Q: Given a question, how should we go about answering it? A: By gathering evidence effectively, and correctly applying reason and intuition.
This is a very broad question, and although its been described in more detail than “gather evidence well then think well”, there are still a lot of steps before applying it to any given problem, and given how much questions differ, it kinda has to be this way.
Q: How can we effectively gather relevant evidence? A: I don’t know. (Controlled experiments? Asking people?)
Depends on the question. Lukeprog wrote a post about how to do scholarship, often self experimentation is a quick and easy way of getting data, and sometimes you can just asking someone or google it.
It really depends on the problem, but I think if you have a list of good ways to gather data it should be pretty obvious which is relevant.
Q: How can we correctly apply reason? A: If you have infinite computational resources available, use probability theory.
Q: We don’t have infinite computational resources available, so what now? A: I don’t know. (Apply Bayes’ rule anyway? Just try to emulate what a hypercomputer would do?)
Train your intuition to make sense (start using good heuristics automatically), and frontal override with explicit math where it matters. You want it to feel obvious whether you should switch on a some variant of the Monty Hall problem without having to get out pencil and paper.
Also take multiple approaches to the same problem where you can.
Q: How can we successfully apply intuition? A: By repairing our biases, and developing habits that point us in the right direction under specific circumstances.
By trying to dodge biases, not confront them. If you realize that you dislike someone and that is affecting your judgement, the wrong way to go about it is to try to fudge factor it back like “I hate that bob is trying to convince me that X is small. I still think its big, but maybe I should subtract 50 because I’m biased”. The problem with this approach is that you cant reverse stupidity. The way you came up with the inital answer has to do with disliking a person, not the territory, so in order to have an accurate and narrow response your fudge factor would have to have to depend on reality anyway.
Its better to just let the “I hate bob. Screw that guy!” process run in the background and practice dissociating it from the decision mechanism, which is something completely different. Don’t even ask yourself what that part thinks.
If you notice yourself being loss averse, reframe the problem such that it goes away- don’t do the right thing and then cringe about it.
Q: How can we find our biases? A: I don’t know. (Read Less Wrong? What about our personal quirks? How can we notice those?)
Noticing them can be tougher sometimes. Do more metacognition in general and develop a habit of responding positively when people point them out to you.
Q: Once we find a bias, how can we fix it? A: I don’t know. (Apply a correction, test, repeat? Figure out how the bias feels?)
Again, figure out what heuristic you’re using (“this is what X was supposed to feel like, does that explain things?”), and if its no good, find another one and use that. Fudge factors aren’t good if you can avoid them.
Q: How can we find out what habits would be useful to develop? A: I don’t know. (Examine our past successes and rationalize them?)
Other than the obvious first pass (metacognition, frontal override, training intuitions..), you might want to ask what kind of habits would have prevented this “type” (in the broadest sense you can) of errors after you catch yourself making one.
Q: Once we decide on a habit, how can we develop it? A: I don’t know. (Sheer practice?)
Decide to do it and that it’s going to be easy. Identify with the habit, and the metahabit of installing habits “I want to be the kind of person that picks up the habits I want to have, so I’m just going to do it”. Practice with focused intent of it becoming automatic and test it.
Put yourself in an environment that reinforces it. Use intermittent reinforcement with nicotine if you have to.
Q: How can we effectively gather relevant evidence? A: I don’t know. (Controlled experiments? Asking people?)
Depends on the question. Lukeprog wrote a post about how to do scholarship, often self experimentation is a quick and easy way of getting data, and sometimes you can just asking someone or google it.
I should find that post by lukeprog, since it definitely sounds like the sort of thing I’m looking for here. My chain of questions can end either by saying “I don’t know”, or by linking to another post, and other reading material is obviously more useful than the phrase “I don’t know”.
Q: How can we successfully apply intuition? A: By repairing our biases, and developing habits that point us in the right direction under specific circumstances.
By trying to dodge biases, not confront them. If you realize that you dislike someone and that is affecting your judgement, the wrong way to go about it is to try to fudge factor it back like “I hate that bob is trying to convince me that X is small. I still think its big, but maybe I should subtract 50 because I’m biased”. The problem with this approach is that you cant reverse stupidity. The way you came up with the inital answer has to do with disliking a person, not the territory, so in order to have an accurate and narrow response your fudge factor would have to have to depend on reality anyway.
Its better to just let the “I hate bob. Screw that guy!” process run in the background and practice dissociating it from the decision mechanism, which is something completely different. Don’t even ask yourself what that part thinks.
I’m not sure I agree with this part so much. Given a biased heuristic, reversing stupidity would mean reversing the heuristic. (For example, reversing the availability heuristic would mean judging that a phenomenon is more frequent when examples of it come to mind less easily.) Applying a fudge factor isn’t reversing stupidity, because the biases themselves are systematically wrong.
So, given a biased heuristic, I can imagine two ways of dealing with it: you can use other heuristics instead, or you can attempt to correct the bias. I think both ways can be useful in certain circumstances. In particular, correcting the bias should be a useful method as long as two things are true: you understand the bias well enough to correct it successfully; and, once you’ve corrected the bias, you end up with a useful heuristic.
“I don’t like Bob, so things he says are probably wrong” is simply an example of a heuristic that, once de-biased, no longer says anything at all, and is thus useless.
I’m not sure I agree with this part so much. Given a biased heuristic, reversing stupidity would mean reversing the heuristic. (For example, reversing the availability heuristic would mean judging that a phenomenon is more frequent when examples of it come to mind less easily.) Applying a fudge factor isn’t reversing stupidity, because the biases themselves are systematically wrong.
