Thank you for writing this post. It’s one of the topics that has kept me from participating in the discussion here—I click on things very often, as a trained and sustained act of rationality, and often find it difficult to verbalize why I feel I am right and others wrong. But when I feel that I have clicked, then I have very high confidence in my rightness, as determined by observation and many years of evidence that my clicks are, indeed, right.
I use the phrase, “My subconscious is way smarter than I am,” to describe this event. My best guess is that my subconscious has built-in pathways to notice logical flaws, lack of evidence, and has already chewed through problems over many years of thought (“creating a path”?), and I have trained myself to follow these “feelings” and form them into conscious words/thoughts/actions. It seems to be related to memory and number of facts in some ways, as the more reading I have done on a topic, the better I’m able to click on related topics. I do not use the word “feeling” lightly—it really does feel like something, and it gives me a sort of built-in filter.
I click on people (small movements, small statements leading to huge understanding gains, to the point where I can literally say what they’re thinking from the slightest gesture), I click on tests (memorization), I click on big topics (X-risks, shut-up-and-multiply), philosophy, etc. Quantum mechanics, I have failed to click anything, and have been avoiding.
What I’ve found is that my click decisions, when thought is applied, have dozens of reasons behind them, all unrealized at the time I was able to make the decision. Writing them all out afterward makes for an incredibly powerful argument in favor of my decision, and oftentimes shows that I really did weigh all the positives and negatives, just not in a rigorous ‘proof’. Like not showing your work on a math problem, but still being able to look at the numbers and know the result.
One of the things I had to eliminate for my clickiness to become truly powerful was the desire to hold onto current beliefs. Openness to change is essential to letting the click take over your thoughts and lead you in a new direction. People get frustrated when arguing with me on occasion, as I will be a strong proponent of a specific position, then they present to me a single fact that demolishes it, and I will immediately begin arguing a new position using that fact as support. They typically laugh and shake their head, as if I had never supported my previous position and am now just arguing for argument’s sake, when in reality, I clicked on the new fact and realized the implications, adjusting my beliefs accordingly, all in an instant.
Another thing which I’ve noticed I do which helps greatly with click thinking is absorb a huge amount of information on a specific topic. When I need to make an important decision, I get books from the library, I hit up google and click links out to 25+ pages of results, I check for authoritative forums and lurk there, reading, learning, rarely asking questions but picking up as much as I can none-the-less. I did this for WoW, for audio tech, for financial investment, for Singularity and rationality topics… and after I’ve spent a few months at integrating myself with that information center, I’m able to click like crazy on all the important things. Some topics, once I’ve clicked, I drop it and move on, but others I continue to practice and read, like first order philosophy. Thought experiments (roleplaying, etc.) tend to help if the topic is complex enough. I play a character in my head, or in a game, for a month or so, then when I need to ask a really important question about the topic the character was designed around, I just click to the answer without consciously thinking, because I just know. For clicking on people, this involves observation and spending time around that person, and asking lots of questions about what they’re thinking (I’ve gotten very good at asking without seeming annoying).
In addition to being open to change and gorging on data, I’ve found it very important to trust yourself. And by this I don’t mean, ‘trust that you’re making the right decision’, but as an almost ‘trust that other person who used your name at the time but who you don’t even remember or think like any more’. In a sense, trust Rain-2007, even though I am now Rain-2010. I realize this will be counter to Eliezer’s standard, “Do not listen to Eliezer-2001 - he was wrong,” but that’s not how I mean it. Instead, I’m saying that, at the point of information-glut and focus on a topic, I’m far more clickable than at some distant point in the future. I should trust that decision unless I’m willing to go through the same process of gather, read, learn, focus, and decide anew. That past click will be more right than any decision I make removed from that focus. It also means that you should trust your “instincts”—heresy, I know, considering the inherent biases, but a click really does “feel” different from a template-bias response.
One other thing I do, but which I’m not sure contributes to clickability, is avoid deep jargon or too-specific thinking. The click seems related to generalized thought processes rather than specific verbiage. So, for example, rather than reading and learning what Kolomogorov complexity is (probably spelled wrong—as I said, I’m avoiding this stuff), I’d rather do a roleplaying exercise where my character exists at various technology levels, and generalize the universe around them. This step may seem at odds with the information-glut step, but I combine the two—when reading, every link I check often has only one or two sentences, maybe a paragraph or a whole page, that I actually “use” as in try to retain. The rest of it, I consider useless/worthless, and discard as best I can.
