What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?(edge.org)
edge.org
What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?
http://edge.org/responses/what-scientific-concept-would-improve-everybodys-cognitive-toolkit
26 comments
I'd highly encourage everyone to read Kahneman's book. It really makes you appreciate the fact that what we consider "thinking" and "decision making" are usually just sequences of lazy cognitive biases that [poorly] approximate solutions for substituted questions. Unfortunately, I suspect that there already is a response bias to the readership of that book, since only those who are willing to question their own thinking process and metacognition would be interested in this kind of book.
I also enjoyed that book very much, and I'm trying to expose it to people who otherwise would not come in contact with it or the general topics it discusses. We're probably preaching to the choir here :)
I hadn't heard of that book and because of this post, its on my reading list. So, some people in this choir maybe wayward and would do well with sermons like these :)
Martin Rees, I'm calling you out:
"even though the concept may not yet have percolated all parts of Kansas, and Alaska."
That's pretty cold, man. And since when is beating up on one's socio-political opponents to feed our prejudices and toot our own horns a scientific attitude? Yes, even when you happen to be right.
I mean, Dawkins I can expect that from, but from the President of the Royal Society / Master of Trinity College, Cambridge?
You need to scroll down the page and read that next bit there about cognitive humility, jerk.
"even though the concept may not yet have percolated all parts of Kansas, and Alaska."
That's pretty cold, man. And since when is beating up on one's socio-political opponents to feed our prejudices and toot our own horns a scientific attitude? Yes, even when you happen to be right.
I mean, Dawkins I can expect that from, but from the President of the Royal Society / Master of Trinity College, Cambridge?
You need to scroll down the page and read that next bit there about cognitive humility, jerk.
You might have a point if he was discussing a political issue.
But he's calling out people of national - if not global - stature, who wear scientific illiteracy as a badge of honor. Their stance on such issues gives gives millions of other similarly uninformed people the rationale for adopting such views as their own.
Not only is he right on the issue (the age of the earth, and the universe), but he's morally right for calling them out.
But he's calling out people of national - if not global - stature, who wear scientific illiteracy as a badge of honor. Their stance on such issues gives gives millions of other similarly uninformed people the rationale for adopting such views as their own.
Not only is he right on the issue (the age of the earth, and the universe), but he's morally right for calling them out.
Such people are not isolated to Alaska and Kansas, and in fact strutting around preening about how much better they are than Alaskans and Kansasans turns out to frequently be a dodge for hiding other unscientific beliefs that merely happen to be fashionable where they are located.
Do not consult any part of the political spectrum for scientific truth.
Do not consult any part of the political spectrum for scientific truth.
Makes a fascinating read but it is sad how some of these highly reputed thinkers proclaim their personal views as the sole truth. Their attitude reminds me on politicians with their same old black and white demagogy.
What?
When did Rees identify anyone as a socio-political opponent? What prejudices does he have? Where did he toot his own horn? You seem to have read a completely different article than I did.
All he said was that evolutionary theory hasn't been fully accepted in some areas. I'm perplexed that you're so offended by that statement.
When did Rees identify anyone as a socio-political opponent? What prejudices does he have? Where did he toot his own horn? You seem to have read a completely different article than I did.
All he said was that evolutionary theory hasn't been fully accepted in some areas. I'm perplexed that you're so offended by that statement.
His overall statement there is that evolutionary time is now part of common culture. It only seems reasonable to mention exceptions to this. In fact, not doing so would be rather cherry-picking, don't you think?
A theory which makes false predictions is false. It doesn't matter how many words you can marshal in its support, it doesn't matter how many celebrities you get to approve of it, it doesn't matter how great the universe would be if it were true, it doesn't matter how many people wearing white lab coats swear up and down it's true or how many pieces of paper they wave at you claiming it's true, a theory which makes false predictions is false. That is the only relevant metric for a scientific theory.
(For brevity's sake, I simplify the criterion for deciding what theory is false. I'm not sure the complexity of a full specification is called for here.)
