Well, this has been a lovely discussion. Thanks for the back and forth; I think we’re in agreement, and your last example was particularly helpful. I think we’ve covered that:
we’re not talking about arbitrarily increasing confidence for no reason (just because we can)
we’re also [probably] not talking about trying to increase belief in something contrary to evidence already known (increase belief in ~X when the evidence supports X). (This is actually the category I originally thought you referring to, hence my mention of “tricking” one’s self. But I think this category is now ruled out.)
this technique is primarily useful when emotions/motivations/feelings are not lining up with the expected outcome given available evidence (success is likely based on prior experience, but success doesn’t feel likely and this is actually increasing likelihood of failure)
there are even some situations when an expectation of failure would decrease some kind of utilitarian benefit and thus one needs to act as if success is more probable, even though it’s not (with the caveat that improving rationality would help this not be necessary)
Well, this has been a lovely discussion. Thanks for the back and forth; I think we’re in agreement, and your last example was particularly helpful. I think we’ve covered that:
we’re not talking about arbitrarily increasing confidence for no reason (just because we can)
we’re also [probably] not talking about trying to increase belief in something contrary to evidence already known (increase belief in ~X when the evidence supports X). (This is actually the category I originally thought you referring to, hence my mention of “tricking” one’s self. But I think this category is now ruled out.)
this technique is primarily useful when emotions/motivations/feelings are not lining up with the expected outcome given available evidence (success is likely based on prior experience, but success doesn’t feel likely and this is actually increasing likelihood of failure)
there are even some situations when an expectation of failure would decrease some kind of utilitarian benefit and thus one needs to act as if success is more probable, even though it’s not (with the caveat that improving rationality would help this not be necessary)
Does that about sum it up?
Thanks again.
Works for me!