Hello. I’m Leor Fishman, and also go by ‘avret’ on both reddit and ffn. I am currently 16.
The path I took to get here isn’t as...dramatic as some of the others I’ve seen, but I may as well record it:
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been logically minded, preferring to base hypotheses on evidence than to rest them on blind faiths. However, for the majority of my life, that instinct was unguided and more often than not led to rationalizations rather than belief-updating.
A few years back, I discovered MoR during a stumbleupon binge. I took to it like a fish to water, finishing up to the update point in a matter of days before hungrily rereading to attempt to catch whatever plot points I could glean from hints and asides in earlier chapters. However, I still read it almost purely for story-enjoyment, noting the rationality techniques as interesting asides if I noticed them. About a year later, I followed the link on the MoR website to LW, and began reading the sequences. They were...well, transformative doesn’t quite fit. Perhaps massively map-modifying might be a better term. How to Actually Change Your Mind specifically gave me the techniques I needed to update on rather many beliefs, and still does. Both Reductionism and the QM sequence, while not quite as revolutionary as HtACYM for me, explained what I had previously understood of science in a way that just...well, fit seems to be the only word that works to describe it, though it doesn’t fully carry the connotation I’m trying to express.
Now, I’m endeavoring to learn what I can. I’m rereading the sequences, trying to internalize the techniques I’ll need and make them reflexive, and attempting to apply them as often as possible. I’ve gone pretty far—looking back at things I said and thought before makes that clear. On the other hand, I’ve still got one heck of a ways to go. Tsuyoku Naritai
Welcome! I’m also 16. Welcome to the group of people who answer “no” to the “were you alive 20 years ago” question on a technicality. It’s really great to know about risk assessment errors and whatnot when we’re still teenagers, just because the bugs in our brains are even more dangerous when ignored than normal.
Not only that—the greater degree of neuroplasticity that I think 16-year olds still have(if I’m wrong about this, someone please correct me) makes it a good deal easier to learn skills/ingrain rationality techniques.
As a fellow 16-year-old (there really seem to be a lot of us popping up around here recently), I concur. With that said, rationality skills are difficult for anyone to learn, because the human brain did not evolve to be rational, but rather to succeed socially. I would add that a good deal of rationality potential is ingrained in those who find themselves attracted to LW at a young age, particularly since surveys have shown that LW users tend to have a higher incidence rate of Asperger Syndrome, the symptoms of which include social awkwardness. This suggests to me that rational thinking comes more easily to people with certain personality types, which is arguably genetic. As a single data point, I suppose I’ll add that I myself have been diagnosed with Asperger’s when I was younger, although with how trigger-happy American doctors are with their diagnoses these days, that’s not really saying much.
That’s an interesting correlation, but I’m curious about the causal link: is it that a certain type of neural architecture causes both predisposition to rationality and asperger’s, or the social awkwardness added on to the neural architecture creates the predisposition—i.e. I’m curious to see how much being social affects rationality. I shall need to look into this more closely.
I think that at least part of the reason us diagnosed autistic/Asperger’s people are more prevalent on LessWrong is that those of us diagnosed as children spend a lot of time with adults who think that something’s wrong with our mental processes, often without telling us why.
I know that I picked up on this, and then when I heard about cognitive biases, I jumped to the conclusion “These are what’s wrong with me, but if I read more about them, then I can try and correct for them.” Then, I looked up cognitive biases, found the Overcoming Bias blog, decided it was more economics than I could handle, and then I ended up here, because it had less real-world economics.
Test: See if more LWs were incorrectly given a psychiatric diagnosis as children than members of the general population were.
We could try and get Yvain to include this question in next year’s survey, which is the best obvious way to get an unbiased sample. However, it does involve waiting months for data, so if you’re in a hurry, you could poll the forums now.
