MichaelVassar comments on Your Most Valuable Skill - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Alicorn 27 September 2009 05:01PM

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Comment author: MichaelVassar 28 September 2009 01:48:08PM 14 points [-]

I'm going to go with "rationality" if it counts as a skill and we are talking about deviation from the mean, not absolute value, where things like object permanence probably take precedence.

Breaking down rationality and focusing on my particular areas of strength, I'd go with the ability to notice confusion, clarify questions, and entertain a hypothesis to the point of serious investigation without becoming highly attached to it, and the sort of extreme materialism that dissolves Enlightenment era superstitions like a unified self and does so not as theoretical knowledge but as an everyday element of experienced life.

Non-attachment of all sorts really is quite useful though, from the ability to drop hypotheses to the ability to reject a long-term hobby (such as reading fiction) or interpersonal pattern (say arguing) as no longer educational or enjoyable enough to justify serious continued attention and then actually give it up or reduce participation (indulgence accepts naive assumptions about habits being fun) to a rewarding level.

Comment author: Alicorn 28 September 2009 03:17:11PM 0 points [-]

"Object permanence" is a skill?

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 September 2009 04:23:01PM 1 point [-]

Of your parietal cortex, one assumes.

Comment author: Alicorn 28 September 2009 04:30:53PM 3 points [-]

Oh, I see. The ability to perceive/understand the permanence of objects, not the ability to be a permanent object.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 28 September 2009 06:42:42PM 5 points [-]

Though I suppose the ability to not be a permanent object might be useful for e.g. walking through walls.

Unless it meant that you ceased existing at all, of course.

Comment author: Epsilon725 12 September 2013 06:46:09AM 0 points [-]

Alternatively, it could result in falling through the floor, and being trapped in the Earth's core for all of eternity... Or until you die, whichever comes sooner.