I spent a long time coming up with theories about how I work and why, and it was a great waste of time. I now find it a lot more reliable to base my actions on generalizations about most or all humans, rather than coming up with idiosyncratic theories about myself. Idiosyncratic theories are likely to be based in introspection, which is notoriously unreliable and which humans are known for systematically overvaluing. (See introspection illusion.) I’ve found that a good rule of thumb is: Don’t use an idiosyncratic theory unless you also would’ve generated that theory about someone else by observing their current behavior and having knowledge of their past behavior. And even when idiosyncratic theories seem to work, they more likely work because they’re also explainable using the aforementioned generalizations.
I spent a long time coming up with theories about how I work and why, and it was a great waste of time. I now find it a lot more reliable to base my actions on generalizations about most or all humans, rather than coming up with idiosyncratic theories about myself. Idiosyncratic theories are likely to be based in introspection, which is notoriously unreliable and which humans are known for systematically overvaluing. (See introspection illusion.) I’ve found that a good rule of thumb is: Don’t use an idiosyncratic theory unless you also would’ve generated that theory about someone else by observing their current behavior and having knowledge of their past behavior. And even when idiosyncratic theories seem to work, they more likely work because they’re also explainable using the aforementioned generalizations.
This was a very useful topic to bring to the conversation, but I think I may have framed what I had in mind poorly. Did the edit clarify?