(For brevity's sake, I simplify the criterion for deciding what theory is false. I'm not sure the complexity of a full specification is called for here.)
A theory which makes false predictions is false.
Absolutely.
Now please note the following simple logical step:
> A theory which makes false predictions is not useful.
This is probably an assertion which is implicit in your mind, but is it really true? Off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen cases where a theory which makes false predictions can be useful. It can be useful to motivate people, or manipulate them. It can be useful as a starting point for a better theory. It can be useful as an approximation when a better theory is not available. It can be useful as an argument to oppose someone with a different theory who is trying to manipulate people in a different direction.
Theories that make false predictions can be tremendously useful - even within the framework of science (as a starting point or an approximation).
Absolutely.
Now please note the following simple logical step:
> A theory which makes false predictions is not useful.
This is probably an assertion which is implicit in your mind, but is it really true? Off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen cases where a theory which makes false predictions can be useful. It can be useful to motivate people, or manipulate them. It can be useful as a starting point for a better theory. It can be useful as an approximation when a better theory is not available. It can be useful as an argument to oppose someone with a different theory who is trying to manipulate people in a different direction.
Theories that make false predictions can be tremendously useful - even within the framework of science (as a starting point or an approximation).
It's a simplified POV for generic people's cognitive toolkits. If they can internalize this idea, then you can move on to trying them on the caveats and details and levels of falseness and etc etc etc. But way too often, the existence of caveats and details is used as an excuse to simply discard the undesirable theory, or to claim that theory A has caveats (example: "Newtonian physics isn't quite right") and theory B has caveats (example: epicycles), so why not just go with theory B?
You're not wrong, but the more sophisticated approach you're suggesting is also more dangerous in its own way.
You're not wrong, but the more sophisticated approach you're suggesting is also more dangerous in its own way.
Learning to believe half a dozen impossible things before breakfast I'd say is the most illuminating. It informs us how easy it is for our views to be shaped and cautions us to act with more humility and more tolerance for people who believe in something different.
Another one is to learn the transformative power of environment on a person. (see recent article on heroin addiction among Vietnam war soldiers). If we are so easily influenced and changed by our society, then what kind of society do we need to shape to create a better self?
Another one is to learn the transformative power of environment on a person. (see recent article on heroin addiction among Vietnam war soldiers). If we are so easily influenced and changed by our society, then what kind of society do we need to shape to create a better self?
"If we are so easily influenced and changed by our society, then what kind of society do we need to shape to create a better self?"
The number one problem in my not so humble opinion: the 40 hour workweek.
What would happen to society if we could only work 4 hours a day? Would the economy crumble? Or would we learn to rationalize business processes, automate crapwork, prioritize better, stop consuming needless junk, think twice before engaging in wasteful projects, reflect more, etc?
Do less, but better and wiser. That sums up a sane society in my view.
The number one problem in my not so humble opinion: the 40 hour workweek.
What would happen to society if we could only work 4 hours a day? Would the economy crumble? Or would we learn to rationalize business processes, automate crapwork, prioritize better, stop consuming needless junk, think twice before engaging in wasteful projects, reflect more, etc?
Do less, but better and wiser. That sums up a sane society in my view.
"What would prove my assumption (or idea) wrong?"
It falls under experiment design, but it's a much more straightforward and easy to understand question. You can ask kids that question (they're quite good at it). Really helps narrow down avenues of inquiry & speed up your problem-solving.
It's only useful if the person is already interested in being less wrong, but everyone is interested in being less wrong about something. When they (you) are, this is an excellent question to ask.
It falls under experiment design, but it's a much more straightforward and easy to understand question. You can ask kids that question (they're quite good at it). Really helps narrow down avenues of inquiry & speed up your problem-solving.
It's only useful if the person is already interested in being less wrong, but everyone is interested in being less wrong about something. When they (you) are, this is an excellent question to ask.
No human is perfect. The only way to expand your pool of correct knowledge is to spend time seeing things from competing perspectives, allow the possibility of being wrong, and to evaluate ideas based on evidence.
