Thank you, this was an excellent post. It tied together a lot of discussions that have gone on and continue to go on here, and I expect it to be very useful to me.
Among other things, I suffer from every impairment to instrumental rationality that you mention under Type 2.
The first of those is perhaps my most severe downfall; I term it the “perpetual student” syndrome, and I think that phrasing matches other places where that phrase is used. I’m fantastically good at picking up entry-level understandings of things, but once I lose the rewarding feeling of looking good in comparison to my peers, I slack off. I breezed through the first two years of required courses for degrees in chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology and computer science, but I only finished a degree in one of them. I have a terrible habit of taking introductory dance classes, but then never practicing the dance long enough to get good at it. As a professional researcher, it’s even worse; I eagerly attack any problem that requires me to learn more about someone else’s field, but actually producing original work inside my own is like pulling teeth. I’m working on it!
I’ve bookmarked this post, and intend to review it periodically to check off my progress against the problems that you point out.
I’m naturally diffuse in my interests myself; I get around it with good old-fashioned shame. I can’t look myself in the eye unless I hit certain official milestones in a certain period of time.
Thank you, this was an excellent post. It tied together a lot of discussions that have gone on and continue to go on here, and I expect it to be very useful to me.
Among other things, I suffer from every impairment to instrumental rationality that you mention under Type 2.
The first of those is perhaps my most severe downfall; I term it the “perpetual student” syndrome, and I think that phrasing matches other places where that phrase is used. I’m fantastically good at picking up entry-level understandings of things, but once I lose the rewarding feeling of looking good in comparison to my peers, I slack off. I breezed through the first two years of required courses for degrees in chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology and computer science, but I only finished a degree in one of them. I have a terrible habit of taking introductory dance classes, but then never practicing the dance long enough to get good at it. As a professional researcher, it’s even worse; I eagerly attack any problem that requires me to learn more about someone else’s field, but actually producing original work inside my own is like pulling teeth. I’m working on it!
I’ve bookmarked this post, and intend to review it periodically to check off my progress against the problems that you point out.
I’m naturally diffuse in my interests myself; I get around it with good old-fashioned shame. I can’t look myself in the eye unless I hit certain official milestones in a certain period of time.