I agree with your comment and this part especially:
However, the same thought process doesn’t occur on winning; people aren’t inclined to analyze their successes in the say way that they analyze their failures, even if they are both random events.
Very true. I see a lot of behavior that matches this. This would be an excellent source of the complaint if it happened after they lost. My friends complained before they even picked up their cards.
When you deal Texas Hold’em, do you “burn” cards in the traditional way? Neither I nor most of my friends think that those cards are special, but it’s part of the rules of the game. Altering them, even without (suspicion of) malicious intent breaks a ritual associated with the game.
We didn’t until the people on TV did it. The ritual was only important in the sense that this is how they were predicting which card they were going to get. Their point was based entirely on the fact that the card they were going to get is not the card they ended up getting.
As a reminder to the ongoing conversation, we had arguments about the topic. They didn’t say, “Do it because you are supposed to do it!” They said, “Don’t change the card I am supposed to get!”
One arena in which I see less need for that is when our superstitious and pattern-seeking behaviors let us enjoy things more. I have a ritual for making coffee. I enjoy coffee without it, but I can reach a near-euphoric state with it. Faulty wiring, but I see no harm in taking advantage of it.
Sure, but this isn’t one of those cases. In this case, they are complaining for no good reason. Well, I guess I haven’t found a good reason for their reaction. The consensus in the replies here seems to be that their reaction was wrong.
I am not trying to say you shouldn’t enjoy your coffee rituals.
Oh.
How do you want your organism to react when someone else’s voluntary action changes who receives a prize?
I want my organism to be able to tell the difference between a cheater and someone making irrelevant changes to a deck of cards. I assume this was a rhetorical question.
Evolution is great but I want more than that. I want to know why. I want to know why my friends feel that way but I didn’t when the roles were reversed. The answer is not “because I knew more math.” Have I just evolved differently?
I want to know what other areas are affected by this. I want to know how to predict whatever caused this reaction in my friends before it happens in me. “Evolution” doesn’t help me do that. I cannot think like evolution.
As much as, “You could have been cheating” is a great response—and “They are conditioned to respond to this situation as if you were cheating” is a better response—these friends know the probabilities are the same and know I wasn’t cheating. And they still react this way because… why?
I suppose this comment is a bit snippier than it needs to be. I don’t understand how your answer is an answer. I also don’t know much about evolution. If I learned more about evolution would I be less confused?
Ah, okay. That makes more sense. I am still experimenting with the amount of predictive counter-arguing to use. In the past I have attempted to so by adding examples that would address the potential objections. This hasn’t been terribly successful. I have also directly addressed the points and people still brought them up… so I am pondering how to fix the problem.
But, anyway. The topic at hand still interests me. I assume there is a term for this that matches the behavior. I could come up with some fancy technical definition (perceived present ownership of a potential future ownership) but it seems dumb to make up a term when there is one lurking around somewhere. And the idea of labeling it an ownership problem didn’t really occur to me until my conversation with you… so maybe I am answering my own question slowly?
EDIT: Wow, this turned into a ramble. I didn’t have time to proof it so I apologize if it doesn’t make sense.
I’m not sure our guesses (I presume you have not tested the lottery ticket swap experimentally) are actually in conflict. My thesis was not “they think you’re cheating”, but simply, straightforwardly “they object to any alteration of the dealing rules”, and they might do so for the wrong reason—even though, in their defense, valid reasons exist.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. My instinct is pointing me in the other direction namely because I have the (self perceived) benefit of knowing which friends of mine were objecting. Of note, no one openly accused me of cheating or anything like that. If I accidently dropped the deck on the floor or knocked it over the complaints would remain. The specific complaint, which I specifically asked for, is that their card was put into the middle of the deck.
(By the way, I do not think that claiming arrival at a valid complaint via the wrong reason is offering much defense for my friends.)
Your thesis, being narrow, is definitely of interest, though. I’m trying to think of cases where my thesis, interpreted naturally, would imply the opposite state of objection to yours. Poor shuffling (rule-stickler objects, my-cardist doesn’t) might work, but a lot of people don’t attend closely to whether cards are well-shuffled, stickler or not.
