Jonathan_Graehl comments on The Substitution Principle - Less Wrong

68 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 28 January 2012 04:20AM

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Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 27 January 2012 10:17:47PM 1 point [-]

Well put.

But we can use one of these explanations (your hidden goal is to optimize status, etc.) to predict yet-unobserved behavior in other contexts.

In the case of "did I answer an easier / more accessible question than was really posed?", you may just be inventing a new just-so story in every case. So like all self-help/productivity tricks, I can use one hoping that they remind me to act more deliberately when it matters, more than they waste our energy, but I can't be sure it's more than placebo.