A lot of your impressions seem to go something like “the workshop was useful because it made me think about X, and that’s more important than specific answers/techniques it gave for X”. Lately, I’ve been noticing more and more examples of this around me. A particular book would offer a frankly poor argument in favor of Y, but I’d still recommend it to my friends because reading it makes you think about Y and reach your own conclusion. An online community centered around boosting Z in your life may be somewhat cultish and prone to pseudo-scientific explanations about why more Z is awesome, but it’s still worth reading their FAQs because you didn’t even think of Z as something that might be adjusted.
This is one of my favorite hammers now, and it finds nails everywhere. So much advice turns out to be helpful indirectly, because it makes you reflect carefully on its domain. The actual direct value of the advice may be almost irrelevant, be it good or bad: the indirect contribution is much greater anyway.
The meta advice is often very useful, but human brain probably needs to be given a few specific examples first, and only then it can appreciate the meta aspect.
As a simplified example, if you tell me to think about my diet, my brain will probably not generate very good ideas, if I have never considered the problem before. If you describe me one specific diet, I can follow it blindly, or I can follow it partially, so I have a few options, but they are all in the same direction. If you describe me a few specific diets, I start seeing the whole space that I can navigate. Now I see that it’s not just about “how much?” but also about “how specifically?”; I start understanding how other people generated their solutions, I see there is a model of the human metabolism and that people generate hypotheses about this model. Now I am able to construct my own diet, based on my beliefs, but also on my specific needs and preferences. -- In theory I should be able to think about this even without the specific examples (which how the first specific examples ever were generated), but it’s hundred times easier this way.
The point is there is a mental jump from “no solution” to “a solution”, and then another jump from “a solution” to “a solution-space”. To make the second jump it is good to have more than one specific example. So it would probably be even better to give your friends three different books on the same topic, to show them it is possible to make different opinions about the subject, and they are not limited only to accept or reject one specific advice.
Yes, I think that’s a very concise summary of a lot of what I was trying to say; thanks!
But “think about X” may not be a strong enough phrasing; it sounds like something that’s happening in System 2 but a lot of what happened because of the workshop took place in System 1.
A lot of your impressions seem to go something like “the workshop was useful because it made me think about X, and that’s more important than specific answers/techniques it gave for X”. Lately, I’ve been noticing more and more examples of this around me. A particular book would offer a frankly poor argument in favor of Y, but I’d still recommend it to my friends because reading it makes you think about Y and reach your own conclusion. An online community centered around boosting Z in your life may be somewhat cultish and prone to pseudo-scientific explanations about why more Z is awesome, but it’s still worth reading their FAQs because you didn’t even think of Z as something that might be adjusted.
This is one of my favorite hammers now, and it finds nails everywhere. So much advice turns out to be helpful indirectly, because it makes you reflect carefully on its domain. The actual direct value of the advice may be almost irrelevant, be it good or bad: the indirect contribution is much greater anyway.
The meta advice is often very useful, but human brain probably needs to be given a few specific examples first, and only then it can appreciate the meta aspect.
As a simplified example, if you tell me to think about my diet, my brain will probably not generate very good ideas, if I have never considered the problem before. If you describe me one specific diet, I can follow it blindly, or I can follow it partially, so I have a few options, but they are all in the same direction. If you describe me a few specific diets, I start seeing the whole space that I can navigate. Now I see that it’s not just about “how much?” but also about “how specifically?”; I start understanding how other people generated their solutions, I see there is a model of the human metabolism and that people generate hypotheses about this model. Now I am able to construct my own diet, based on my beliefs, but also on my specific needs and preferences. -- In theory I should be able to think about this even without the specific examples (which how the first specific examples ever were generated), but it’s hundred times easier this way.
The point is there is a mental jump from “no solution” to “a solution”, and then another jump from “a solution” to “a solution-space”. To make the second jump it is good to have more than one specific example. So it would probably be even better to give your friends three different books on the same topic, to show them it is possible to make different opinions about the subject, and they are not limited only to accept or reject one specific advice.
Yes, I think that’s a very concise summary of a lot of what I was trying to say; thanks!
But “think about X” may not be a strong enough phrasing; it sounds like something that’s happening in System 2 but a lot of what happened because of the workshop took place in System 1.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/07/13/the-generalized-hawthorne-effect/
Very apposite, thanks!