Any pseudo random event where people can (a) predict the undisclosed particular random object and (b) someone can voluntarily preempt that prediction and change the result tends to receive the same behavior.
(I presume you have not tested the lottery ticket swap experimentally)
I have not tested it in the sense that I sought to eliminate any form of weird contamination. But I have lots of anecdotal evidence. One such, very true, story:
My grandfather once won at bingo and was offered to choose a prize from a series of stuffed animals. Each animal was accompanied by an envelope containing some amount of cash. Amongst the animals were a turtle and a rhinoceros. Traditionally, he would always choose the turtle because he likes turtles but this time he picked the rhinoceros because my father happens to like rhinos. The turtle contained more money than the rhino and my dad got to hear about how he lost my grandfather money.
Granted, there are a handful of obvious holes in this particular story. The list includes:
My grandfather could have merely used it as an excuse to jab his son-in-law in the ribs (very likely)
My grandfather was lying (not likely)
The bingo organizers knew that rhinos were chosen more often than turtles (not likely)
My grandfather wasn’t very good at probability (likely, considering he was playing bingo)
Etc.
More stories like this have taught me to never muck with pseudo random variables whose outcomes effect things people care about even if the math behind the mucking doesn’t change anything. People who had a lottery ticket and traded it for a different equal chance will get extremely depressed because they actually “had a shot at winning.” These people could completely understand the probabilities involved, but somehow this doesn’t help them avoid the “what if” depression that tells them they shouldn’t have traded tickets.
People do this all the time involving things like when they left for work. Decades ago, my mother-in-law put her sister on a bus and the sister died when the bus crashed. “What if?” has dogged her ever since. The connection between the random chance of that particular bus crashing on that particular day is associated with her completely independent choice to put her sister on the bus. While they are mathematically independent, it doesn’t change the fact that her choice mattered. For some reason, people take this mattering and do things with it that makes no sense.
This topic can branch out into really weird places when viewed this way. The classic problem of someone holding 10 people hostage and telling you to kill 1 or all 10 die matches the pattern with a moral choice instead of random chance. When asking if it is more moral to kill 1 or let the 10 die people will argue that refusing to kill an innocent will result in 9 more people dying than needed. The decision matters and this mattering reflects on the moral value of each choice. Whether this is correct or not seems to be in debate and it is only loosely relevant for this particular topic. I am eagerly looking for the eventual answer to the question, “Are these events related?” But to get there I need to understand the simple scenario, which is the one presented by my original comment.
(Incidentally, If you had made a top-level post, I would want to see this kind of prediction-based elimination of alternative hypotheses.
I am having trouble understanding this. Can you say it again with different words?
Hm. Interesting, I don’t think I ever realized those two words had slightly different meanings.
*Files information under vocab quirks.*
I was tempted to add this comment:
Vote this comment up if you have no idea what Alicorn’s metaphor of luminosity means.
But figured it wouldn’t be nice to screw with your poll. :)
The point, though, is that I really don’t understand the luminosity metaphor based on how you have currently described it. I would guess the following:
A luminous mental state is a mental state such that the mind in that state is fully aware of being in that state.
Am I close?
Edit: Terminology
For a casual game, where it is assumed no one is cheating, then, unless you’re a stickler for tradition, who cares? Your friends are wrong.
Sure, but the “wrong” in this case couldn’t be shown to my friends. They perfectly understood probability. The problem wasn’t in the math. So where were they wrong?
Another way of saying this:
The territory said one thing
Their map said another thing
Their map understood probability
Where did their map go wrong?
The answer has nothing to do with me cheating and has nothing to do with misunderstanding probability. There is some other problem here and I don’t know what it is.
I don’t think this is relevant. I responded in more detail to RobinZ’s comment.
No, this wasn’t their true objection. I have a near flawless reputation for being honest and the arguments that ensued had nothing to do with stacking the deck. If I were a dispassionate third party dealing the game they would have objected just as strongly.
I initially had a second example as such:
Assume my friend and I each purchased a lottery ticket. As the winning number was about to be announced, we willing traded tickets. If I won, I would not be surprised to be asked to share the winnings because, after all, he chose the winning ticket.
It seems as though some personal attachment is created with the specific random object. Once that object is “taken,” there is an associated sense of loss.
