It seems to be commonly accepted that pressing the “Try Harder” button does not work.
[From that linked post, link broke when text was copied:]
But just noticing yourself pushing the Try Harder button isn’t enough—you need to do something stronger to change this. You need to find strategies that actually work.
There’s a distinction that could be made, that your approach wasn’t just ‘try harder to work at the desk’. It was ‘change the environment and try harder’. (also see the next section below)
As a rationalist, and as a knower, I should have recognized that perhaps my hypothesis was flawed, and tried a different approach. Instead, I opted to try the same strategy again—I repeated the experiment. I did not attempt to change anything, and simply did what I had done earlier. But this time, I tried harder, and resolved to be more committed.
Sometimes it seems like there’s a mistake that happens around ‘reproducibility’. It goes something like:
1 (One**) study is enough (this is usually implicit)
If it’s replicated then it’s good.
And, uh...maybe it’s just a problem with articles about science, and not the approach people doing the experiments have, but that’s missing something. Fire is reproducible with matches—reliably. And while there are conditions that might mess with that, we know what they are—wind, rain, soggy matches, etc. Not everything has to be at that point, but fire is not something that has only been reproduced once. It’s reliably, systematically, reproducible, and fairly easily so.
Experiments (on something) don’t necessarily start out like fire. (Also, new skills, don’t necessarily just happen instantly. If they do—that’s fantastic, and I’m really interested in your methodology.)
(This seems related to ‘try harder’ except it’s usually expressed as ‘something something patience’.)
I could just as easily have failed by doing this, however, so the interesting question becomes: when do you stick with a theory, even though reality appears to contradict it, and when do you abandon it in favour of a new one?
Having more theories can help.
While reading this post, I thought, ’maybe I’d use my desk more if:
I put it in a different spot.′
The chair was more comfortable, or more suitable for working at that desk.′
Personally, I’m in a different spot where using my bed like that isn’t comfortable*, so I don’t do it a lot. But if I changed that and moved my desk to be next to my bed, would I be able to use paper on it? Or is there a height difference that makes that not work?
*Your hypothesis/approach is simpler than mine above and more general. It was immediately clear how it might (and might not) be relevant to me. But there’s not enough info about your setup for other people to make a lot of inferences like: ‘could the position of the desk relative to solar illumination be relevant?’ Are the desk and the bed in the same room?′ So it’s easier for me to make guesses like ‘this is how my setup can be improved’.
Offhand this would suggest that scientific knowledge may grow slowly around ‘how to make working at your desk more productive’ versus ‘which airport has the most comfortable chairs’, because there’s more shared space. But overall at home knowledge might advance faster because/when more time is spent there. It seems like this is especially because it’s the same place. And yet, trying out a bunch of different environments and seeing what works best might be faster (if they were productive), even if it doesn’t have the same time concentrated in one location (aside from, say, ‘your airport’, and ones you go through a lot).
**The way the I’s (capital i) look exactly like 1′s (ones) in this font look the same, can create ambiguity.
There’s a distinction that could be made, that your approach wasn’t just ‘try harder to work at the desk’. It was ‘change the environment and try harder’. (also see the next section below)
Sometimes it seems like there’s a mistake that happens around ‘reproducibility’. It goes something like:
1 (One**) study is enough (this is usually implicit)
If it’s replicated then it’s good.
And, uh...maybe it’s just a problem with articles about science, and not the approach people doing the experiments have, but that’s missing something. Fire is reproducible with matches—reliably. And while there are conditions that might mess with that, we know what they are—wind, rain, soggy matches, etc. Not everything has to be at that point, but fire is not something that has only been reproduced once. It’s reliably, systematically, reproducible, and fairly easily so.
Experiments (on something) don’t necessarily start out like fire. (Also, new skills, don’t necessarily just happen instantly. If they do—that’s fantastic, and I’m really interested in your methodology.)
(This seems related to ‘try harder’ except it’s usually expressed as ‘something something patience’.)
Having more theories can help.
While reading this post, I thought, ’maybe I’d use my desk more if:
I put it in a different spot.′
The chair was more comfortable, or more suitable for working at that desk.′
Personally, I’m in a different spot where using my bed like that isn’t comfortable*, so I don’t do it a lot. But if I changed that and moved my desk to be next to my bed, would I be able to use paper on it? Or is there a height difference that makes that not work?
*Your hypothesis/approach is simpler than mine above and more general. It was immediately clear how it might (and might not) be relevant to me. But there’s not enough info about your setup for other people to make a lot of inferences like: ‘could the position of the desk relative to solar illumination be relevant?’ Are the desk and the bed in the same room?′ So it’s easier for me to make guesses like ‘this is how my setup can be improved’.
Offhand this would suggest that scientific knowledge may grow slowly around ‘how to make working at your desk more productive’ versus ‘which airport has the most comfortable chairs’, because there’s more shared space. But overall at home knowledge might advance faster because/when more time is spent there. It seems like this is especially because it’s the same place. And yet, trying out a bunch of different environments and seeing what works best might be faster (if they were productive), even if it doesn’t have the same time concentrated in one location (aside from, say, ‘your airport’, and ones you go through a lot).
**The way the I’s (capital i) look exactly like 1′s (ones) in this font look the same, can create ambiguity.