What should a rationalist do about confidence? Should he lean harder towards
relentlessly psyching himself up to feel like he can do anything, or
having true beliefs about his abilities in all areas, coldly predicting his likelihood of success in a given domain?
I find it is possible to do both. Just because you know there is a 95% chance of failure doesn’t mean you can’t be confident and act as if you are in the 5%. Abstract belief about probability doesn’t necessarily naturally get built into emotional state and there is little good reason to deliberately do so if the state is undesirable. Mind you self aware confidence can be a hard skill to learn for some...
I find it is possible to do both. Just because you know there is a 95% chance of failure doesn’t mean you can’t be confident and act as if you are in the 5%. Abstract belief about probability doesn’t necessarily naturally get built into emotional state and there is little good reason to deliberately do so if the state is undesirable. Mind you self aware confidence can be a hard skill to learn for some...