This was one of the ideas I never really understood in the sequences, I filed it away as a high-level power tool for the unusually intelligent and knowledgeable. I mean the most common reason for feeling confused is not having complete information: we feel up blindly three different parts of an elephant, and feel a tube, a column and a rope, and just go WTF could it be??? It is not fiction or reality that usually confuses us, you have to be a really top level brain master to have that sort of sitution. It is just missing pieces from the puzzle.
I think I understand conservation of expected evidence, I just don’t understand how and especially what for to use it, or even more properly, how to notice when not using it. Of course if I am confident about something then fail an important prediction my jaw is all over the floor and I get speechless—how else should it feel? But why does it require an article—doesn’t everyone? Suppose John is really confident his spouse loves him and therefore predicts it is really, really unlike that she would cheat on him. Everybody expects that if he finds evidence of cheating he will be utterly shocked and surprised, no? What else would “confident” mean? Does anyone in that sort of situation start rationalizing the new evidence away? No, when it matters, then people’ don’t, I think. I think Conservation of Expected Evidence deserves a deeper meta, namely “Do you really care about what you believe or you are just pretending?”
Maybe I’m just a top-level brain master, but I would disagree; or at least claim that we’re using different words for the same thing. There are plenty of times I can think of where noticing confusion would have been possible and useful. My sister lies a lot, and there have been lots of times where I have this wordless sensation that roughly corresponds to the internal vocalization, “This does not make sense;” I think lots of people experience things like that, and I think that’s what we’re all talking about here, regardless of whether you call it missing puzzle pieces, or the difference between fiction and reality.
And it doesn’t have to be someone explicitly lying as in my example and Eliezer’s. I would say that it applies more broadly to resisting that impulse to attempt to explain anything that often accompanies a feeling of confusion. I think it’s telling that your example about the cuckold is very mundane. By juxtaposition, it reminds me of the Parable of the Dragon in the Garage: when your epistemic standards don’t have a very clear immediate effect on you, you can easily go wild. You don’t just pray when your kid is starving; you pray and you try to fix it yourself, promises that He helps those who help themselves notwithstanding. Likewise, delude yourself as to your wife’s affairs, and you know it’s going to turn out badly. But other things can be so far removed from everyday experience that being practical is not the default action; there’s no immediately apparent consequence for being right or wrong. And that’s when it’s really important to say, not “That’s confusing; well, it’s probably this,” or, “That’s confusing; whatever,” but, “That’s confusing; wait just a cotton-picking minute.”
This was one of the ideas I never really understood in the sequences, I filed it away as a high-level power tool for the unusually intelligent and knowledgeable. I mean the most common reason for feeling confused is not having complete information: we feel up blindly three different parts of an elephant, and feel a tube, a column and a rope, and just go WTF could it be??? It is not fiction or reality that usually confuses us, you have to be a really top level brain master to have that sort of sitution. It is just missing pieces from the puzzle.
I think I understand conservation of expected evidence, I just don’t understand how and especially what for to use it, or even more properly, how to notice when not using it. Of course if I am confident about something then fail an important prediction my jaw is all over the floor and I get speechless—how else should it feel? But why does it require an article—doesn’t everyone? Suppose John is really confident his spouse loves him and therefore predicts it is really, really unlike that she would cheat on him. Everybody expects that if he finds evidence of cheating he will be utterly shocked and surprised, no? What else would “confident” mean? Does anyone in that sort of situation start rationalizing the new evidence away? No, when it matters, then people’ don’t, I think. I think Conservation of Expected Evidence deserves a deeper meta, namely “Do you really care about what you believe or you are just pretending?”
Maybe I’m just a top-level brain master, but I would disagree; or at least claim that we’re using different words for the same thing. There are plenty of times I can think of where noticing confusion would have been possible and useful. My sister lies a lot, and there have been lots of times where I have this wordless sensation that roughly corresponds to the internal vocalization, “This does not make sense;” I think lots of people experience things like that, and I think that’s what we’re all talking about here, regardless of whether you call it missing puzzle pieces, or the difference between fiction and reality.
And it doesn’t have to be someone explicitly lying as in my example and Eliezer’s. I would say that it applies more broadly to resisting that impulse to attempt to explain anything that often accompanies a feeling of confusion. I think it’s telling that your example about the cuckold is very mundane. By juxtaposition, it reminds me of the Parable of the Dragon in the Garage: when your epistemic standards don’t have a very clear immediate effect on you, you can easily go wild. You don’t just pray when your kid is starving; you pray and you try to fix it yourself, promises that He helps those who help themselves notwithstanding. Likewise, delude yourself as to your wife’s affairs, and you know it’s going to turn out badly. But other things can be so far removed from everyday experience that being practical is not the default action; there’s no immediately apparent consequence for being right or wrong. And that’s when it’s really important to say, not “That’s confusing; well, it’s probably this,” or, “That’s confusing; whatever,” but, “That’s confusing; wait just a cotton-picking minute.”