With the Dota OpenAI bot, Alpha GO, and Deep Blue—it’s funny how we keep training AIs to play zero-sum war simulation games against human enemies.
HungryHippo
Karma: 293
keyboard shortcuts to snap windows to any half or third of the screen (or full screen).
In Windows 10 you can,
Maximize a window using Windows Key + Up Arrow.
Un-maximize with Win + Down Arrow.
Minimize window with Win + Down Arrow again.
Cover left half, with Win + Left Arrow.
Upper right quarter with Win + Right Arrow, followed by Win + Up Arrow.
Lower left with Win + Left Arrow, followed by Win + Down Arrow.
When using left/right split windows, dragging the center resize bar will resize both windows.
Very convenient.
I bumped into this paper when looking for additional research for Habits 101.
Are you by any chance familiar with the text book Self-Directed Behavior? It’s basically psychology of habits 101.
Your link doesn’t lead anywhere. :-)
Good luck on your weight loss! :-)
TapLog is very nifty, it’s simply that it would be even better with a somewhat extended feature set.
Here’s one use case: I want to log my skin picking and skin care routine (morning/evening).
The first is easy. I just add a button to my home screen that increments by one every time I click it (which is every time I touch my face with my fingers). After a while I can plot number of picks each day, or month, or cumulative, etc. It’s very nice.
Logging my skin care routine is more difficult, since TapLog does not support lists. (Only quantity, and/or text-input [with an optional prompt], and/or gps position, for a single entry)
What I would like is for TapLog to let me predefine a list of items (shave, cleanse, moisturizer) then give me a push notification in the morning and/or evening requesting me to check off each item.
(If you use something like Wunderlist with a daily repeat of the list, it is very fragile. If you miss a couple of days you have to reset the date for the reminder, because there’s no way for unfinished lists to simply disappear unless you actually check them off. And in Wunderlist there’s no way to analyze your list data to see how well you did last month, etc.)
Your post reads as if you read my mind. :)
I currently use a mix between TapLog (for Android) and google forms (with an icon on my home screen so that it mimics a locally installed app).
Neither feels as if they really solve my needs, though. E.g. both lack a reminder feature.
[the egg rolled passed Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico]
Skipper: Hey, anybody see that? That’s an egg! Is somebody gonna go get it?
Penguin #5: We can’t do that.
Skipper: Why not?
Penguin #6: Well, it’s a dangerous world out there and we’re just penguins. You know, nothing but cute and cuddly.
Penguin #7: Yeah. Why do you think there are always documentary crews filming us? [camera zooms out to see two men with a camera and a microphone for filming]
Penguin #8: Well, sorry, kid. You know, we lose a few eggs every year. It’s just nature.
Skipper: Oh, right, nature. I guess that makes sense. But… But something… something deep down in my gut tells me that it just doesn’t make any sense at all. You know what? I reject nature! [the other penguins gasp] Who’s with me? [with a shout, Skipper goes after the egg, much to Kowalski’s and Rico’s confusion]
Penguins of Madagascar, 2014
They tried to show, they got a different answer, they showed it anyway.
This is very admirable! Especially on such a politically charged topic.
Under the assumption that your daily energy expenditure is a constant proportional to your bodyweight, the resulting curve is similar to exponential decay, ~exp(-c*t).
Think radioactive material, except that instead of decaying all the way towards zero atoms, one’s weightloss would stop at a bodyweight consistent with an energy expenditure equal to the energy input from the diet.
Note that this is a pretty bold assumption with many caveats.
When I listend to his AMA, I noticed this line as well. It’s a really clever “tool for thinking” that deserves to be noticed.
There’s an interview with Dawkins somewhere where he mentions an anecdote about Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein is supposed to have said “Why did people ever believe that the sun revolves around the earth?”, and his interlocutor supposedly answered: “Well, obviously it’s because it looks like the sun is revolving around the earth.” Then Wittgenstein whips out the counterfactual: “Well, what would it have looked like if it looked like the earth revolves around the sun?”.
And the answer is obviously: exactly the same, lol!
The “Web of Stories” channel has interviews with notable scientists (Freeman Dyson, Marvin Minsky, John Maynard Smith, etc.).
Thank you for this reference!
Sharpening Your Forecasting Skills, Link
Are there any case histories of how superforcaster work, where they “show their work” as it were?
Very interesting article!
I’m incidentally re-reading “Feeling Good” and parts of it deal with situations exactly like the ones Oshun-Kid is in.
