Surprise and confusion are two different things[1], but surprise usually goes along with confusion. I think it’s a good rationalist skill-to-cultivate to use “surprise” as a trigger to practice noticing confusion, because you don’t get many opportunities to do that. I think for most people this is worth doing for minor surprises, not so much because you’re that likely to need to do a major update, but because it’s just good mental hygiene/practice.
Surprise and confusion are two different things[1], but surprise usually goes along with confusion. I think it’s a good rationalist skill-to-cultivate to use “surprise” as a trigger to practice noticing confusion, because you don’t get many opportunities to do that. I think for most people this is worth doing for minor surprises, not so much because you’re that likely to need to do a major update, but because it’s just good mental hygiene/practice.
Surprise is “an unlikely thing happened.” Confusion is “a thing I don’t have a good explanation for happened.”