Which reminds me, I also ignore / forget information in order to more carefully focus on what I’m thinking about in the present (this is part of why I have to trust my past self so much). I try not to overload myself with knowledge or memories that don’t help me make decisions now or in the anticipated future. Some people find this frustrating, as I don’t remember I pushed them down the stairs when I was 10, but that thing in my childhood was so different from me that I found no point in remembering much of it.
I think the click is a result of years of gathering information and thinking on (potentially general) topics, the ability to rapidly change, the ability to recognize how it feels to click, and to place the trust in that feeling that it deserves. It seems to be a trained skill, starting with (prerequisite of?) a good memory.
The one thing I’m getting out of writing this post is that the ‘click’ you describe is, in my opinion, not simple or a single effect, but rather a complex interaction of events, abilities, and predispositions. It may not be reproducible or trainable.
Sorry this post is late. Another part of the information-gathering strategy is to let conversations resolve themselves (wait a few days after a post) and read it all at once so points and counterpoints are all neatly together at the same time.
Other phrases to describe “click”: intuition, grok, cached understanding, pattern recognition.
I especially like the last one, pattern recognition—click feels a lot like seeing a giant web of things, and how it all fits together, or how one piece completes that image—using a sort of mental glyph or a simple phrase to represent complex, sophisticated ideas as a singular, understandable entity.
That image also implies that one won’t ‘click’ until one has acquired all the necessary pieces in the web, which is how I would answer the question “What does it take to get someone to get it?”
As applies specifically to cryonics, I remember my sole rejection was a lack of affordability, and it turned out I was wrong about that. I think the first time I heard about the possibility I was 9 years old, and it clicked for me then—but until just a few weeks ago, I was laboring under the misconception that you basically have to be rich to get it. That click can be painful when it generates conflicts between your utility function and the circumstances of your life.
I wonder if that might not lead some people to reject cryonics who’d otherwise be amenable, on the basis of false information—to want it is painful or feels like a desire unfulfillable, so they seek to eliminate the dissonance by finding reasons it’s not truly possible/desireable. Certainly this doesn’t seem to explain the typical rejection I’ve encountered very well, but I can think of a number of geeky/intellectual types (until recently, m’self included) whose main issue seemed to be that it didn’t seem within reach.
(And on that note, nervous about hearing back on life insurance quotes—I’m poor, so if for some reason my health issues render me uninsurable, it’s gonna be pretty painful. Facing that uncertainty very nearly stopped me from applying anytime soon even after I’d found out it might in principle be possible!)
I use the phrase, “My subconscious is way smarter than I am,” to describe this event. My best guess is that my
subconscious has built-in pathways to notice logical flaws, lack of evidence, and has already chewed through problems
over many years of thought (“creating a path”?), and I have trained myself to follow these “feelings” and form them into
conscious words/thoughts/actions. It seems to be related to memory and number of facts in some ways, as the more
reading I have done on a topic, the better I’m able to click on related topics. I do not use the word “feeling” lightly—it really
does feel like something, and it gives me a sort of built-in filter.
I seem to experience a lot of this too. The best interpretation I have is that my mind forms association-chains well, and my hobbies and interests have led me to develop some really large, well-indexed networks of information about certain parts of the real world—so attempting to extend those, or make use of them in reasoning analogies, or just spot meaningful related patterns is exceptionally effortless. It’s got some fairly obvious downsides, at least in terms of being able to articulate the “click” to people after the fact. I’m actually kind of terrible at arguing a point because of this—on a subconscious level, it’s not my strongest method of reasoning, and being on the autistic spectrum has given me a weird perceptual relationship to language.
As part of the filtering process in information gathering, I also apply a simple test before going very far: “how related is this to what I want to know?” If it’s not related, generally ignore or skim. If it is related, mine it for important info (the nuggets / truly useful sentences I mention above).
I also leave myself constantly open to new information on a topic I’m “actively” researching. No thought or action on it in days, then somebody makes a comment, and I think, “that fits in with everything else, and is added to my mental store on the focus topic.”