I'm greatly enjoying the read, and it's a question that appeals to me greatly. Most of us frequently make a statement akin to "everybody else is stupid", although we usually except those around us at that time. After all, only other people make that class of mistake. We'd never do that. It's just pruning the gene pool!
The reality is a little more uncomfortable to accept, and a lot of it lies in the fact that we don't always know how to think, leading to us not knowing what to think.
Side note: I'm disappointed in the lack of copyediting in most of those essays.
The reality is a little more uncomfortable to accept, and a lot of it lies in the fact that we don't always know how to think, leading to us not knowing what to think.
Side note: I'm disappointed in the lack of copyediting in most of those essays.
Vilayanur Ramachandran should probably have proof-read his, after listing four examples he forgets one. He was probably trying to decide which was the better example, cold fusion or telepathy.
My favorite, from Steward Brand:
Confronting a difficult problem we might fruitfully ask, "What would a microbe do?"
Confronting a difficult problem we might fruitfully ask, "What would a microbe do?"
[deleted]
That you are running on hostile hardware, and that "you" only has access to a small part of this hardware. This clears upa lot of confusion once it clicks for people IME.
I always find this Yudkowsky-esque conceit somewhat lacking. It's not that one shouldn't examine the motivations of your various... motivations.
But it just seems so close to depersonalization, as witnessed by your interesting pluralization mismatch ('"you" only has'). That supposedly hostile methodology is actually very sensible once you understand it.
I suppose that's what comes from assuming that the hostile hardware is merely a statistical assertion of the Bayesian variety.
And apparently it is functional for some people, so... I suppose that's merit enough.
But it just seems so close to depersonalization, as witnessed by your interesting pluralization mismatch ('"you" only has'). That supposedly hostile methodology is actually very sensible once you understand it.
I suppose that's what comes from assuming that the hostile hardware is merely a statistical assertion of the Bayesian variety.
And apparently it is functional for some people, so... I suppose that's merit enough.
"personalization" to me implies some sort of narrative that strings together your behaviors into a supposedly coherent personality. In this respect depersonalization is good.
That's hilarious. You guys (assuming you're arguing the lesswrong perspective) are an intellectual house of cards, you know. Eliezer can't even keep his house in order.
Quinean naturalism + cognitive science is a house of cards. Good to know. Do you have any other useful information?
Attacks are directed at the weakest point, not the strongest.
do you have a substantive critique to link to or should I take it on faith that such a thing exists?
Bugger, apologies for iPad induced downvote.
I am personally offended at the loss of my karma and will be downvoting you in reveng--DAMMIT I MISSED.
you win this round.
you win this round.
This one is more method than concept, but it's pretty central to science: It's okay to change your mind. Knowledge is based on facts devoid of moral value, and some of these facts will be replaced as we learn more about reality. A body of knowledge that can rebuild itself in the face of new evidence, and goes so far as to seek out new evidence, is one that gets stronger and healthier.
My favorite: Signal Detection Theory. It seems applicable to many different areas in life especially as we become more and more data oriented. Which emails to read, which server exceptions to respond to, which person talking to you is attracted to you, which visitors will buy, etc., etc.
It wrinkled my brain and got my pulse quickened.
It wrinkled my brain and got my pulse quickened.
My pick, "marginal benefit" and conversely, the sunk cost fallacy.
I liked Richard Dawkins' pick of the double-blind experiment. However, the significance of it for the lay person is entirely in why it is necessary. The concept itself is only a consequence. It's nice for people to know what a double-blind experiment is, but it doesn't give them an instant ability to evaluate scientific research. Even double-blind experiments can be flawed, and you wouldn't want people thinking they could trust the validity of a study just because it's double-blind. If consumers and voters started demanding double-blind experiments, advertisers and other liars would have no problem producing misleading results from double-blind studies.
No, the significance of double-blind studies is in why scientists have to go to such extraordinary lengths to escape bias. The ways bias can influence judgment and can be communicated subconsciously between people are pretty amazing, and they justify the skepticism that scientifically literate people take for granted but other people take for unreasonable stubbornness. "My uncle has seen ghosts, my cousin has seen ghosts, and I just told you I saw a ghost. Why don't you believe in ghosts? You just refuse to believe because paranormal phenomena are embarrassing to your narrow scientific worldview."