Hello. I’m Leor Fishman, and also go by ‘avret’ on both reddit and ffn. I am currently 16. The path I took to get here isn’t as...dramatic as some of the others I’ve seen, but I may as well record it: For as long as I can remember, I’ve been logically minded, preferring to base hypotheses on evidence than to rest them on blind faiths. However, for the majority of my life, that instinct was unguided and more often than not led to rationalizations rather than belief-updating. A few years back, I discovered MoR during a stumbleupon binge. I took to it like a fish to water, finishing up to the update point in a matter of days before hungrily rereading to attempt to catch whatever plot points I could glean from hints and asides in earlier chapters. However, I still read it almost purely for story-enjoyment, noting the rationality techniques as interesting asides if I noticed them.
About a year later, I followed the link on the MoR website to LW, and began reading the sequences. They were...well, transformative doesn’t quite fit. Perhaps massively map-modifying might be a better term. How to Actually Change Your Mind specifically gave me the techniques I needed to update on rather many beliefs, and still does. Both Reductionism and the QM sequence, while not quite as revolutionary as HtACYM for me, explained what I had previously understood of science in a way that just...well, fit seems to be the only word that works to describe it, though it doesn’t fully carry the connotation I’m trying to express. Now, I’m endeavoring to learn what I can. I’m rereading the sequences, trying to internalize the techniques I’ll need and make them reflexive, and attempting to apply them as often as possible. I’ve gone pretty far—looking back at things I said and thought before makes that clear. On the other hand, I’ve still got one heck of a ways to go. Tsuyoku Naritai
Welcome! I’m also 16. Welcome to the group of people who answer “no” to the “were you alive 20 years ago” question on a technicality. It’s really great to know about risk assessment errors and whatnot when we’re still teenagers, just because the bugs in our brains are even more dangerous when ignored than normal.
Not only that—the greater degree of neuroplasticity that I think 16-year olds still have(if I’m wrong about this, someone please correct me) makes it a good deal easier to learn skills/ingrain rationality techniques.
As a fellow 16-year-old (there really seem to be a lot of us popping up around here recently), I concur. With that said, rationality skills are difficult for anyone to learn, because the human brain did not evolve to be rational, but rather to succeed socially. I would add that a good deal of rationality potential is ingrained in those who find themselves attracted to LW at a young age, particularly since surveys have shown that LW users tend to have a higher incidence rate of Asperger Syndrome, the symptoms of which include social awkwardness. This suggests to me that rational thinking comes more easily to people with certain personality types, which is arguably genetic. As a single data point, I suppose I’ll add that I myself have been diagnosed with Asperger’s when I was younger, although with how trigger-happy American doctors are with their diagnoses these days, that’s not really saying much.
That’s an interesting correlation, but I’m curious about the causal link: is it that a certain type of neural architecture causes both predisposition to rationality and asperger’s, or the social awkwardness added on to the neural architecture creates the predisposition—i.e. I’m curious to see how much being social affects rationality. I shall need to look into this more closely.
On the subject of potential causal linkages:
I think that at least part of the reason us diagnosed autistic/Asperger’s people are more prevalent on LessWrong is that those of us diagnosed as children spend a lot of time with adults who think that something’s wrong with our mental processes, often without telling us why.
I know that I picked up on this, and then when I heard about cognitive biases, I jumped to the conclusion “These are what’s wrong with me, but if I read more about them, then I can try and correct for them.” Then, I looked up cognitive biases, found the Overcoming Bias blog, decided it was more economics than I could handle, and then I ended up here, because it had less real-world economics.
Test: See if more LWs were incorrectly given a psychiatric diagnosis as children than members of the general population were.
Sounds useful. A survey, perhaps, or maybe a poll?
We could try and get Yvain to include this question in next year’s survey, which is the best obvious way to get an unbiased sample. However, it does involve waiting months for data, so if you’re in a hurry, you could poll the forums now.
Oh how I wish I had access to this kind of material when I was 16.
Welcome, Leor! I’m also a 16 year old new member.
Nice to meet you—it’s rather reassuring to see another member at my age.