= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Jordan comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (534)
Anyone know how to defeat the availability heuristic? Put another way, does anyone have advice on how to deal with incoherent or insane propositions while losing as little personal sanity as possible? Is there such a thing as "safety gloves" for dangerous memes?
I'm asking because I'm currently studying for the California Bar exam, which requires me to memorize hundreds of pages of legal rules, together with their so-called justifications. Of course, in many cases the "justifications" are incoherent, Orwellian doublespeak, and/or tendentiously ideological. I really do want to memorize (nearly) all of these justifications, so that I can be sure to pass the exam and continue my career as a rationalist lawyer, but I don't want the pattern of thought used by the justifications to become a part of my pattern of thought.
I worry about this as well when I'm reading long arguments or long works of fiction presenting ideas I disagree with. My tactic is to stop occasionally and go through a mental dialog simulating how I would respond to the author in person. This serves a double purpose, as hopefully I'll have better cached arguments in the event I ever need them.
Of course, this is a dangerous tactic as well, because you may be shutting off critical reasoning applied to your preexisting beliefs. I only apply this tactic when I'm very confident the author is wrong and is using fallacious arguments. Even then I make sure to spend some amount of time playing devil's advocate.