Motivated Thinking
I’m playing around with an article on Motivated Cognition for general consumption
I think it’s one of the most important things to teach someone about rationality (any other suggestions? Confirmation bias, placebo, pareidolia, and the odds of coincidences come to mind...)
So, I’ve taken the five kinds of motivated cognition I know of
(Motivated skepticism)
(Motivated stopping)
(Motivated neutrality)
(Motivated credulity)
(Motivated continuation)
added a counterpart to “neutrality,” and then renamed neutrality.
The end result being six kinds of motivated cognition, three pairs of two kinds each, which are opposites of each other. Also, each pair has one kind that beings with an S and the other that begins with a C, which is good for mnemonic purposes.
So, I’ve got
Stopping and Continuation—Controls WHICH arguments you put in front of yourself (Do you continue because you haven’t found what supports you yet, or do you stop because you have?)
Self-deprecation and Conceit—these control WHETHER you judge an argument in front of you (Do you refuse to judge (“Who am I to judge?”) clear arguments that oppose your side or do you judge arguments you have no capacity to understand (the probability of abiogenesis, for example) because it lets you support your side?)
Skepticism and Credulity—Controls HOW you judge arguments (Do you demand higher evidence for ideas you don’t like, and less for ideas you do? Do you scrutinize ideas you don’t like more than ideas you do? Do you ask if the evidence forces you to accept, or if it allows you to accept an idea?)
I’m thinking of introducing them in that order, too, with the “Which/Whether/How you judge” abstraction.
Anybody see better abstractions, better explanations, better mnemonic techniques? Any advice of any kind on how to teach this effectively to people? Other fundamentals to rationality? (Maybe the beliefs as probabilities idea?)
I can’t remember where I read this. But a suggestion of going up and down the abstraction ladder seems to be helpful.
i.e.
a description of each
(or start with this) an example of each
an explanation of how each example fits, maybe also what to do about it
conclude with some unusual examples, or examples of good reasons to sometimes keep these around.
I like your mnemonics idea, though the part “Self-deprecation and Conceit” seems a little bit forced. Maybe make them rhyme or something else instead.
The things that come to your mind are object-level skills. However I’d say that the most important thing to teach is the meta-skill of dissociation—looking at your thoughts as a machine with some properties, and controlling this machine from the “outside”.
In other words, intuitively noticing that thinking something about X is not a fact about X, but a fact about your thoughts.
Having this habit that when you think X, you also automatically think “hmm, I seem to be thinking X, what do I make of it?”.
Hmm, so the map/territory distinction?
That’s a good one.
Some of mine ARE object-level, but there aren’t just ANY object-level ones. They focus on teaching you how to discern between real and fake evidence, I guess...
Are you just referring to map/territory, or is there more to it than that?
It is slightly—the “map/territory” is a view from the epistemology side, while the “your mind as a cockpit” frame which I like includes all executive functions (including belief-formation).
Separatedness (from the issue debated) and Criticism / Confrontation? (Not very good, just brainstorming.)
Not sure why this is downvoted.