So, given a biased heuristic, I can imagine two ways of dealing with it: you can use other heuristics instead, or you can attempt to correct the bias. I think both ways can be useful in certain circumstances. In particular, correcting the bias should be a useful method as long as two things are true: you understand the bias well enough to correct it successfully; and, once you’ve corrected the bias, you end up with a useful heuristic.
“I don’t like Bob, so things he says are probably wrong” is simply an example of a heuristic that, once de-biased, no longer says anything at all, and is thus useless.
I think we actually mostly agree. I’ll see if I can make my points clearer.
The first was that if you notice that what you’re actually doing is a lot like “Bob bad, so he wrong”, then the better solution is to cut that part of your thinking out and separate it from your decision making, not to try to keep it there but add a fudge factor so that the total algorithm has less of this bias.
The way you carved it, I would suggest “use ‘other’ heuristics” or correct the bias through excision not through addition of a cancelling bias. When I said “other heuristics” I would count it as a different heuristic if you took the same heuristic and excised the bias from it.
The second was that even if you could perfectly cancel it, you haven’t added any substance. You don’t want to congratulate yourself on canceling a bias and then fail to notice that you just hold maxent beliefs.
This is a very broad question, and although its been described in more detail than “gather evidence well then think well”, there are still a lot of steps before applying it to any given problem, and given how much questions differ, it kinda has to be this way.
Depends on the question. Lukeprog wrote a post about how to do scholarship, often self experimentation is a quick and easy way of getting data, and sometimes you can just asking someone or google it.
It really depends on the problem, but I think if you have a list of good ways to gather data it should be pretty obvious which is relevant.
Train your intuition to make sense (start using good heuristics automatically), and frontal override with explicit math where it matters. You want it to feel obvious whether you should switch on a some variant of the Monty Hall problem without having to get out pencil and paper.
Also take multiple approaches to the same problem where you can.
By trying to dodge biases, not confront them. If you realize that you dislike someone and that is affecting your judgement, the wrong way to go about it is to try to fudge factor it back like “I hate that bob is trying to convince me that X is small. I still think its big, but maybe I should subtract 50 because I’m biased”. The problem with this approach is that you cant reverse stupidity. The way you came up with the inital answer has to do with disliking a person, not the territory, so in order to have an accurate and narrow response your fudge factor would have to have to depend on reality anyway.
Its better to just let the “I hate bob. Screw that guy!” process run in the background and practice dissociating it from the decision mechanism, which is something completely different. Don’t even ask yourself what that part thinks.
If you notice yourself being loss averse, reframe the problem such that it goes away- don’t do the right thing and then cringe about it.
Noticing them can be tougher sometimes. Do more metacognition in general and develop a habit of responding positively when people point them out to you.
Again, figure out what heuristic you’re using (“this is what X was supposed to feel like, does that explain things?”), and if its no good, find another one and use that. Fudge factors aren’t good if you can avoid them.
Other than the obvious first pass (metacognition, frontal override, training intuitions..), you might want to ask what kind of habits would have prevented this “type” (in the broadest sense you can) of errors after you catch yourself making one.
Q: Once we decide on a habit, how can we develop it? A: I don’t know. (Sheer practice?)
Decide to do it and that it’s going to be easy. Identify with the habit, and the metahabit of installing habits “I want to be the kind of person that picks up the habits I want to have, so I’m just going to do it”. Practice with focused intent of it becoming automatic and test it.
Put yourself in an environment that reinforces it. Use intermittent reinforcement with nicotine if you have to.
I should find that post by lukeprog, since it definitely sounds like the sort of thing I’m looking for here. My chain of questions can end either by saying “I don’t know”, or by linking to another post, and other reading material is obviously more useful than the phrase “I don’t know”.
I’m not sure I agree with this part so much. Given a biased heuristic, reversing stupidity would mean reversing the heuristic. (For example, reversing the availability heuristic would mean judging that a phenomenon is more frequent when examples of it come to mind less easily.) Applying a fudge factor isn’t reversing stupidity, because the biases themselves are systematically wrong.
So, given a biased heuristic, I can imagine two ways of dealing with it: you can use other heuristics instead, or you can attempt to correct the bias. I think both ways can be useful in certain circumstances. In particular, correcting the bias should be a useful method as long as two things are true: you understand the bias well enough to correct it successfully; and, once you’ve corrected the bias, you end up with a useful heuristic.
“I don’t like Bob, so things he says are probably wrong” is simply an example of a heuristic that, once de-biased, no longer says anything at all, and is thus useless.
I believe that the grandparent is referring to this one: http://lesswrong.com/lw/5me/scholarship_how_to_do_it_efficiently/
I think we actually mostly agree. I’ll see if I can make my points clearer.
The first was that if you notice that what you’re actually doing is a lot like “Bob bad, so he wrong”, then the better solution is to cut that part of your thinking out and separate it from your decision making, not to try to keep it there but add a fudge factor so that the total algorithm has less of this bias.
The way you carved it, I would suggest “use ‘other’ heuristics” or correct the bias through excision not through addition of a cancelling bias. When I said “other heuristics” I would count it as a different heuristic if you took the same heuristic and excised the bias from it.
The second was that even if you could perfectly cancel it, you haven’t added any substance. You don’t want to congratulate yourself on canceling a bias and then fail to notice that you just hold maxent beliefs.