From Chapter 6 (“Verbal Judo: How to talk back when you’re under the fire of criticism”), I quote:
Here’s how it works. When another person criticizes you, certain negative thoughts are automatically triggered in your head. Your emotional reaction will be created by these thoughts and not by what the other person says. The thoughts which upset you will invariably contain the same types of mental errors described in Chapter 3: overgeneralization, all-or-nothing thinking, the mental filter, labeling, etc. For example, let’s take a look at Art’s thoughts. His panic was the result of his catastrophic interpretation: “This criticism shows how worthless I am.” What mental errors is he making? In the first place, Art is jumping to conclusions when he arbitrarily concludes the patient’s criticism is valid and reasonable. This may or may not be the case. Furthermore, he is exaggerating the importance of whatever he actually said to the patient that may have been undiplomatic (magnification), and he is assuming he could do nothing to correct any errors in his behavior (the fortune teller error). He unrealistically predicted he would be rejected and ruined professionally because he would repeat endlessly whatever error he made with this one patient (overgeneralization). He focused exclusively on his error (the mental filter) and over-looked his numerous other therapeutic successes (disqualifying or overlooking the positive). He identified with his erroneous behavior and concluded he was a “worthless and insensitive human being” (labeling). The first step in overcoming your fear of criticism concerns your own mental processes: Learn to identify the negative thoughts you have when you are being criticized. It will be most helpful to write them down using the double-column technique described in the two previous chapters. This will enable you to analyze your thoughts and recognize where your thinking is illogical or wrong. Finally, write down rational responses that are more reasonable and less upsetting.
And quoting your article:
(You might take a moment, right now, to name the cognitive ritual the kid in the story should do (if only she knew the ritual). Or to name what you think you’d do if you found yourself in the kid’s situation—and how you would notice that you were at risk of a “buckets error”.)
I would encourage Oshun-Kid to cultivate the following habit:
Notice when you feel certain (negative) emotions. (E.g. anxiety, sadness, fear, frustration, boredom, stressed, depressed, self-critical, etc.) Recognizing these (sometimes fleeting) moments is a skill that you get better at as you practice.
Try putting down in words (write it down!) why you feel that emotion in this situation. This too, you will get better at as you practice. These are your Automatic Thoughts. E.g. “I’m always late!”.
Identify the cognitive distortions present in your automatic thought. E.g. Overgeneralization, all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing, etc.
Write down a Rational Response that is absolutely true (don’t try to deceive yourself—it doesn’t work!) and also less upsetting. E.g.: I’m not literally always late! I’m sometimes late and sometimes on time. If I’m going to beat myself up for the times I’m late, I might as well feel good about myself for the times I’m on time. Etc.
Write steps 2., 3., and 4., in three columns, where you add a new row each time you notice a negative emotion.
I’m actually surprised that Cognitive Biases are focused on to a greater degree than Cognitive Distortions are in the rational community (based on google-phrase search on site:lesswrong.com), especially when Kahneman writes more or less in Thinking: Fast and Slow that being aware of cognitive biases has not made him that much better at countering them (IIRC) while CBT techniques are regularly used in therapy sessions to alleviate depression, anxiety, etc. Sometimes as effectively as in a single session.
I also have some objections as to how the teacher behaves. I think the teacher would be more effective if he said stuff like: “Wow! I really like the story! You must have worked really hard to make it! Tell me how you worked at it: did you think up the story first and then write it down, or did you think it up as you were writing it, or did you do it a different way? Do you think there are authors who do it a different way from you or in a similar way to you? Do you think it’s possible to become a better writer, just like a runner becomes a faster runner or like a basketball player becomes better at basketball? How would you go about doing that to become a better author? If a basketball player makes a mistake in a game, does it always make him a bad basketball player? Do the best players always do everything perfectly, or do they sometimes make mistakes? Should you expect of yourself to always be a perfect author, or is it okay for you to sometimes make mistakes? What can you do if you discover a mistake in your writing? Is it useful to sometimes search through your writings to find mistakes you can fix? Etc.”
Edit: I personally find that when tutoring someone and you notice in real time that they are making a mistake or are just about to make a mistake, it’s more effective to correct them in the form of a question rather than outright saying “that’s wrong” or “that’s incorrect” or similar.
