Will_Newsome comments on Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: NancyLebovitz 17 September 2010 01:44AM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 28 September 2010 04:30:20AM *  4 points [-]

I was thinking about turning this chunk of vomited IM text I wrote for a non-LW cogsci-student friend into a post (with lots of links and references and stuff). Thoughts? I'll probably repost this for the new open thread so that more people see it and can give me feedback.

People make this identity for themselves... no, it's not that they make it. To some extent it's chosen, but a lot of it is sorta random stuff from the environment. Ya know, man is infinitely malleable, whatever. Like, if you happen to give money to a bum on the street, you'll start thinking of yourself as the type of person who gives money to poor people, constructing this internal narrative about who you are. Except a lot of the time it's not even conscious, you just do things and think they're representative of the type of person you are. And if you're that type of person, you do more of that type of a thing. So there's a chance for cascades, especially if there's in-group/out-group bias. 'Cuz if you start leaning towards Green over Blue, then you have more positive affect around Green, which polarizes you, leading to more positive affect, et cetera. So there are all these attractors in identity space that we unkowingly get sucked into, and they can cause bias or good habits or bad habits.

But the thing is, rationality is precise, and if you're being sucked into all these attractors unknowingly then the chance that you're being sucked into the attractors and identity that is best for finding truth or doing the best thing according to your preferences is pretty slim. Signaling comes into play via something I noticed a few months ago: you think a lot about the things you wish to signal, and you signal things that pertain to your identity. So someone like me has the identity of 'rationalist' and 'smart person' and 'person who wants to be good at everything' and 'person with strong sense of aesthetics', and so I end up wanting to signal those things. I'll try to be rational, because of consistency effects. (Cialdini has an excellent book reviewing lots of psychology literature about consistency effects and how, if you act a certain way, you'll try to act that way in the future to be consistent.) I'll try to get good at programming, because part of my identity has me wanting to be really good at everything, and programming is this big thing it'd be cool to be good at. And because I want to signal these things so that I and others can see them, I think about these things too, a lot of the time. My internal monologue is primed by thoughts about becoming more awesome or being rational.

To some extent that's good, but if I'm not careful about my identity, it could be bad. I could be biased by my identity in various ways. For instance, an easy way for this to happen is to identify with a political party or a religion or philosophical position. You support arguments on 'your side' and try to shoot down arguments on the 'opposing side', even when there's no reason other than identity to want facts to have been a certain way or another. From a Bayesian perspective, it doesn't even make any sense; it's an impossible error of probability theory that only humans could do, because we're crazy. So we have to be very careful and very cognizant of our identity, and thus what we wish to signal, and thus our thoughts, and because the brain is so leaky, we have to watch for potential for causation and feedback loops due to correlation in those three facets of thoughtspace, actionspace, and personalityspace.

Edit: Also, goal distortion.

Comment author: Relsqui 28 September 2010 07:45:52AM 3 points [-]

Definitely interested in the topic, would like to see more about it.

if you act a certain way, you'll try to act that way in the future to be consistent

This just made an experience in my past click for me:

One of the traits-people-know-about-me is that Relsqui Doesn't Watch TV. The set of Relsqui-related activities and the set of TV-related activites are assumed to be mutually exclusive. This came about, entirely reasonably, as a result of my griping when a TV was on in the background, during a meal, or when I'd rather be socializing/doing anything else. It's true that I don't much enjoy it as a medium. However, there are a few specific examples which I like.

When the most recent season of Dr. Who started, a bunch of my friends started getting together every week to watch it. I'd hear them plan it on another evening, and talk about the episode the following week, and I'd kind of "hrm" to myself and fidget and not say anything. This went on for a few weeks, until finally at the end of some unrelated social evening I approached the friend who was hosting it and said,

"So ... um. It's completely understandable that you wouldn't even have thought to invite me, because I've made such a big deal in the past about not liking that sort of thing, but ... uh. I actually happen to like Dr. Who."

He blinked at me a couple of times, affirmed that he hadn't invited me because he was certain I wouldn't be interested, and immediately encouraged me to come. So I did! And it was fun.

