ABranco comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: NancyLebovitz 01 August 2010 01:27PM

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Comment author: Matt_Simpson 03 August 2010 11:11:35PM *  13 points [-]

In his bio over at Overcoming Bias, Robin Hanson writes:

I am addicted to “viewquakes”, insights which dramatically change my world view.

So am I. I suspect you are too, dear reader. I asked Robin how many viewquakes he had and what caused them, but haven't gotten a response yet. But I must know! I need more viewquakes. So I propose we share our own viewquakes with each other so that we all know where to look for more.

I'll start. I've had four major viewquakes, in roughly chronological order:

  • (micro)Economics - Starting with a simple approximation of how humans behave yields a startlingly effective theory in a wide range of contexts.
  • Bayesianism - I learned how to think
  • Yudkowskyan/Humean Metaethics - Making the move from Objective theories of morality to Subjectively Objective theories of morality cleared up a large degree of confusion in my map.
  • Evolution - This is a two part quake: evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. The latter is extremely helpful for explaining some of the behavior that economic theory misses and for understanding the inputs into economic theory (i.e., preferences).
Comment author: ABranco 05 August 2010 04:02:56AM *  5 points [-]

I've had some dozens of viewquakes, most minors, although it's hard to evaluate it in hindsight now that I take them for granted.

Some are somewhat commonplace here: Bayesianism, map–territory relations, evolution etc.

One that I always feel people should be shouting Eureka — and when they are not impressed I assume that this is old news to them (and is often not, as I don't see it reflected in their actions) — is the Curse of Knowledge: it's hard to be a tapper. I feel that being aware of it dramatically improved my perceptions in conversation. I also feel that if more people were aware of it, misunderstandings would be far less common.

Maybe worth a post someday.

Comment author: RobinZ 05 August 2010 08:33:02PM 1 point [-]

The thesis cited.

Comment author: byrnema 05 August 2010 04:30:14AM *  8 points [-]

I can see how the Curse of Knowledge could be a powerful idea. I will dwell on it for a while -- especially the example given about JFK, as an example of a type of application that would be useful in my own life. (To remember to describe things using broad strokes that are universally clear, rather than technical and accurate,in contexts where persuasion and fueling interest is most important.)

For me, one of the main viewquakes of my life was a line I read from a little book of Kalil Gibran poems:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

It seemed to be a hammer that could be applied to everything.. Whenever I was unhappy about something, I thought about the problem a while until I identified a misconception. I fixed the misconception ("I'm not the smartest person in graduate school"; "I'm not as kind as I thought I was"; "That person won't be there for me when I need them") by assimilating the truth the pain pointed me towards, and the pain would dissipate. (Why should I expect graduate school to be easy? I'll just work harder. Kindness is what you actually do, not how you expect you'll feel. That person is fun to hang out with, but I'll need to find some closer friends.) After each disappointment, I felt stronger and the problem just bounced off me, without my being in denial about anything.

The "technique" failed me when a good friend of mine died. There was a lot of pain, and I tried to identify the truth that was cutting though, but I couldn't find one. Where did my friend go? There is a part of my brain, I realized, that simply cannot except on an emotional level that people are material. I believe that they are (I don't believe in a soul or an afterlife) but I simply couldn't connect the essence of my friend with 'gone'. If there was a truth there, it couldn't find a place in my mind.

This seems like a tangent. .. but just to demonstrate it's not all-powerful.

Comment author: ABranco 05 August 2010 10:04:42AM *  4 points [-]

Remarkable quote, thank you.

Reminded me of the Anorexic Hermit Crab Syndrome:

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety. The hermit crab is a colorful example of a creature that lives by this aspect of the growth process (albeit without our psychological baggage). As the crab gets bigger, it needs to find a more spacious shell. So the slow, lumbering creature goes on a quest for a new home. If an appropriate new shell is not found quickly, a terribly delicate moment of truth arises. A soft creature that is used to the protection of built-in armor must now go out into the world, exposed to predators in all its mushy vulnerability. That learning phase in between shells is where our growth can spring from. Someone stuck with an entity theory of intelligence is like an anorexic hermit crab, starving itself so it doesn't grow to have to find a new shell. —Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning

Comment author: fiddlemath 05 August 2010 06:00:49AM 4 points [-]

Sounds like the illusion of transparency. We've got that post around. ;)

On the other hand, the tapper/listener game is a very evocative instance.

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