Note also that the most common adjective used to describe me is “weird” (except by those who are sensitive to status effects, in which case it’s “smart”). I have no idea if clicks as I feel them are typical among more normal people.
Thank you for writing this post. It’s one of the topics that has kept me from participating in the discussion here—I click on things very often, as a trained and sustained act of rationality, and often find it difficult to verbalize why I feel I am right and others wrong. But when I feel that I have clicked, then I have very high confidence in my rightness, as determined by observation and many years of evidence that my clicks are, indeed, right.
I use the phrase, “My subconscious is way smarter than I am,” to describe this event. My best guess is that my subconscious has built-in pathways to notice logical flaws, lack of evidence, and has already chewed through problems over many years of thought (“creating a path”?), and I have trained myself to follow these “feelings” and form them into conscious words/thoughts/actions. It seems to be related to memory and number of facts in some ways, as the more reading I have done on a topic, the better I’m able to click on related topics. I do not use the word “feeling” lightly—it really does feel like something, and it gives me a sort of built-in filter.
I click on people (small movements, small statements leading to huge understanding gains, to the point where I can literally say what they’re thinking from the slightest gesture), I click on tests (memorization), I click on big topics (X-risks, shut-up-and-multiply), philosophy, etc. Quantum mechanics, I have failed to click anything, and have been avoiding.
What I’ve found is that my click decisions, when thought is applied, have dozens of reasons behind them, all unrealized at the time I was able to make the decision. Writing them all out afterward makes for an incredibly powerful argument in favor of my decision, and oftentimes shows that I really did weigh all the positives and negatives, just not in a rigorous ‘proof’. Like not showing your work on a math problem, but still being able to look at the numbers and know the result.
One of the things I had to eliminate for my clickiness to become truly powerful was the desire to hold onto current beliefs. Openness to change is essential to letting the click take over your thoughts and lead you in a new direction. People get frustrated when arguing with me on occasion, as I will be a strong proponent of a specific position, then they present to me a single fact that demolishes it, and I will immediately begin arguing a new position using that fact as support. They typically laugh and shake their head, as if I had never supported my previous position and am now just arguing for argument’s sake, when in reality, I clicked on the new fact and realized the implications, adjusting my beliefs accordingly, all in an instant.
Another thing which I’ve noticed I do which helps greatly with click thinking is absorb a huge amount of information on a specific topic. When I need to make an important decision, I get books from the library, I hit up google and click links out to 25+ pages of results, I check for authoritative forums and lurk there, reading, learning, rarely asking questions but picking up as much as I can none-the-less. I did this for WoW, for audio tech, for financial investment, for Singularity and rationality topics… and after I’ve spent a few months at integrating myself with that information center, I’m able to click like crazy on all the important things. Some topics, once I’ve clicked, I drop it and move on, but others I continue to practice and read, like first order philosophy. Thought experiments (roleplaying, etc.) tend to help if the topic is complex enough. I play a character in my head, or in a game, for a month or so, then when I need to ask a really important question about the topic the character was designed around, I just click to the answer without consciously thinking, because I just know. For clicking on people, this involves observation and spending time around that person, and asking lots of questions about what they’re thinking (I’ve gotten very good at asking without seeming annoying).
In addition to being open to change and gorging on data, I’ve found it very important to trust yourself. And by this I don’t mean, ‘trust that you’re making the right decision’, but as an almost ‘trust that other person who used your name at the time but who you don’t even remember or think like any more’. In a sense, trust Rain-2007, even though I am now Rain-2010. I realize this will be counter to Eliezer’s standard, “Do not listen to Eliezer-2001 - he was wrong,” but that’s not how I mean it. Instead, I’m saying that, at the point of information-glut and focus on a topic, I’m far more clickable than at some distant point in the future. I should trust that decision unless I’m willing to go through the same process of gather, read, learn, focus, and decide anew. That past click will be more right than any decision I make removed from that focus. It also means that you should trust your “instincts”—heresy, I know, considering the inherent biases, but a click really does “feel” different from a template-bias response.