That was, I gather, me making a deliberate choice to overcome the consistency effect--although without knowing its name, I just thought of it as "asking for what you want when other people don't know you want it." I was pretty proud of myself.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 September 2010 05:06:53AM 3 points [-]

I think the insight that one's behavior has been (often) determined by a self-image that is not wholly within one's control is really important. It seems like a discovery that may help one make the transition from associative to mechanistic thought which should allow for greater goal achievement.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 28 September 2010 05:17:45AM 1 point [-]

I'm trying to make the connection between identity awareness/skepticism and associative vs. mechanistic thought, but I don't really see it. Can you explain further? The only connection I see is that they're both byproducts of rationality and so getting good at one will make you better at the other.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 September 2010 05:29:44AM 2 points [-]

It's nothing too deep: engaging in behaviors that are associated with your self-concept versus behaviors that you can see will causally lead to your goals.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 28 September 2010 05:35:04AM 1 point [-]

Ah, I see. Thanks.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 28 September 2010 04:38:50AM *  3 points [-]

Thoughts?

me: This morning I had the epiphany, maybe false, that the brain is horribly fucked up in that it's wired so that correlation implies causation.
Like how if you're happy, you smile, and if you smile, you get happy.
What the hell is with that.
Claire: Haha, I don't know.
me: And the potential for crazy feedback loops like I think happens during jhana in meditation. You get happier and more relaxed and compassionate and more accepting of yourself, which causes you get get happier and more relaxed and compassionate and accepting of yourself, until you reach this ridiculous altered state that feels like you're enlightened. How is the brain set up so that it's possible to do that just by focusing on your breath and relaxing for 5 minutes? WTF.
Claire: Everything has its bugs.

Comment author: Relsqui 29 September 2010 06:59:27PM 2 points [-]

I have a model I call the "badge/shield" theory, which goes like this:

When someone tells you you're good at something, or when you otherwise believe that you are, it's like a badge. You wear it proudly, and you want to show it off. It makes you feel good about yourself and you look for examples to practice talents you have badges for.

Example Badge: I think of myself as a good communicator, so I like mediating between friends who are misunderstanding each other, or explaining things to my classmates.

When someone tells you you're bad at something, or when you otherwise believe that you are, it's like a shield. You hold it up, often preemptively, against any opportunity to do that thing. The inability becomes part of your identity, and you believe it excuses you from having to do the things you have shields for.

Example Shield: I have a friend who claims she's terrible at math; I don't know, because I've never seen her try to do any. She won't calculate tips or split checks, because she has decided that she's a person who Can't Do Math and won't try.

Oddly enough, the seed of this came from a Dear Abby column. A woman had written in frustrated that her husband never volunteered to look after the kids. The advice was to mention to their mutual friends (perhaps when the husband was in earshot) that he was so good with the kids and they really enjoyed spending time with him. The point was to encourage pride in how good a father he was, rather than getting him to do it through guilt or obligation.

Just some more thoughts on what our identies really consist of.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 29 September 2010 07:02:57PM 2 points [-]

Reminds me of this book on fixed vs. growth mindsets.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 September 2010 05:16:45AM 2 points [-]

Also, other people sometimes push you to be to person they think you are.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 28 September 2010 05:21:36AM *  1 point [-]

Awesome link, thank you. I see there are articles I haven't read on self-enhancement, self-verification theory, self-concept, and more. Sweet. I'm starting to have more respect for sociologists / psychologists / social psychologists.

Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 28 September 2010 05:52:14AM 0 points [-]

This would be vastly more readable with some added line breaks.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 28 September 2010 06:06:21AM *  2 points [-]

I was thinking that, but then I unconsciously reasoned that it'd make it look like I'd actually intended this to be coherent, and I further unconsciously reasoned that if people thought that then they'd think less of my writing ability, so I left it in original form on purpose so that people would think of better of me. My unconscious is stupid. I'll add line breaks.

The thing is though, the text doesn't lend itself well to line breaks, so I just put them in at random. Francis Bacon had a giant one paragraph essay once about how knowledge is power, why can't I do it? Hmph.

Any why is that line breaks make text so much more readable, anyway? I think it just gives the illusion that what you're reading is intelligent and structured. Other hypotheses?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 28 September 2010 06:18:59AM 4 points [-]

I'm guessing that line breaks make it easier to keep track of which line you're on.

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