I originally skimmed the first two paragraphs, failed to see stuff I expected to learn from, and moved on. Largely because the content looked fairly general and familiar. Don’t take offense, but it looked like a bland opinion article for a position I already agreed with. I just scanned back through more carefully since I saw your comment asking for responses, and it still looks like that to me.
Try adding personal anecdotes of occasions that point to principles that surprised you and so might surprise us, links to the research literature, or specific practical suggestions for forming better beliefs. Or, if you think posts are ignoring this point, quote from specific posts or comments that you think get this wrong; debates add interest.
Another thing you might try is asking for comments that help with some specific question that’s bothering you. My post on how not to get caught by consistency pressures got no comments except “nice”, basically, until I added a comment that specifically asked for the kinds of comments I was looking for. And then it got fifty-some comments; telling people what I needed help with may have given people an entry point for useful conversation.
I’m curious about why you think I’m setting up a straw man. The heuristics and biases literature in psychology seems to focus on the costs of heuristic, but not on its potential. I illustrated this point with the quote from Tversky and Kahneman: “in general, these heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors.” When I searched Overcoming Bias about heuristic, which I linked to in my post, it is mainly discussed the same way it is discussed in the psychological literature. Perhaps computer science, AI research, and mathematics take a more positive view of heuristic than psychology does.
I didn’t have any “aha” moments reading this—I felt like I already appreciated that heuristics are indispensible. I wouldn’t use terms as strong as “obvious or trivial”, but “known to me” would cover it.
Mostly A, and a little of D. The term heuristic has positive connotations to me, since it brings to mind Polya and related ideas more than it does cognitive bias. I know that many cognitive biases are a result of heuristics being applied inappropriately, but I think of that more in terms of our abusing heuristics (which are still great) than there being some inherent problem or negative aspect of the heuristics themselves.
Very general. It’s a hard problem to make much headway on such a broad topic—starting with heuristics for a narrow range of problem solving might give good direction for how to think about the wider problem.
Got that one from proving things in combinatorics. :D
Incidentally, we will see what comes of Tricki, the mathematical problem-solving technique wiki—it goes fully live in a week or so.
Shall I take the lack of comments to mean that:
a) Everyone agrees with my points and thinks that they are obvious or trivial
b) Nobody is interested in this topic
c) TL:DR
d) This post is very general and people are waiting for me to get more specific
e) Nobody knows what heuristic is, so they don’t read the post
f) ???
Mostly D. A little A, but mostly the first, less negative half of A.
I originally skimmed the first two paragraphs, failed to see stuff I expected to learn from, and moved on. Largely because the content looked fairly general and familiar. Don’t take offense, but it looked like a bland opinion article for a position I already agreed with. I just scanned back through more carefully since I saw your comment asking for responses, and it still looks like that to me.
Try adding personal anecdotes of occasions that point to principles that surprised you and so might surprise us, links to the research literature, or specific practical suggestions for forming better beliefs. Or, if you think posts are ignoring this point, quote from specific posts or comments that you think get this wrong; debates add interest.
Another thing you might try is asking for comments that help with some specific question that’s bothering you. My post on how not to get caught by consistency pressures got no comments except “nice”, basically, until I added a comment that specifically asked for the kinds of comments I was looking for. And then it got fifty-some comments; telling people what I needed help with may have given people an entry point for useful conversation.
The article looks as if you are arguing, but at the same time the arguments seem so obvious that you can only argue against an invisible strawman.
I’m curious about why you think I’m setting up a straw man. The heuristics and biases literature in psychology seems to focus on the costs of heuristic, but not on its potential. I illustrated this point with the quote from Tversky and Kahneman: “in general, these heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors.” When I searched Overcoming Bias about heuristic, which I linked to in my post, it is mainly discussed the same way it is discussed in the psychological literature. Perhaps computer science, AI research, and mathematics take a more positive view of heuristic than psychology does.
I didn’t have any “aha” moments reading this—I felt like I already appreciated that heuristics are indispensible. I wouldn’t use terms as strong as “obvious or trivial”, but “known to me” would cover it.
Mostly A, and a little of D. The term heuristic has positive connotations to me, since it brings to mind Polya and related ideas more than it does cognitive bias. I know that many cognitive biases are a result of heuristics being applied inappropriately, but I think of that more in terms of our abusing heuristics (which are still great) than there being some inherent problem or negative aspect of the heuristics themselves.
Very general. It’s a hard problem to make much headway on such a broad topic—starting with heuristics for a narrow range of problem solving might give good direction for how to think about the wider problem.
Got that one from proving things in combinatorics. :D
Incidentally, we will see what comes of Tricki, the mathematical problem-solving technique wiki—it goes fully live in a week or so.
I read it. It’s a good post; I just didn’t have anything specific to say in reaction.