ChristianKl comments on High Status and Stupidity: Why? - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 January 2010 04:36PM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 13 January 2010 10:15:03AM 1 point [-]

How about ritualizing admiting your own mistakes? One day every month find as much instances as possible where you were wrong in the month that passed. Then you can feel bad about finding not finding enough ideas where you were wrong and signal to your brain that it better updates beliefs more often to be a good rationalist and therefore increase status.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 January 2010 04:42:51PM 3 points [-]

My brain is pretty bad at that sort of episodic-memory SQL query, so I have to admit it at the time and quickly, which is a good policy in any case.

Comment author: ChristianKl 14 January 2010 01:39:31PM 0 points [-]

Being bad at remembering times when you were wrong is not independent from stupidity through higher status. It's the problem.

The fact that you can't remember how often you are wrong might be part of the reason why you generally underestimate the chance of being wrong in the future. Admitting stuff directly when it happens is good, but it doesn't help when you afterwards forget that you made a mistake. Our brain can be very clever at editing our own mistakes out of our awareness. Reviewing all the mistakes you did on a regular basis would be a way to counteract the effect.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 14 January 2010 08:59:02PM *  1 point [-]

Not necessarily.

My episodic memory is also bad in the way that Eliezer describes - if I don't semi-consciously take note of an event as it happens, trying to recall the details of that event later is difficult, and gets more difficult as more time passes. However, 'the last time I discovered that I made a mistake was [time] ago' and 'I've made mistakes at a rate of [frequency] in [context] recently/in general' and similar simple facts aren't subject to that effect - they're in the realm of semantic, not episodic, memory.