Anyone who finds the game described at the top of the article interesting, check out Zendo, a game based upon a similar idea. I’ve found Zendo handy when explaining the concept in the OP and the various other ideas of experimental design and inductive investigation. Plus, it’s lots of fun. :-)
Zendo is my go-to exercise for explaining just about any idea in inductive investigation. (But it’s even more useful as a tool for reminding myself to do better. After years, the number of Zendo games I lose due to positive bias is still far higher than I’d like… even when I think I’ve taken steps to avoid that.)
As my group’s usual Zendo Master, I have a lot of players fall into this trap. I like to train new players with one easy property like “A Koan Has The Buddah Nature If (and only if) it contains a red piece.” Once they understand the rules, I jump to something like “A Koan Has The Buddah Nature Unless It contains exactly two pieces.”
Switching from a positively-marked property (there is a simple feature which all these things have) to a negatively-marked property (there is a simple feature which all these things lack) can be pretty eye-opening.
I showed Zendo to a math professor once who fell smack into the 2-4-6 trap and tried to build as many white-marked koans as possible. He even asked why the game didn’t punish people for just making the same koan over and over again, since it would be guaranteed to “follow the rule.” I eventually managed to convey that the object of the game is to be able to tell me, in words, what you think the rule is. Since then I’ve been more explicit that “part of the game involves literally just saying, out loud, what you think defines the property.” People always seem to think that the zendo is a sort of a silent lecture, when really it’s more of a laboratory class.
He even asked why the game didn’t punish people for just making the same koan over and over again, since it would be guaranteed to “follow the rule.” I eventually managed to convey that the object of the game is to be able to tell me, in words, what you think the rule is.
Maybe this provides some insight into the nature of positive bias. In the game, the only goal is to find the rule; there is no punishment for asking a wrong sequence. But I guess the real life is not like this. In real life, especially in the ancient environment, making a wrong guess is costly; and our cognitive algorithms were optimized for that.
For example, imagine that the rule is some taboo, punishable by death. It is better to avoid the punishment, than to find the boundaries precisely. Avoiding a superset of the taboo also has some cost, but that cost is probably cheaper than being stoned to death. If you know that the sequence “2-4-6” does not get you killed (unlike some other sequences, not explicitly known which ones), it may be wise to guess “2-4-6″ over and over again.
Anyone who finds the game described at the top of the article interesting, check out Zendo, a game based upon a similar idea. I’ve found Zendo handy when explaining the concept in the OP and the various other ideas of experimental design and inductive investigation. Plus, it’s lots of fun. :-)
Zendo is my go-to exercise for explaining just about any idea in inductive investigation. (But it’s even more useful as a tool for reminding myself to do better. After years, the number of Zendo games I lose due to positive bias is still far higher than I’d like… even when I think I’ve taken steps to avoid that.)
As my group’s usual Zendo Master, I have a lot of players fall into this trap. I like to train new players with one easy property like “A Koan Has The Buddah Nature If (and only if) it contains a red piece.” Once they understand the rules, I jump to something like “A Koan Has The Buddah Nature Unless It contains exactly two pieces.”
Switching from a positively-marked property (there is a simple feature which all these things have) to a negatively-marked property (there is a simple feature which all these things lack) can be pretty eye-opening.
I showed Zendo to a math professor once who fell smack into the 2-4-6 trap and tried to build as many white-marked koans as possible. He even asked why the game didn’t punish people for just making the same koan over and over again, since it would be guaranteed to “follow the rule.” I eventually managed to convey that the object of the game is to be able to tell me, in words, what you think the rule is. Since then I’ve been more explicit that “part of the game involves literally just saying, out loud, what you think defines the property.” People always seem to think that the zendo is a sort of a silent lecture, when really it’s more of a laboratory class.
Maybe this provides some insight into the nature of positive bias. In the game, the only goal is to find the rule; there is no punishment for asking a wrong sequence. But I guess the real life is not like this. In real life, especially in the ancient environment, making a wrong guess is costly; and our cognitive algorithms were optimized for that.
For example, imagine that the rule is some taboo, punishable by death. It is better to avoid the punishment, than to find the boundaries precisely. Avoiding a superset of the taboo also has some cost, but that cost is probably cheaper than being stoned to death. If you know that the sequence “2-4-6” does not get you killed (unlike some other sequences, not explicitly known which ones), it may be wise to guess “2-4-6″ over and over again.