I just asked someone for constructive criticism and was told my article lacks a point.
Here’s the point I had in mind:
Consider training your brain to scream “Error! Look for a different way to do this” whenever you’re having a conversation, writing an essay, reading a book, cooking a meal, or mentally rehearsing your views about (the Singularity / why so-and-so’s wrong / whatever)… without being curious about something.
For me, gaining this habit even partially has boosted my learning and my productivity—maybe more than any other rationality learning I’ve managed in the last year.
“Make sure you’re actually aiming for something” is one of those pieces of rationality advice that’s so obvious, one might think it doesn’t need stating. But for me, at least, implementing this wasn’t automatic at all. So, if you’re like me, consider practicing this habit. It might make your life a lot better.
I don’t understand why you say “without being curious about something” instead of more generally “without having a goal to achieve”. It seems to me that the goal of learning some specific thing is just one sort of goal that one might be trying to achieve. And even then, when pursuing your curiosity, you might want to ask your self, what goal will this knowledge help me to achieve.
You (and Nesov) may be correct that I should instead say “without having a goal to achieve”.
The reason I didn’t (though I considered it) was that:
“Am I engaged, interested, and updating?” is an easier thing for me to check for than “do I have (either a learning or an accomplishment) purpose in mind?”.
Personally, I find I can believe I have a purpose while doing a lot of inefficient busy-work. And I find that if I make sure I’m curious—curious about how to achieve my goal, which of my efforts are/aren’t helping, etc. -- I often notice short-cuts or task substitutions that accomplish more, faster.
However, 1 and 2 may both just indicate that I should learn, better, what purpose feels like. Anyone have any tips for noticing purpose and lost purpose, along the lines of Johnicholas and Theotherdave’s list of what stupidity feels like?
A worthwhile goal is one that either you reflectively endorse as a terminal value, or a subgoal of a worthwhile goal.
It may not be practical to always trace your goals back to a terminal value, so heuristics such as checking for curiosity may useful, with the usual caveat that they will be less accurate than checking the hard way. I wonder if this heuristic works well for you because you are intuitively good at being curious about things worth knowing, so asking if you are curious taps into this intuitive strength.
Personally, I find I can believe I have a purpose while doing a lot of inefficient busy-work.
One technique that comes from my experience in computer science/software engineering, is to be aware of the resource requirements for solving the problem you are working on, where resource usually refers to time. For problems that seem to have large requirements, ask is there an approach with smaller resource requirements, or is there some reason it has to be that way? If you find a better approach take it, if it has to be that way, do it the hard way. If you find yourself getting stuck on these questions after putting in an appropriate amount of effort, this technique is not helping, revert to doing it the hard way. But the key here is to be aware of your requirements so you know to ask if they could be better.
I don’t think that framing this specifically in terms of curiosity is a good idea, as distinct from just detecting useless activity (i.e. lost purposes). Same thing as what JGWeissman said.
For example, when applied to my revisiting of basics of mathematics/logic over the last year or so, it could well give a false positive, since I wasn’t particularly curious about any tool/idea I was learning, and I was not trying to solve any particular problem that better knowledge of math would help me with. The goal was simply to obtain better skills, so that thinking about decision theory can become more clear/fruitful, in whatever ways.
I (also?) disagree with the criticism. Your article immediately made sense to me. It’s a valuable reminder (increase the frequency with which you think and act purposefully), and a suggestion for a valuable habit that can serve to do so.
Explanations of why pieces I’ve written are boring or unclear, or any other thoughts on how I might write better. I’d appreciate more such criticism, if you have some to share.
I just asked someone for constructive criticism and was told my article lacks a point.
Here’s the point I had in mind:
Consider training your brain to scream “Error! Look for a different way to do this” whenever you’re having a conversation, writing an essay, reading a book, cooking a meal, or mentally rehearsing your views about (the Singularity / why so-and-so’s wrong / whatever)… without being curious about something.
For me, gaining this habit even partially has boosted my learning and my productivity—maybe more than any other rationality learning I’ve managed in the last year.
“Make sure you’re actually aiming for something” is one of those pieces of rationality advice that’s so obvious, one might think it doesn’t need stating. But for me, at least, implementing this wasn’t automatic at all. So, if you’re like me, consider practicing this habit. It might make your life a lot better.
I don’t understand why you say “without being curious about something” instead of more generally “without having a goal to achieve”. It seems to me that the goal of learning some specific thing is just one sort of goal that one might be trying to achieve. And even then, when pursuing your curiosity, you might want to ask your self, what goal will this knowledge help me to achieve.
You (and Nesov) may be correct that I should instead say “without having a goal to achieve”.
The reason I didn’t (though I considered it) was that:
“Am I engaged, interested, and updating?” is an easier thing for me to check for than “do I have (either a learning or an accomplishment) purpose in mind?”.
Personally, I find I can believe I have a purpose while doing a lot of inefficient busy-work. And I find that if I make sure I’m curious—curious about how to achieve my goal, which of my efforts are/aren’t helping, etc. -- I often notice short-cuts or task substitutions that accomplish more, faster.
However, 1 and 2 may both just indicate that I should learn, better, what purpose feels like. Anyone have any tips for noticing purpose and lost purpose, along the lines of Johnicholas and Theotherdave’s list of what stupidity feels like?
A worthwhile goal is one that either you reflectively endorse as a terminal value, or a subgoal of a worthwhile goal.
It may not be practical to always trace your goals back to a terminal value, so heuristics such as checking for curiosity may useful, with the usual caveat that they will be less accurate than checking the hard way. I wonder if this heuristic works well for you because you are intuitively good at being curious about things worth knowing, so asking if you are curious taps into this intuitive strength.
One technique that comes from my experience in computer science/software engineering, is to be aware of the resource requirements for solving the problem you are working on, where resource usually refers to time. For problems that seem to have large requirements, ask is there an approach with smaller resource requirements, or is there some reason it has to be that way? If you find a better approach take it, if it has to be that way, do it the hard way. If you find yourself getting stuck on these questions after putting in an appropriate amount of effort, this technique is not helping, revert to doing it the hard way. But the key here is to be aware of your requirements so you know to ask if they could be better.
I don’t think that framing this specifically in terms of curiosity is a good idea, as distinct from just detecting useless activity (i.e. lost purposes). Same thing as what JGWeissman said.
For example, when applied to my revisiting of basics of mathematics/logic over the last year or so, it could well give a false positive, since I wasn’t particularly curious about any tool/idea I was learning, and I was not trying to solve any particular problem that better knowledge of math would help me with. The goal was simply to obtain better skills, so that thinking about decision theory can become more clear/fruitful, in whatever ways.
I (also?) disagree with the criticism. Your article immediately made sense to me. It’s a valuable reminder (increase the frequency with which you think and act purposefully), and a suggestion for a valuable habit that can serve to do so.
What are you looking for when you ask people for “constructive criticism”?
Explanations of why pieces I’ve written are boring or unclear, or any other thoughts on how I might write better. I’d appreciate more such criticism, if you have some to share.