SarahC comments on Open Thread, August 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: NancyLebovitz 09 August 2010 11:18PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (369)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: hegemonicon 12 August 2010 01:35:44PM 4 points [-]

Informal poll to ensure I'm not generalizing from one example:

How frequently do you find yourself able to remember how you feel about something, but unable to remember what produced the feeling in the first place (ie: you remember you hate steve but can't remember why)?

It seems like this is a cognitive shortcut, giving us access only to the "answer" that's already been computed (how to act vis-a-vis steve) instead of wasting energy and working memory re-accessing all the data and re-performing the calculation.

Comment author: [deleted] 14 August 2010 02:55:01PM 1 point [-]

Yes -- and I agree that it's probably a cognitive shortcut, because it's also something that happens with purely conceptual ideas. I'll forget the definition of a word, but remember whether it's basically a positive or negative notion. Yay/Boo is surprisingly efficient shorthand for describing anything.