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steven0461 comments on That Magical Click - Less Wrong
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There's also the valuable trait where, between being presented with an argument and going "click", one's brain cleanly goes "duhhh", rather than producing something that sounds superficially like reasoning.
I greatly value that one. I'm in the (apparently small) group of people who, when presented with a statistics/probability problem, will say, "Clearly the solution involves math. The answer is to consult someone who knows how to solve the problem." rather than come up with the wrong answer that "feels right" or alternatively knowing how to find the right answer.
Does that group also include those for whom 'consult someone who knows' wouldn't occur until 'learn how to do it' was thoroughly ruled out?
Hm, interesting point. I'm not sure I have this trait, because instead of thinking "duhhh" when I hear a well-reasoned and compelling argument, I like to make a few sanity checks and run it past my skepticism meter before allowing the clicking mechanism to engage. I wonder if that's ever produced results; at any rate, I feel like it's my duty to keep good epistemic hygiene, though my skeptical reasoning might be superficial. For this reason it normally takes a few seconds before I allow things to click, which slows conversation a tad. Perhaps I should tentatively accept the premises of hypotheses first and then be skeptical later, when I have time and resources?
Also, I wonder to what extent the desire to be skeptical is more related to the desire not to appear gullible than to a desire to find truth.
That's very interesting to read - I have the same trait and surely it must be fairly widespread and not particular to us. Essentially a trait to subject highly favoured, especially very trivial hypotheses to burdensome checking, for the sake of intellectual integrity or 'epistemic hygiene' which you intriguingly coin. Maybe this trait is called OCD.
For example, in the post above: it is referenced that the woman suggests magic exists because science does not know everything, it is replied that lack of knowledge does not imply non-existence, and the woman is said to have 'clicked' by concluding that magic is inconsistent. While this final conclusion sounds very reasonable, for completeness I still felt the need to question: "inconsistent with what?"
First let's lay out the reasonable premise: 1. I think the unspoken implied principle here here is that magic is defined to be what is unknown.
So we can test the consistency of this principle. If one person does not know something, and the other person does, then regarding this something, magic would have to exist for one but not exist for the other, respectively. Therefore there is a logical inconsistency in this principle (unless we accept solipsism, but then we would have difficulty talking about real 'other people', would we?)
However, I do suppose that if only one person existed, there would be no other person to create a logical inconsistency and in a strict sense magic would be consistent. It would merely constantly change based on your epistemological state, and you would probably need Occam's Razor to dispense with it.
Although being even stricter, Occam's Razor is a heuristic and not a (dis)proof.
Epistemic Hygiene was a term coined by Steve Rayhawk and Anna Salamon. No credit for me. :)
No, it's way older.