When Kahneman and Tversky described System I and System II thinking, they used it to categorize and explain modes of thought. Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s not always easy to determine which one I’m doing. In particular, I often find myself believing that I’m making a consciously calculated answer, when in fact I am inappropriately relying on haphazard intuition.
I don’t know exactly how to solve this problem. The strategy that seems best is to create a “System II Safeguard” that ensures I am employing System II when I mean to do so.
There are certain things I do already that seem to function as System II Safeguards. The most general is the creation of forms, checklists, tables, and protocols, and using them to structure my work as I go about solving an object-level problem.
Here are some shifts from a more “System I” format to a “System II Safeguard” format:
Writing my lab notebook in natural English sentences as I go --> writing tables and block-flow diagrams containing spaces to fill in with my data before I begin a procedure
Reading a protocol and looking up things I don’t understand --> creating and filling out a “due diligence form” that demands I provide explanations for the function of each component step and and reagent, along with alternatives, and my rationale for the choices I make
Reading a book chapter and summarizing it as I go --> creating a worksheet to extract terms and concepts I don’t understand, define and describe them, connect them to the topic of the chapter, and then restructure the summary to present these previously unknown topics in a more comprehensible order, and using this form as the guide for the natural-language summary
These methods partly ensure that I put much more effort into these tasks than I otherwise would. But they also prevent me from tricking myself into thinking I’ve been more comprehensive or more accurate than I think.
It’s neither desirable nor tractable to do this for every task. But I have benefitted greatly from creating such forms to structure my thoughts and improve my reliability in certain areas.
When I am faced with some new task for which I don’t have a structured approach to guide me, I would like to build a habit of creating such a structure before I start the object-level work.
How I make system II thinking more reliable
When Kahneman and Tversky described System I and System II thinking, they used it to categorize and explain modes of thought. Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s not always easy to determine which one I’m doing. In particular, I often find myself believing that I’m making a consciously calculated answer, when in fact I am inappropriately relying on haphazard intuition.
I don’t know exactly how to solve this problem. The strategy that seems best is to create a “System II Safeguard” that ensures I am employing System II when I mean to do so.
There are certain things I do already that seem to function as System II Safeguards. The most general is the creation of forms, checklists, tables, and protocols, and using them to structure my work as I go about solving an object-level problem.
Here are some shifts from a more “System I” format to a “System II Safeguard” format:
Writing my lab notebook in natural English sentences as I go --> writing tables and block-flow diagrams containing spaces to fill in with my data before I begin a procedure
Reading a protocol and looking up things I don’t understand --> creating and filling out a “due diligence form” that demands I provide explanations for the function of each component step and and reagent, along with alternatives, and my rationale for the choices I make
Reading a book chapter and summarizing it as I go --> creating a worksheet to extract terms and concepts I don’t understand, define and describe them, connect them to the topic of the chapter, and then restructure the summary to present these previously unknown topics in a more comprehensible order, and using this form as the guide for the natural-language summary
These methods partly ensure that I put much more effort into these tasks than I otherwise would. But they also prevent me from tricking myself into thinking I’ve been more comprehensive or more accurate than I think.
It’s neither desirable nor tractable to do this for every task. But I have benefitted greatly from creating such forms to structure my thoughts and improve my reliability in certain areas.
When I am faced with some new task for which I don’t have a structured approach to guide me, I would like to build a habit of creating such a structure before I start the object-level work.