To help people understand why scientifically literate people think they way they do, we need to tell them stories about how bias affects experiments and leads to bogus results. In his essay about cargo cult science, Richard Feynman tells a great story about an experimenter who discovered an unexpected source of bias in an experimental setup for rats running a maze. That's a perfect example for the general scientific audience, for whom rats running mazes is an icon of objective quantitative science, but the general public needs examples where psychological bias creates results that they personally know to be important and know to be false. Understanding those stories will give them a completely new outlook on the information they take in every day.
Also, the stories need to put people in a serious frame of mind. No matter what their level of ignorance, people have enough meta-cognitive sophistication to worry that if they absorb our scientific skepticism they will miss out on a lot of fun things. They like believing in ghosts. They like believing in aliens. They like believing that there are extraordinary things in the world that are as accessible to them as science and technology are to the nerds. We're trying to rob them of their fun. Sure, they can still play at believing, but it won't be quite as thrilling. (It really is just as fun to watch The X-Files or read Harry Potter when you're scientifically literate, but I don't think they'd believe us if we told them :-) Also, it's a lot less fun to listen to your friends tell stories about how they saw a ghost in the Winchester Mystery House and how they know it was real because the tour guide knew what it looked like without being told because other people had seen the same one. Sigh.)
To get around resistance to the lifeless, booooring scientific worldview, we need something awful to shake people out of that fun frame of mind. Children dying of cancer because of biased studies, something like that. Even better, children getting abducted and molested. TV news shows know how to make people pay attention; let's put their techniques to good use. Unfortunately, my scientific education stopped after my sophomore year of college, so I'll leave it up to others to provide concrete examples ;-)
No, the significance of double-blind studies is in why scientists have to go to such extraordinary lengths to escape bias. The ways bias can influence judgment and can be communicated subconsciously between people are pretty amazing, and they justify the skepticism that scientifically literate people take for granted but other people take for unreasonable stubbornness. "My uncle has seen ghosts, my cousin has seen ghosts, and I just told you I saw a ghost. Why don't you believe in ghosts? You just refuse to believe because paranormal phenomena are embarrassing to your narrow scientific worldview."
To help people understand why scientifically literate people think they way they do, we need to tell them stories about how bias affects experiments and leads to bogus results. In his essay about cargo cult science, Richard Feynman tells a great story about an experimenter who discovered an unexpected source of bias in an experimental setup for rats running a maze. That's a perfect example for the general scientific audience, for whom rats running mazes is an icon of objective quantitative science, but the general public needs examples where psychological bias creates results that they personally know to be important and know to be false. Understanding those stories will give them a completely new outlook on the information they take in every day.
Also, the stories need to put people in a serious frame of mind. No matter what their level of ignorance, people have enough meta-cognitive sophistication to worry that if they absorb our scientific skepticism they will miss out on a lot of fun things. They like believing in ghosts. They like believing in aliens. They like believing that there are extraordinary things in the world that are as accessible to them as science and technology are to the nerds. We're trying to rob them of their fun. Sure, they can still play at believing, but it won't be quite as thrilling. (It really is just as fun to watch The X-Files or read Harry Potter when you're scientifically literate, but I don't think they'd believe us if we told them :-) Also, it's a lot less fun to listen to your friends tell stories about how they saw a ghost in the Winchester Mystery House and how they know it was real because the tour guide knew what it looked like without being told because other people had seen the same one. Sigh.)
To get around resistance to the lifeless, booooring scientific worldview, we need something awful to shake people out of that fun frame of mind. Children dying of cancer because of biased studies, something like that. Even better, children getting abducted and molested. TV news shows know how to make people pay attention; let's put their techniques to good use. Unfortunately, my scientific education stopped after my sophomore year of college, so I'll leave it up to others to provide concrete examples ;-)
Just making people aware that any cognitive biases exist would be a huge win.