This was in my drafts folder but due to the lackluster performance of my latest few posts I decided it doesn’t deserve to be a top level post. As such, I am making it a comment here. It also does not answer the question being asked so it probably wouldn’t have made the cut even if my last few posts been voted to +20 and promoted… but whatever. :P
Perceived Change
Once, I was dealing a game of poker for some friends. After dealing some but not all of the cards I cut the deck and continued dealing. This irritated them a great deal because I altered the order of the deck because some players would not receive the cards they were supposed to be dealt. One of the friends happened to be majoring in Mathematics and understood probability as much as anyone else at the table. Even he thought what I did was wrong.
I explained that the cut didn’t matter because everyone still has the same odds of receiving any particular card from the deck. His retort was that it did matter because the card he was going to get is now near the middle of the deck. Instead of that particular random card he will get a different particular random card. As such, I should not have cut the deck.
During the ensuing arguments I found myself constantly presented with the following point: The fact of the game is that he would have received a certain card and now he will receive a different card. Shouldn’t this matter? People seem to hold grudges when someone swaps random chances of an outcome and the swap changes who wins.
The problem with this objection is illustrated if I secretly cut the cards. If they have no reason to believe I cut the deck, they wouldn’t complain. Furthermore, it is completely impossible to perceive the change by studying before and after states of the probabilities. More clearly, if I put the cards under the table and threatened to cut the cards, my friends would have no way of knowing whether or not I cut the deck. This implies that the change itself is not the sole cause of complaint. The change must be accompanied with the knowledge that something was changed.
The big catch is that the change itself isn’t actually necessary at all. If I simply tell my friends that I cut the cards when they were not looking they will be just as upset. They have perceived a change in the situation. In reality, every card is in exactly the same position and they will be dealt what they think they should have been dealt. But now even that has changed. Now they actually think the exact opposite. Even though nothing about the deck has been changed, they now think that the cards being dealt to them are the wrong cards.
What is this? There has to be some label for this, but I don’t know what it is or what the next step in this observation should be. Something is seriously, obviously wrong. What is it?
Edit to add:
The underlying problem here is not that they were worried about me cheating. The specific scenario and the arguments that followed from that scenario were such that cheating wasn’t really a valid excuse for their objections.
Can people ROT13 their answers so I get a chance to solve this on my own? Or will there be too much math for ROT13 to work well?
This comment deserves more attention. I am willing to take a karma hit to promote it.
This is somewhat similar to the question I asked in Reacting to Inadequate Data. It was hit with a −3 rating though… so apparently it wasn’t too useful.
The consensus of the comments was that the correct answer is .5.
Also of note is Bead Jar Guesses and its sequel.
So I probably won’t alter the original article as a reaction to this, but if you want to nevertheless help me in figuring out how to reach to that audience, do continue. :)
Haha, will do. I do realize that some of what I am bringing up is extremely petty, but I have watched some of my articles get completely derailed by what I would consider to be a completely irrelevant point. Even amongst the high quality discussions in the comments I find myself needing to back up and ask a Really Obvious Question.
This is likely a fault in the way I communicate (which is accentuated online) and also a glitch where people are not willing/able to drop subjects that are bugging them. If I was fundamentally opposed to the claim that all brain tumors caused headaches I would feel compelled to point it out in the comments. (This compulsion is something I am trying to curb.)
In any case, I am glad the comments are helpful and I will continue as I find the time. If you ever start drafting something like what you mentioned I am willing to proofread and comment.
So, I want to see what happens if I try to divorce all of my anthrocentric assumptions about self, desires, wants, etc. I want to measure a thing and then by a set of criteria declare that thing to be intelligent.
Sure, that makes perfect sense. I haven’t really given this a whole lot of thought; you are getting the fresh start. :)
The self in self-referential isn’t implied to be me or you or any form of “I”. Whatever source of identity you feel comfortable with can use the term self-referential. In the case of your intelligent pencil, it very well may be the case that the pencil is self-updating in order to achieve what you are calling a goal.
A “want” can describe nonhuman behavior, so I am not convinced the term is a problem. It does seem that I am beginning to place atypical restrictions on its definition, however, so perhaps “goal” would work better in the end.
