mattnewport comments on Some Thoughts Are Too Dangerous For Brains to Think - Less Wrong

15 Post author: WrongBot 13 July 2010 04:44AM

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Comment author: mattnewport 14 July 2010 06:54:20PM *  1 point [-]

Part of the problem I'm having with your example is my perception of the magnitude of the gap between what you are talking about and WrongBot's examples. While they share certain similarities it appears roughly equivalent to a discussion about losing your entire life savings which you are comparing to the time you dropped a dime down the back of the sofa.

Sometimes a sufficiently large difference of magnitude can be treated for most purposes as a difference in kind.

Comment author: HughRistik 14 July 2010 07:01:44PM 1 point [-]

Quantity has a quality all of its own.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 14 July 2010 08:11:19PM 0 points [-]

Part of the problem I'm having with your example is my perception of the magnitude of the gap between what you are talking about and WrongBot's examples.

What is the axis along which the gap lies? Is it the degree of uncertainty about when it will be safe to learn the dangerous knowledge?

Comment author: mattnewport 14 July 2010 08:25:11PM *  5 points [-]

Multiple axes:

  • Degree of uncertainty and magnitude of duration of the length of time before it will be 'safe'.
  • Degree of effort involved in avoidance (temporarily holding off on reading a specific email vs. actively avoiding certain knowledge and filtering all information for a long and unspecified duration).
  • Severity of consequences (delayed or somewhat sub-standard performance on a near term project deadline vs. fundamental change or damage to your core values)
  • Scope of filtering (avoiding detailed contents of a specific email with a known and clearly delineated area of significance vs. general avoidance of whole areas of knowledge where you may not even have a good idea of what knowledge you may be missing out on).
  • Mental resources emphasized (short term attentional resources vs. deeply considered core beliefs and modes of thought and high level knowledge and understanding).
Comment author: HughRistik 14 July 2010 08:28:19PM 0 points [-]

That's part of it, and also how far into the future one thinks that might occur.

Comment author: WrongBot 14 July 2010 08:18:32PM 0 points [-]

In my perception, the gap is less about certainty and more about timescale; I'd draw a line between "in a normal human lifetime" and "when I have a better brain" as the two qualitatively different timescales that you're talking about.

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