Whenever I'm pretty sure of a hunch I have, I like to review this list to remember how utterly useless human cognition is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Not necessarily. If a person uses their knowledge of biases only to look for them in other people, it can make them less rational by making them less open to opposing points of view.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo...
And for some biases, e.g. anchoring bias telling someone explicitly that they ought to be resisting anchoring bias in an experiment doesn't seem to actually cause them to suffer from anchoring bias any less. There are some biases that can be eliminated this easily, but many that can't. Presumably you would need some sort of explicit training to resist anchoring bias.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo...
And for some biases, e.g. anchoring bias telling someone explicitly that they ought to be resisting anchoring bias in an experiment doesn't seem to actually cause them to suffer from anchoring bias any less. There are some biases that can be eliminated this easily, but many that can't. Presumably you would need some sort of explicit training to resist anchoring bias.
Stuart Sutherland's book, "Irrationality", is about as concise and readable an account of these as you could wish for.
My New Year's resolution (last year) was to always make a New Year's resolution to re-read it that year, because the insights tend to slip away with time.
My New Year's resolution (last year) was to always make a New Year's resolution to re-read it that year, because the insights tend to slip away with time.
If you haven't seen it -- the story of the Clever Hans effect is a great example of why we need double blind experiments.
Feynman also noted that the rat-maze paper was almost never cited, which he took for a worrisome signal about psychology as a science.
Are we supposed to add ours now? If so then
"Free will does not exist"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will
"Free will does not exist"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_free_will
Designing experiments to differentiate between possible explanations. It is the key to problem solving in general.
For example - when I debug program, I often fail to apply this concept, and change things randomly to guess what's wrong, or stare at screen guessing. Most often, controlled experiment answers the question faster and more definitely, than guessing, or experimenting without plan.
For example - when I debug program, I often fail to apply this concept, and change things randomly to guess what's wrong, or stare at screen guessing. Most often, controlled experiment answers the question faster and more definitely, than guessing, or experimenting without plan.
Develop your ability to create complete silence in your mind. Subconscious control over the inner workings of your subconscious mind is what Richard Feynman was working on.
Thought is about clearing the table, placing the tools on the table, moving the tools around, isolating the product, removing it, then starting over by clearing the table. Most humans never take anything off the table. Learn to clear your mind's table.
http://www.cyberbore.com/puzzle/klok.html
Thought is about clearing the table, placing the tools on the table, moving the tools around, isolating the product, removing it, then starting over by clearing the table. Most humans never take anything off the table. Learn to clear your mind's table.
http://www.cyberbore.com/puzzle/klok.html
That sounds useful, but not a scientific notion from what you're telling us. Could you start by defining what you mean by clearing the table? Is there any way to compare/contrast it to what sleep does?
Not sure what the link has to do with your interesting comment, but I'll upvote almost anything with a Feynman reference
Not a scientific one, but a mathematical one:
Hypothesis testing.
Statistics inverts your thinking, because it asks you to only tentatively accept every single conclusion you make ("fail to reject").
All science rests on this, the twinned ideas that 1) something must be testable for it to be useful and 2) it is only through embracing uncertainty (it _is_ possible for a coin flipped 50 times to come up heads 50 times) that one can mediate certainty.
Hypothesis testing.
Statistics inverts your thinking, because it asks you to only tentatively accept every single conclusion you make ("fail to reject").
All science rests on this, the twinned ideas that 1) something must be testable for it to be useful and 2) it is only through embracing uncertainty (it _is_ possible for a coin flipped 50 times to come up heads 50 times) that one can mediate certainty.
Stop asking dumb questions:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
And get Motivated, this video gave me years of motivation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSC2vx7zFQ
Hold a man underwater, watch him fight, tell him, when you want to succeed as much as you want to breath there, then you will be successful. Thing is, most people don't want to be successful, they want to date, they want to party, they want to EAT, they want to sleep and have sex and have nice cars, nice houses, nice wives. When you want to be successful as much as you want to breath, you will be successful. It's all about priority.
