In both cases there is some element of explicit calculating prediction (about the value of the bet or the golfing technique) that could be wrong, but whose rightness is likely to correlate with success in either the bet or the technique.
See Seligman’s optimism research. Optimists out-perform pessimists and realists in the long run, in any task that requires motivation to develop skill. This strongly implies that an epistemically accurate assessment of your ability is a handicap to actual performance in such areas.
These kinds of research can’t just be shrugged off with “seems like something that would help”, unless you want to drop epistemic rationality along with the instrumental. ;-)
I’m a fairly good calligrapher—the sort of good which comes from lots of attentive hours, though not focused experiments.
I’ve considered it a blessing that my ambition was always just a tiny bit ahead of what I was able to do. If I’d been able to see the difference between what I could do when I started and what I’m able to do now (let alone what people who are much better than I am are able to do), I think I would have given up. Admittedly, it’s a mixed blessing—it doesn’t encourage great ambition.
I hear about a lot of people who give up on making music because the difference between the sounds they can hear in their heads and the sounds they can produce at the beginning are simply too large.
In Effortless Mastery, Kenny Werner teaches thinking of every sound you make as the most beautiful sound, since he believes that the effort to sound good is a lot of what screws up musicians. I need to reread to see how he gets from there to directed practice, but he’s an excellent musician.
I’ve also gotten some good results on being able to filter out background noise by using “this is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard” rather than trying to make out particular voices in a noisy bar.
Steve Barnes recommends high goal-setting and a minute of meditation every three hours to lower anxiety enough to pursue the goals. It’s worked well for him and seems to work well for some people. I’ve developed a ugh field about my whole fucking life as a result of paying attention to his stuff, and am currently working on undoing it. Surprisingly, draining the certainty out of self-hatred has worked much better than trying to do anything about the hostility.
I’ve considered it a blessing that my ambition was always just a tiny bit ahead of what I was able to do. If I’d been able to see the difference between what I could do when I started and what I’m able to do now (let alone what people who are much better than I am are able to do), I think I would have given up. Admittedly, it’s a mixed blessing—it doesn’t encourage great ambition.
That reminds me of another way in which more epistemic accuracy isn’t always useful: projects that I never would have started/finished if I had realized in advance how much work they’d end up being. ;-)
See Seligman’s optimism research. Optimists out-perform pessimists and realists in the long run, in any task that requires motivation to develop skill. This strongly implies that an epistemically accurate assessment of your ability is a handicap to actual performance in such areas.
These kinds of research can’t just be shrugged off with “seems like something that would help”, unless you want to drop epistemic rationality along with the instrumental. ;-)
I’m a fairly good calligrapher—the sort of good which comes from lots of attentive hours, though not focused experiments.
I’ve considered it a blessing that my ambition was always just a tiny bit ahead of what I was able to do. If I’d been able to see the difference between what I could do when I started and what I’m able to do now (let alone what people who are much better than I am are able to do), I think I would have given up. Admittedly, it’s a mixed blessing—it doesn’t encourage great ambition.
I hear about a lot of people who give up on making music because the difference between the sounds they can hear in their heads and the sounds they can produce at the beginning are simply too large.
In Effortless Mastery, Kenny Werner teaches thinking of every sound you make as the most beautiful sound, since he believes that the effort to sound good is a lot of what screws up musicians. I need to reread to see how he gets from there to directed practice, but he’s an excellent musician.
I’ve also gotten some good results on being able to filter out background noise by using “this is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard” rather than trying to make out particular voices in a noisy bar.
Steve Barnes recommends high goal-setting and a minute of meditation every three hours to lower anxiety enough to pursue the goals. It’s worked well for him and seems to work well for some people. I’ve developed a ugh field about my whole fucking life as a result of paying attention to his stuff, and am currently working on undoing it. Surprisingly, draining the certainty out of self-hatred has worked much better than trying to do anything about the hostility.
A quote about not going head-on against psychological defenses
That reminds me of another way in which more epistemic accuracy isn’t always useful: projects that I never would have started/finished if I had realized in advance how much work they’d end up being. ;-)