The main points I am working with:
An entity can have a goal without being intelligent (perhaps I am confusing goal with purpose or behavior?)
A non-intelligent entity can become intelligent
Some entities have the ability to change, add, or remove goals
These changes, additions, deletions are likely governed by other goals. (Perhaps I am confusing goals with wants or desires? Or merely causation itself?)
The “original” goal could be deleted without making an entity unintelligent. The pencil could pick a different spot on the ground but this would not cause you to doubt its intelligence.
Please note that I am not trying to disagree (or agree) with you. I am just talking because I think the subject is interesting and I haven’t really given it much thought. I am certainly no authority on the subject. If I am obviously wrong somewhere, please let me know.
I am not that far in the sequences, but these are posts I would expect to come into play during Major Life Decisions. These are ordered by my perceived relevance and accompanied with a cool quote. (The quotes are not replacements for the whole article, however. If the connection isn’t obvious feel free to skim the article again.)
To do better, ask yourself straight out: If I saw that there was a superior alternative to my current policy, would I be glad in the depths of my heart, or would I feel a tiny flash of reluctance before I let go? If the answers are “no” and “yes”, beware that you may not have searched for a Third Alternative. ~ The Third Alternative
The moral is that the decision to terminate a search procedure (temporarily or permanently) is, like the search procedure itself, subject to bias and hidden motives. You should suspect motivated stopping when you close off search, after coming to a comfortable conclusion, and yet there’s a lot of fast cheap evidence you haven’t gathered yet—Web sites you could visit, counter-counter arguments you could consider, or you haven’t closed your eyes for five minutes by the clock trying to think of a better option. You should suspect motivated continuation when some evidence is leaning in a way you don’t like, but you decide that more evidence is needed—expensive evidence that you know you can’t gather anytime soon, as opposed to something you’re going to look up on Google in 30 minutes—before you’ll have to do anything uncomfortable. ~ Motivated Stopping and Continuation
I suspect that a more powerful (and more difficult) method is to hold off on thinking of an answer. To suspend, draw out, that tiny moment when we can’t yet guess what our answer will be; thus giving our intelligence a longer time in which to act. ~ Hold Off On Proposing Solutions
“Rationality” is the forward flow that gathers evidence, weighs it, and outputs a conclusion. [...] “Rationalization” is a backward flow from conclusion to selected evidence.
~ RationalizationYour effectiveness as a rationalist is determined by whichever algorithm actually writes the bottom line of your thoughts. If your car makes metallic squealing noises when you brake, and you aren’t willing to face up to the financial cost of getting your brakes replaced, you can decide to look for reasons why your car might not need fixing. ~ The Bottom Line
Hope that helps.
If I were standing there catching the pencil and directing it to the spot on the floor, you wouldn’t consider the pencil intelligent. The behavior observed is not pointing to the pencil in particular being intelligent.
Just my two cents.
I don’t know anything about the concept of intelligence being defined as being able to pursue goals through complicated obstacles. If I had to guess at the missing piece it would probably be some form of self-referential goal making. Namely, this takes the form of the word, “want.” I want to go to this spot on the floor. I can ignore a goal but it is significantly harder to ignore a want.
At some point, my wants begin to dictate and create other wants. If I had to start pursing a definition of intelligence, I would probably start here. But I don’t know anything about the field so this could have already been tried and failed.
So, when I pester them for a rational reason, why do they keep giving an answer that is irrational for this situation?
I can understand your answer if the scenario was more like:
“Hey! Don’t do that!”
“But it doesn’t matter. See?”
”Oh. Well, okay. But don’t do it anyway because...”
And then they mention your heuristic. They didn’t do anything like this. They explicitly understood that nothing was changing in the probabilities and they explicitly understood that I was not cheating. And they were completely willing to defend their reaction in arguments. In their mind, their position was completely rational. I could not convince them that it was rational with math. Something else was the problem.
“Heuristics” is nifty, but I am not completely satisfied with that answer. Why would they have kept defending it when it was demonstrably wrong?
I suppose it is possible that they were completely unaware that they were using whatever heuristic they were using. Would that explain the behavior? Perhaps this is why they could not explain their position to me at the time of the arguments?
How would you describe this heuristic in a few sentences?