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
And get Motivated, this video gave me years of motivation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSC2vx7zFQ
Hold a man underwater, watch him fight, tell him, when you want to succeed as much as you want to breath there, then you will be successful. Thing is, most people don't want to be successful, they want to date, they want to party, they want to EAT, they want to sleep and have sex and have nice cars, nice houses, nice wives. When you want to be successful as much as you want to breath, you will be successful. It's all about priority.
Your mind is a symphony of interdependent systems, specifically sulfur ion channels, like dominoes that right themselves. The software that runs on these sulfur ion channels are not optimized for how your brain works because our schools today were designed by people who didn't believe processing was done in the brain.
To improve your cognitive toolkit, understand how and why your brain processes data, and change the way you think to improve processing speed 100 times. This book tells you how.
http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Performance-Hacks-Tools-Overclock...
To improve your cognitive toolkit, understand how and why your brain processes data, and change the way you think to improve processing speed 100 times. This book tells you how.
http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Performance-Hacks-Tools-Overclock...
You need to learn how to learn, read the article on page 22 of this HN Magazine, When I read it my life changed.
http://issuu.com/babo/docs/hackermonthly-issue1
http://issuu.com/babo/docs/hackermonthly-issue1
Coffee, Espresso, monster energy, redbulls and certain Chocolates are drugs that can put your body into panic, fight or flight mode, use too many of these drugs and your overall output is greatly diminished.
Understand the power of the drugs in these drinks, and respect them, only use these drugs on things where you are growing yourself in a positive way. Use them while you are in a self destructing situation and your brain orients itself to optimize for that.
http://visual.ly/15ish-things-worth-knowing-about-coffee
Understand the power of the drugs in these drinks, and respect them, only use these drugs on things where you are growing yourself in a positive way. Use them while you are in a self destructing situation and your brain orients itself to optimize for that.
http://visual.ly/15ish-things-worth-knowing-about-coffee
Will power is a muscle, like your forearm, if it is atrophied then you are not taking time out to purposefully exercise it.
Philip Zimbardo talked about the formation of will-power in children, it has a direct influence on the success later in life. Improve your own cognitive toolkit by getting another child off on the right foot.
From the video, children who are predisposed to deny themselves pleasure by holding out for a future reward differentiate the rich from the poor.
http://fora.tv/2008/11/12/Philip_Zimbardo_The_Time_Paradox
Philip Zimbardo talked about the formation of will-power in children, it has a direct influence on the success later in life. Improve your own cognitive toolkit by getting another child off on the right foot.
From the video, children who are predisposed to deny themselves pleasure by holding out for a future reward differentiate the rich from the poor.
http://fora.tv/2008/11/12/Philip_Zimbardo_The_Time_Paradox
Learn by heart and be able to name all of the fallacies used in conversation, there are about 200 of them used every day. Practice spotting them on tv, radio and in conversation. Humans are remarkably illogical, knowing the names of every fallacy helps, commit all of these to memory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
You need to focus on and cultivate your tenacity, listen to this video.
Video about how our educational system produces (or doesn't) entrepreneurs, the keyword is tenacity.
http://fora.tv/2010/04/14/Developing_the_Next_Generation_of_...
Video about how our educational system produces (or doesn't) entrepreneurs, the keyword is tenacity.
http://fora.tv/2010/04/14/Developing_the_Next_Generation_of_...
Even harder but oh so wonderful if it were true - knowing the difference between conditional and joint probabilities. Expecting to flip 5 heads in a row is a small chance. Flipping the 5th head is far more likely.
Another: the question, hypothesize, measure, discard/refine loop.
Oh and if you have lots of people doing something with a small chance of occurring, just because you managed it does not rule out mere luck. Being amongst those few who managed to fairly flip 5 heads in a row in a group of 160 is not to do with skill.
honorable mentions: opportunity cost, expected value, mean vs median, solving equations of one variable, newton's first law, how to write if statements and foreach loops. Finally in this day and age when I say graph to someone circles joined by lines and not a curve on a 2d grid should come to mind.