I know as a matter of process that when a respected fellow rationalist tells me that I need to become curious, I should pause and check my curiosity levels and try to increase them.
I increase my curiosity about a topic by attending closely to what specific questions related to that topic I’m not confident I know the answer to, what predictions I would make differently given higher confidence in various different answers to those questions, and what the consequences might be of being right about those predictions.
Also, the longer I spend trying to think of such questions/predictions and failing, the more confident I become that increasing my curiosity about the topic is not a productive use of my time.
How does one increase their curiosity levels?
There’s a post about this.
@Eliezer Perhaps it’s worth making “try to increase them” a link to lukeprog’s “Get Curious” article?
I increase my curiosity about a topic by attending closely to what specific questions related to that topic I’m not confident I know the answer to, what predictions I would make differently given higher confidence in various different answers to those questions, and what the consequences might be of being right about those predictions.
Also, the longer I spend trying to think of such questions/predictions and failing, the more confident I become that increasing my curiosity about the topic is not a productive use of my time.