MrHen comments on Making History Available - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 31 August 2007 07:52PM

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Comment author: MrHen 22 January 2010 07:19:33PM 2 points [-]

When I finally realized whose shoes I was standing in, there was a sudden shock of unexpected connection with the past. I realized that the invention and destruction of vitalism - which I had only read about in books - had actually happened to real people, who experienced it much the same way I experienced the invention and destruction of my own mysterious answer.

This behavior mirrors the behavior described in Correspondence Bias:

We tend to see far too direct a correspondence between others' actions and personalities. When we see someone else kick a vending machine for no visible reason, we assume they are "an angry person". But when you yourself kick the vending machine, it's because the bus was late, the train was early, your report is overdue, and now the damned vending machine has eaten your lunch money for the second day in a row. Surely, you think to yourself, anyone would kick the vending machine, in that situation.

I think there is a key difference, however, in the former quote shows a case where correspondence bias is giving the other person an invalid benefit of the doubt. The correlating case would be incorrectly applying the principles described in Correspondence Bias to explain away an angry person kicking a vending machine because they are angry. Vending machines are not too important; domestic violence and abuse is very important. Saying that there is a scenario where anyone would beat their spouse is only valid when it is actually True.

In the case of your Evil Mysteriousness, the error is more hindsight bias, which you note and to which you have included a link. I thought the behavior pattern was interesting and comparing the two revealed a nugget I had missed.