A good way I think of to define humility is as the inverse of your willingness to argue with future you. Imagine that yourself from a few weeks in the future (or 5 years in Matthew McConaughey’s case) steps out of a time machine. Would you be willing to concede that he knows more?
Examples:
The student who is certain of his answer will expect that it will not change, so he is not humble at all about it.
The student who is resigned to the fact that the answer is unknowable expects that future her doesn’t know any better so she’s not humble either.
The student who rechecks her answer anticipates that future her found a mistake, otherwise she wouldn’t bother checking. That’s how you know she’s humble.
I’m humble about my assessments of the probability of creating an AGI. I would immediately take future-me’s word on it because he will surely know more.
I’m not humble about my belief in MWI, because I don’t expect that future me will know more about it. The only thing that could change my mind is an experiment disproving superposition for cat-sized objects, which I don’t expect me-in-5-years to see. If future-me doesn’t believe in MWI I would need to hear all of his arguments, I wouldn’t agree with him on the spot (maybe I’m going to get hit on the head in two years?)
I believe that people systematically underestimate the amount that the world, themselves and their opinions will change in 5 years. That would amount to a bias for under-humility.
Hm. Looking in the mirror, I am entirely willing to defer to future-me, but at the same time I wouldn’t describe myself as humble. What you are describing seems to be more along the lines of the well-known quote usually but erroneously attributed to Churchill: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
A good way I think of to define humility is as the inverse of your willingness to argue with future you. Imagine that yourself from a few weeks in the future (or 5 years in Matthew McConaughey’s case) steps out of a time machine. Would you be willing to concede that he knows more?
Examples:
The student who is certain of his answer will expect that it will not change, so he is not humble at all about it.
The student who is resigned to the fact that the answer is unknowable expects that future her doesn’t know any better so she’s not humble either.
The student who rechecks her answer anticipates that future her found a mistake, otherwise she wouldn’t bother checking. That’s how you know she’s humble.
I’m humble about my assessments of the probability of creating an AGI. I would immediately take future-me’s word on it because he will surely know more.
I’m not humble about my belief in MWI, because I don’t expect that future me will know more about it. The only thing that could change my mind is an experiment disproving superposition for cat-sized objects, which I don’t expect me-in-5-years to see. If future-me doesn’t believe in MWI I would need to hear all of his arguments, I wouldn’t agree with him on the spot (maybe I’m going to get hit on the head in two years?)
I believe that people systematically underestimate the amount that the world, themselves and their opinions will change in 5 years. That would amount to a bias for under-humility.
Hm. Looking in the mirror, I am entirely willing to defer to future-me, but at the same time I wouldn’t describe myself as humble. What you are describing seems to be more along the lines of the well-known quote usually but erroneously attributed to Churchill: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”