roland comments on Rationality Quotes August 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Alejandro1 03 August 2012 03:33PM

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Comment author: roland 03 August 2012 08:55:53PM 4 points [-]

There is a famous study that digs a bit deeper and convincingly demonstrates it: Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 06 August 2012 07:46:44AM *  6 points [-]

From the abstract:

This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them.

It seems to me that "cognitive processes" could be replaced by "physical surroundings", and the resulting statement would still be true. I am not sure how significant these findings are. We have imperfect knowledge of ourselves, but we have imperfect knowledge of everything.