How many people end up in the emergency room not knowing what they have?
At least two people in my family—my father, with an as-of-yet unidentified pain in his leg than magically went away. My mother—when she actually had a kidney stone for the first time. People go to the doctor all the time when things hurt without an accurate model of why things hurt.
Thus, the very moment you feel pain in a very localized zone, you can hurry and see the doctor. That’s pretty much the way I would define a good model.
The statement “go to a doctor if you feel pain in a localized area” is another way to have a more accurate world model but it’s not the way that I was describing, which was “understanding kidney stones.”. I don’t intend to claim that having a better world model doesn’t let us make better decisions sometimes—science as an industry proves that. I intend to reject the claim that having a better model of your environment implies you will make better decisions. This depends on how instrumental the knowledge is to your world model.
Don’t you think that the fear you would feel when succumbing to the pain of kidney stones and not knowing what you have is greater than the fear (that you do not have) of getting kidney stones?
Nope. When succumbing to a kidney stone, do you think my first thought is going to be “ah yes, this must be what a kidney stone feels like”? It’s going to be “oh GOD, what is that agonizing pain, I need to go to a hospital right now!” and maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking “well it could be a kidney stone...”This thought is of little comfort to me relative to a default of not having that thought.
More importantly, knowing that I might have a kidney stone increases my level of baseline fear even before I get the kidney stone and not knowing wouldn’t. The trade-off between years of anticipating something horrible and being surprised by something horrible that you have no control over generally leans to the latter—unless there is actually some instrumental action you can take to address the horrible thing directly.
Huh, I understand where you’re coming from. Especially, this:
[...] a kidney stone increases my level of baseline fear
Since I did not consider it. It’s completely possible to imagine a world where your baseline fear increases ever so slightly in a way that outweighs the fact of knowing what may be going on when it hits you.
But –though I concede your point– is your behavior someway modified, at any rate, given the fact that you may get hit by kidney stones? For example, say, analogizing with family history of high blood pressure, I would most likely take some precaution measures if I knew high blood pressure (or kidney stones) were in my family. Precautions that I wouldn’t have taken in the case where I’m oblivious to my inclination for such diseases.
It’s completely possible to imagine a world where your baseline fear increases ever so slightly in a way that outweighs the fact of knowing what may be going on when it hits you.
To elaborate on this a bit more, it’s important to note that we humans only have a finite amount of attention—there are only so many things that we can consciously be afraid of at any one time. In my world model, people in extreme pain are much more afraid that the pain isn’t going to stop immediately than they are of the cause of the pain itself. The former fear basically renders the latter fear unnoticed. In this context, knowing the cause of the pain addresses very little fear and knowing how soon you’re going to get drugs addresses a lot.
But –though I concede your point– is your behavior someway modified, at any rate, given the fact that you may get hit by kidney stones?
In my case no. The main behavioral change I’m aware of for kidney stone prevention is eating less red meat. I was already vegetarian so this wasn’t useful for me (and it’s not useful for people who like meat enough that the minor kidney-stone-risk-reduction isn’t worth it). It has been useful for my mom.
At least two people in my family—my father, with an as-of-yet unidentified pain in his leg than magically went away. My mother—when she actually had a kidney stone for the first time. People go to the doctor all the time when things hurt without an accurate model of why things hurt.
The statement “go to a doctor if you feel pain in a localized area” is another way to have a more accurate world model but it’s not the way that I was describing, which was “understanding kidney stones.”. I don’t intend to claim that having a better world model doesn’t let us make better decisions sometimes—science as an industry proves that. I intend to reject the claim that having a better model of your environment implies you will make better decisions. This depends on how instrumental the knowledge is to your world model.
Nope. When succumbing to a kidney stone, do you think my first thought is going to be “ah yes, this must be what a kidney stone feels like”? It’s going to be “oh GOD, what is that agonizing pain, I need to go to a hospital right now!” and maybe somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking “well it could be a kidney stone...”This thought is of little comfort to me relative to a default of not having that thought.
More importantly, knowing that I might have a kidney stone increases my level of baseline fear even before I get the kidney stone and not knowing wouldn’t. The trade-off between years of anticipating something horrible and being surprised by something horrible that you have no control over generally leans to the latter—unless there is actually some instrumental action you can take to address the horrible thing directly.
Huh, I understand where you’re coming from. Especially, this:
Since I did not consider it. It’s completely possible to imagine a world where your baseline fear increases ever so slightly in a way that outweighs the fact of knowing what may be going on when it hits you.
But –though I concede your point– is your behavior someway modified, at any rate, given the fact that you may get hit by kidney stones? For example, say, analogizing with family history of high blood pressure, I would most likely take some precaution measures if I knew high blood pressure (or kidney stones) were in my family. Precautions that I wouldn’t have taken in the case where I’m oblivious to my inclination for such diseases.
To elaborate on this a bit more, it’s important to note that we humans only have a finite amount of attention—there are only so many things that we can consciously be afraid of at any one time. In my world model, people in extreme pain are much more afraid that the pain isn’t going to stop immediately than they are of the cause of the pain itself. The former fear basically renders the latter fear unnoticed. In this context, knowing the cause of the pain addresses very little fear and knowing how soon you’re going to get drugs addresses a lot.
In my case no. The main behavioral change I’m aware of for kidney stone prevention is eating less red meat. I was already vegetarian so this wasn’t useful for me (and it’s not useful for people who like meat enough that the minor kidney-stone-risk-reduction isn’t worth it). It has been useful for my mom.