E.g.:
Pupil, saying: ”… and then I multiply nine by eight and get fifty-four …” Here, I wouldn’t say: “that’s a mistake.” I would rather say, “hmm… is that the case?” or “is that so?” or “wait a second, what did you say that was again?” or “hold on, can you repeat that for me?”. It’s a bit difficult for me to translate my question-phrases from Norwegian to English, because a lot of the effect in the tone of voice. My theory for why this works is that when you say “that’s wrong” or similar, you are more likely to express the emotion of disapproval at the student’s actions or the student herself (and the student is more likely to read that emotion into you whether or not you express it). Whereas when you put it in the form of a question, the emotions you express are more of the form: mild surprise, puzzlement, uncertainty, curiosity, interest, etc. which are not directly rejecting or disapproving emotions on your part and therefore don’t make the student feel bad.
After you do this a couple of times, the student becomes aware that every time you put a question to them, they are expected to double check that something is correct and to justify their conclusion.
The TV-show Black Mirror had a great (read: terrifying) take on this in “Be Right Back” (S2E1).
In David Burn’s book “Feeling Good”, a CBT self-help book, he teaches how to identify 10 cognitive distortions in our thinking patterns and develops practices for counteracting them.
Among the distortions he identifies are all-or-nothing-thinking (i.e. splitting). I don’t remember if he says anything about projection specifically, but another of the distortions is mind-reading/jumping-to-conclusions, which at least is in ballpark of falsely attributing mental states to others.
The context of the book is to alleviate your own depression, but it is also really interesting from an anti-biasing perspective.
What you’re describing is the difference between recall and recognition, if you want to google it.
E.g. the question “What is the atomic number of Oxygen?” is a recognition task if you’re given multiple choices “a) 1 b) 6 c) 8″, and it’s a recall task if you’re just presented a blank space in which to write down your answer.
Recognition tasks are generally easier.
“Your Memory: How it works and how to improve it” by Higbee is an excellent book on memory. It dispels some common memory myths, clarifies concepts (e.g. short vs long term memory), teaches general principles on how to remember information (meaningfulness, organisation, association, visualization, etc.), as well as specific memory techniques (method of loci, peg mnemonic, first letter mnemonic, etc.).
I don’t have any hard and fast answers, so I cannot be completely sure.
My guess is that a “spirit” person is more likely to believe in free will, while a “gear” person is more likely to believe in the absence of free will. What free will means precisely, I’m not sure, so it feels forced for me to claim that another person would believe free will, when I myself am unable to make an argument that is as convincing to me as I’m sure their arguments must be to them. I haven’t thought much of free will, but the only way I’m personally able to conceive of it is that my mind is somehow determined by brain-states which in turn are defined by configurations of elementary particles (my brain/my body/the universe) with known laws, if unknown (in practice) solutions. So personally I’m in the “it’s gears all the way down” camp, at least with the caveat that I haven’t thought about it much. But there are people who genuinely claim to believe in free will and I take their word for it, whatever those words mean to them. So my guess at the beginning of the paragraph should interpreted as: if you ask a “spirit” person he will most likely say, “yes, I believe in free will”, while a “gear” person will most likely say “no, I do not believe in free will.” The factual content of each claim is a separate issue. Whether either world-view can be made self-consistent is a further issue. I think a “spiritist” would accept the will of someone as a sufficient first cause of a phenomenon, with the will being conceived of only as a “law unto itself”.
When it comes to determinism, I think a “gearist” are more likely to be determinists, since that is what has dominated all of the sciences (except for quantum physics).
“Spiritits” on the other hand, I don’t know. If God has a plan for everything and everyone, that sounds pretty deterministic. But if you pray for him to grant you this one wish, then you don’t know whether he will change the course of the universe for your benefit or no, so I would call that pretty indeterministic. Even if you don’t pray, you can never really know what God has in store for you. If all your Gods are explicitly capricious, then there are no pretensions to determinism. I think a “spiritist” is more likely to believe in indeterminism.
The animistic view with respect to natural phenomena feels very religious to me as well. I use the word “feel” here because I have no precise definition of religion and maybe none exists. (See the very beginning of my comments in this thread.) If you believe that the river is alive, that the wind can be angry, and the waves vengeful, is that (proto?) religious? Or is it simply the pathetic fallacy? What if you believe, with Aristotle, that “nature abhors a vacuum”? That is animistic with out being, I think, religious. Or what of Le Chatelier’s Principle, in which a chemical reaction “resists” the change you impose on it (e.g. if you impose an increased pressure, the chemicals will react to decrease the pressure again)?
Same here. I just made a new account.