One other thing I do, but which I’m not sure contributes to clickability, is avoid deep jargon or too-specific thinking. The click seems related to generalized thought processes rather than specific verbiage. So, for example, rather than reading and learning what Kolomogorov complexity is (probably spelled wrong—as I said, I’m avoiding this stuff), I’d rather do a roleplaying exercise where my character exists at various technology levels, and generalize the universe around them. This step may seem at odds with the information-glut step, but I combine the two—when reading, every link I check often has only one or two sentences, maybe a paragraph or a whole page, that I actually “use” as in try to retain. The rest of it, I consider useless/worthless, and discard as best I can.
Which reminds me, I also ignore / forget information in order to more carefully focus on what I’m thinking about in the present (this is part of why I have to trust my past self so much). I try not to overload myself with knowledge or memories that don’t help me make decisions now or in the anticipated future. Some people find this frustrating, as I don’t remember I pushed them down the stairs when I was 10, but that thing in my childhood was so different from me that I found no point in remembering much of it.
I think the click is a result of years of gathering information and thinking on (potentially general) topics, the ability to rapidly change, the ability to recognize how it feels to click, and to place the trust in that feeling that it deserves. It seems to be a trained skill, starting with (prerequisite of?) a good memory.
The one thing I’m getting out of writing this post is that the ‘click’ you describe is, in my opinion, not simple or a single effect, but rather a complex interaction of events, abilities, and predispositions. It may not be reproducible or trainable.
Sorry this post is late. Another part of the information-gathering strategy is to let conversations resolve themselves (wait a few days after a post) and read it all at once so points and counterpoints are all neatly together at the same time.
Other phrases to describe “click”: intuition, grok, cached understanding, pattern recognition.
I especially like the last one, pattern recognition—click feels a lot like seeing a giant web of things, and how it all fits together, or how one piece completes that image—using a sort of mental glyph or a simple phrase to represent complex, sophisticated ideas as a singular, understandable entity.
Good summary.
That image also implies that one won’t ‘click’ until one has acquired all the necessary pieces in the web, which is how I would answer the question “What does it take to get someone to get it?”
As applies specifically to cryonics, I remember my sole rejection was a lack of affordability, and it turned out I was wrong about that. I think the first time I heard about the possibility I was 9 years old, and it clicked for me then—but until just a few weeks ago, I was laboring under the misconception that you basically have to be rich to get it. That click can be painful when it generates conflicts between your utility function and the circumstances of your life.
I wonder if that might not lead some people to reject cryonics who’d otherwise be amenable, on the basis of false information—to want it is painful or feels like a desire unfulfillable, so they seek to eliminate the dissonance by finding reasons it’s not truly possible/desireable. Certainly this doesn’t seem to explain the typical rejection I’ve encountered very well, but I can think of a number of geeky/intellectual types (until recently, m’self included) whose main issue seemed to be that it didn’t seem within reach.
(And on that note, nervous about hearing back on life insurance quotes—I’m poor, so if for some reason my health issues render me uninsurable, it’s gonna be pretty painful. Facing that uncertainty very nearly stopped me from applying anytime soon even after I’d found out it might in principle be possible!)
I seem to experience a lot of this too. The best interpretation I have is that my mind forms association-chains well, and my hobbies and interests have led me to develop some really large, well-indexed networks of information about certain parts of the real world—so attempting to extend those, or make use of them in reasoning analogies, or just spot meaningful related patterns is exceptionally effortless. It’s got some fairly obvious downsides, at least in terms of being able to articulate the “click” to people after the fact. I’m actually kind of terrible at arguing a point because of this—on a subconscious level, it’s not my strongest method of reasoning, and being on the autistic spectrum has given me a weird perceptual relationship to language.
As part of the filtering process in information gathering, I also apply a simple test before going very far: “how related is this to what I want to know?” If it’s not related, generally ignore or skim. If it is related, mine it for important info (the nuggets / truly useful sentences I mention above).
I also leave myself constantly open to new information on a topic I’m “actively” researching. No thought or action on it in days, then somebody makes a comment, and I think, “that fits in with everything else, and is added to my mental store on the focus topic.”
Note also that the most common adjective used to describe me is “weird” (except by those who are sensitive to status effects, in which case it’s “smart”). I have no idea if clicks as I feel them are typical among more normal people.