In an old article by Eliezer we’re asked what we would tell Archimedes through a chronophone. I’ve found this idea to actually be pretty instructive if I instead ask what I would tell myself through a chronophone if I could call back only a few years.
The reason the chronophone idea is useful is because it forces you to speak in terms of ‘cognitive policies’ since if you use anything relevant to your own time period it will be translated into something relevant to the time period you’re calling. In this way if I think about what I would tell my former self I think: 1) what mistakes did I make when I was younger? 2) what sort or cognitive policies or strategies would have allowed me to avoid those mistakes, and finally 3) am I applying the analogue of those strategies in my life today?
If you did this as a case study or thought experiment, and published this as a discussion post, that would be swell. Similar articles are written by other users of Less Wrong, and they’re usually well-appreciated efforts, as far as I can tell. Your three questions are a good starting point, so I might write this as a post myself. Alternatively, if it’s not worthy of it’s own post, anyone doing this exercise on/for themselves should definitely share it in the (group) rationality diary.
In an old article by Eliezer we’re asked what we would tell Archimedes through a chronophone. I’ve found this idea to actually be pretty instructive if I instead ask what I would tell myself through a chronophone if I could call back only a few years.
The reason the chronophone idea is useful is because it forces you to speak in terms of ‘cognitive policies’ since if you use anything relevant to your own time period it will be translated into something relevant to the time period you’re calling. In this way if I think about what I would tell my former self I think: 1) what mistakes did I make when I was younger? 2) what sort or cognitive policies or strategies would have allowed me to avoid those mistakes, and finally 3) am I applying the analogue of those strategies in my life today?
If you did this as a case study or thought experiment, and published this as a discussion post, that would be swell. Similar articles are written by other users of Less Wrong, and they’re usually well-appreciated efforts, as far as I can tell. Your three questions are a good starting point, so I might write this as a post myself. Alternatively, if it’s not worthy of it’s own post, anyone doing this exercise on/for themselves should definitely share it in the (group) rationality diary.