Nanashi comments on Rationality is about pattern recognition, not reasoning - Less Wrong

25 Post author: JonahSinick 26 May 2015 07:23PM

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Comment author: Nanashi 26 May 2015 08:07:53PM 7 points [-]

I'd be glad to offer what help I can. Based on other posts of yours, I would definitely practice brevity. This post is over 1000 words long and easily could be condensed to 250 or less.

Comment author: Nanashi 26 May 2015 08:26:28PM *  8 points [-]

Per our email exchange, here is the condensed version that uses only your original writing:

"Our brains' pattern recognition capabilities are far stronger than our ability to reason explicitly. Most people can recognize cats across contexts with little mental exertion. By way of contrast, explicitly constructing a formal algorithm that can consistently cats across contexts requires great scientific ability and cognitive exertion.

Very high level epistemic rationality is about retraining one's brain to be able to see patterns in the evidence in the same way that we can see patterns when we observe the world with our eyes. Reasoning plays a role, but a relatively small one. Sufficiently high quality mathematicians don't make their discoveries through reasoning. The mathematical proof is the very last step: you do it to check that your eyes weren't deceiving you, but you know ahead of time that it's your eyes probably weren't deceiving you.

I have a lot of evidence that this way of thinking is how the most effective people think about the world. I would like to share what I learned. I think that what I've learned is something that lots of people are capable of learning, and that learning it would greatly improve people's effectiveness. But communicating the information is very difficult.

It took me 10,000+ hours to learn how to "see" patterns in evidence in the way that I can now. Right now, I don't know how to communicate how to do it succinctly. In order to succeed, I need collaborators who are open to spend a lot of time thinking carefully about the material, to get to the point of being able to teach others. I'd welcome any suggestions for how to find collaborators."

Notes:

  • I removed all the quotations. Although I'm guessing they were probably key to your own understanding of the issue, I don't think they are an efficient way to improve other people's understanding.
  • Much of the post was dedicated (unnecessarily) to why your viewpoint is right rather than just stating your viewpoint. People who agree with you don't need to be convinced. People who disagree with you aren't going to be swayed by your arguments.
  • I removed a few paragraphs that repeated themselves.
Comment author: Vaniver 26 May 2015 09:16:56PM 16 points [-]

While I agree that there's value to being able to state the summary of the viewpoint, I can't help but feel that brevity is the wrong approach to take to this subject in particular. If the point is that effective people reason by examples and seeing patterns rather than by manipulating logical objects and functions, then removing the examples and patterns to just leave logical objects and functions is betraying the point!

Somewhat more generally, yes, there is value in telling people things, but they need to be explained if you want to communicate with people that don't already understand them.

Comment author: Nanashi 26 May 2015 09:44:10PM 2 points [-]

I definitely agree that you shouldn't be so brief as to not get your point across, I think the level of brevity depends on what your goal is. In this case, he's asking for help. It isn't until 1,500 words in that the two most important questions: "What does he want?" and "Why should I help him?" are answered.

(Besides, he specifically wanted help in communicating things succinctly.)

Comment author: Romashka 28 May 2015 04:13:45PM 1 point [-]

The post reminded me of The creative mind by Margaret Bowden; her examples, in particular Kekule seeing the benzene ring, seem relevant here. (Although the book definitely could be shorter:)

Comment author: Nanashi 26 May 2015 08:50:48PM *  6 points [-]

Here is the even-further edited version, condensed to 150 words.

I have a lot of evidence that the most effective people in the world have a very specific way of thinking. They use their brain's pattern-matching abilities to process the world, rather than using explicit reasoning.

Our brain can pattern match much more efficiently than it can reason. Most people can recognize a cat very easily. But creating an algorithm to recognize cats is far more difficult. And breakthroughs of any kind are very rarely made via explicit reasoning, but rather through a complex and rapid-fire combination of ideas.

Doing this is something that many people are capable of learning. But, it took me 10,000+ hours to learn how to "see" the world way that I can now, and I do not know how to communicate this process succinctly. In order to help people, I need collaborators who are willing to help clarify my thoughts. I'd welcome any suggestions.

You'll note it very quickly gets to the three main points:

  • What are you talking about?
  • Why should we listen to you?
  • What do you want?

Let me know if I summarized any part of your thoughts incorrectly.

Comment author: JonahSinick 26 May 2015 08:50:37PM 5 points [-]

Thanks very much, both for the shorted version and for the notes. I added the shorted version at the top of my post.

Comment author: Nanashi 26 May 2015 08:52:30PM 3 points [-]

Not a problem at all. What you're talking about is something I believe in, so I'm glad to help.

Comment author: Grothor 28 May 2015 07:07:22AM 2 points [-]

I do not think the entire post was too long, but I do think reading the short version first was helpful. It's sort of like reading an abstract before diving into a journal article. If nothing else, it helps people who are uninterested save some time.

People who agree with you don't need to be convinced. People who disagree with you aren't going to be swayed by your arguments.

I'm not convinced this is true, but regardless, what about people who neither agree nor disagree? To a large extent, explaining why your viewpoint is right is exactly the same thing as explaining in detail what your viewpoint is.

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