“It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously,” Daniel Kahneman noted, “but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.”
I’m not sure what this is saying. Should we assume people are overconfident? Always, or only when they claim high confidence? Should we just ignore people’s confidence claims entirely?
The solution here might be that it does mainly tell you they have constructed a coherent story in their mind, but that having constructed a coherent story in their mind is still usefull evidence for being true depending on what else you know abaut the person, and thus worth telling. If the tone of the book was differnt, it might say:
“I have constructed a coherent story in my mind that it is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.”
I think it’s probably false if you treat it as the claim that every person who’s highly confident that an event happens has constructed a coherent story in his mind.
On the other hand that reading doesn’t seem to be the intended message.
There is some small number of people whom I trust when they say they very confident. They can explain the reasons why they came to a belief and the counterarguments. Most other highly confident statements I look upon with suspicion, and I might even take the confidence as evidence against the claim. Many very confident people seem unaware of counterarguments, are entirely dismissive of them, or wear as a badge of pride that they have explicitly refused to consider them.
There are others whose intuition I will trust with high confidence on certain topics, significantly because they are aware that they are exercising intuition. They may not know how they know something, but at least they know they don’t know how they know it, which tends to get them to the right confidence level.
Superforcasting, p. 85
I’m not sure what this is saying. Should we assume people are overconfident? Always, or only when they claim high confidence? Should we just ignore people’s confidence claims entirely?
I love this quote. But this...
...strikes me as a highly confident declaration for which the quoted is simultaneously urging me to be skeptical.
I’d imagine the book lays out his case as to why I ought listen to his counsel. I’d be interested to dig into this.
The solution here might be that it does mainly tell you they have constructed a coherent story in their mind, but that having constructed a coherent story in their mind is still usefull evidence for being true depending on what else you know abaut the person, and thus worth telling. If the tone of the book was differnt, it might say:
I think it’s probably false if you treat it as the claim that every person who’s highly confident that an event happens has constructed a coherent story in his mind.
On the other hand that reading doesn’t seem to be the intended message.
It says “mainly”. That’s vague-ish. I assumed greater than 50%; probably something like 75% of the time or more.
There is some small number of people whom I trust when they say they very confident. They can explain the reasons why they came to a belief and the counterarguments. Most other highly confident statements I look upon with suspicion, and I might even take the confidence as evidence against the claim. Many very confident people seem unaware of counterarguments, are entirely dismissive of them, or wear as a badge of pride that they have explicitly refused to consider them.
There are others whose intuition I will trust with high confidence on certain topics, significantly because they are aware that they are exercising intuition. They may not know how they know something, but at least they know they don’t know how they know it, which tends to get them to the right confidence level.