your brain is that corresponding brain areas get activated(see also http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/10/priming-and-con.html). Once you do this your brain will automatically keep thinking about it and generate ideas to advance towards your goal. You will keep an open eye for good opportunities and will take advantage of them.
You have to contrast this with people who are just going with the flow and don’t have a fixed target on mind.
...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
-- Herbert Simon 1971
Eliezer,
I’m still curious about one thing: how did you develop the art in the first place? I mean I get that you are an auto-didact, but did you have any mentors? How did you choose the next thing/book to study/read, how did you grow?
In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many ways consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.
--Carl Sagan
Why not become a member of couchsurfing.org and create a LW subgroup for all to join? Alternatively put “LW” after your name so that people can search for it(I guess this is possible).
Autodidacticism
Eliezer, first congratulations for having the intelligence and courage to voluntarily drop out of school at age 12! Was it hard to convince your parents to let you do it? AFAIK you are mostly self-taught. How did you accomplish this? Who guided you, did you have any tutor/mentor? Or did you just read/learn what was interesting and kept going for more, one field of knowledge opening pathways to the next one, etc...?
EDIT: Of course I would be interested in the details, like what books did you read when, and what further interests did they spark, etc… Tell us a little story. ;)
People often lack the discipline to adhere to a superior strategy that doesn’t “feel” right. Reasoning in a way that sometimes “feels” wrong takes discipline.
-- Michael Bishop, Epistemology and the psychology of human judgement
This reminded me of Carol Dweck’s study: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/february7/dweck-020707.html
It is about having a fixed vs. growth theory of intelligence. If you think that your intelligence is fixed, you will avoid challenging tasks in order to preserve your self-image, whereas people with growth mentality will embrace it in order to improve. Important: never tell a child that it is intelligent.
Are you sure Alicorn? As a former christian now atheist thanks to LW(especially EY’s writings) I’ve learned a lot here.
Psychedelics? Nootropics? I guess they are also a big part connecting lots of those subcultures.
Conscious thought leads people to put disproportionate weight on attributes that are accessible, plausible and easy to verbalize, and therefore too little weight on other attributes. -- Ap Dijksterhuis
The response I hear from most of the women I know is that this is complete balderdash and women aren’t like that at all. So what’s going on?
I think asking people directly is the wrong approach. Both men and women are good at rationalizing and you never hear someone admitting: “Yes, I’m an asshole.” You really have to observe how people actually behave and the more I open my eyes I see that there is a lot of wisdom in the seduction community.
If I were a Calvinist, I’d live a life of sin if and only if I would two-box on Newcomb’s Problem.
I disagree. In Newcomb’s problem the superintelligence’s decision is conditional on your future actions whereas in the calvinist doctrine this isn’t the case.
By the time one is consciously aware of something, the brain has already done the work.
--Michael Gazzaniga
The reasoning mistake that Yvain and a lot of people here are making is: they think that if someone is scared in a supposedly haunted house there must be a believe in ghosts hidden somewhere inside his brain. What happens in reality is that the mind is hardwired to be scared when certain conditions are met. Being out in the dark is scary, not because you have a believe in ghosts but because there used to be predators roaming about in the ancestral environment and so the brain triggers accordingly. Now this whole ghost issue is probably a post-factum rationalization. Our verbal reasoning just pops out with an explanation of why we are scared(I was scared without a reason so I must have a believe in ghosts somewhere in my mind!). The real reason is below the surface and inacessible because we lack the ability for introspection.