AdeleneDawner comments on Teachable Rationality Skills - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 May 2011 09:57PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 May 2011 09:48:19PM 9 points [-]

Exercise material: List of suggested conclusions to rationalize. I'm not quite sure what the prerequisites here would be; one of my own childhood epiphanies was finding that I could argue reasons why there ought to be a teapot in the asteroid belt, and thinking to myself, "Well, I better not do that, then." I suspect the primary desideratum would be more that the topic offers plenty of opportunity to come up with clever rationalizations, rather than that the topic offers motivation to come up with clever rationalizations.

Exercise A: Pick a conclusion from the list. Come up with a clever argument why it is true. Notice what it feels like to do this. Then don't do it.

(This is distinct from noticing the feeling of being tempted to rationalize, a separate subskill.)

Exercise B: In the middle of coming up with clever arguments why something is true, stop and chain into the Litany of Tarski, or some other remedy. Variant: Say out loud "Ew!" or "Oops!" during the stop part.

Exercise C: For a conclusion on the list, argue that it is true. Then "Ask whether, not why" - try to figure out whether it is true. Notice the difference between these two processes. Requires a question whose answer is less than immediately obvious, but which someone can find info about by searching their memory and/or the Internet.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 28 May 2011 12:43:41AM 1 point [-]

argue reasons why there ought to be a teapot in the asteroid belt

It's not clear to me how this is different from fabricating evidence. Is it?