I agree that the entry appears to ignore the positive utility of cached thoughts, but I think what the entry really needs are descriptions with references to primary sources, Wikipedia style. What aspects of "cached thought" are original to Eliezer and what aspects are discussed elsewhere?
If this is more work than you intend to do, then I think a portion of your suggested change would improve the entry.
''Cached thought'' appears to be related to dynamic programming.
You capture this idea nicely with:
''Cached thought''' also allow for complex problems to be handled with a relatively small number of simple components.
However I am less certain about this:
These problem components when put together only approximate the actual problem, because they are slightly flawed '''cached thoughts.'''
This statement could generally be applied to all thoughts, not just cached thoughts. In general we tend to reason using models that only approximate reality.
For a cached thought to be currently valid, the model that was used to generate it must be valid within the current context.
Valid conclusions can be reached more quickly with these slightly flawed cached thoughts then without.
I would say that conclusions can be reached more quickly with cached thoughts than without. The validity of the conclusions would be highly context sensitive and I'm not sure you can generally claim anything about it.
You have a good point that my analogy is too broad. I was trying to express that it would take inordinately long to solve complex problems with out depending on "cached thoughts" and that the cached thoughts can be flawed yet still contain utility. It is inappropriate relance on cached thoughts or treating them like facts rather then guesses that gets people in.
"Cached Thought" wiki entry has been copied below for you connivance.
The above entry focuses only on the negative sides of cached thought. Probably because it can be a large barrier to rationality. In order overcome this barrier, and/or help others overcome it, it is necessary to understand why "cached thoughts" have been historically valuable to our ancestors and in what fashions it is valuable today.
'''Cached thought''' also allow for complex problems to be handled with a relatively small number of simple components. These problem components when put together only approximate the actual problem, because they are slightly flawed '''cached thoughts.''' Valid conclusions can be reached more quickly with these slightly flawed cached thoughts then without. The aforementioned conclusions should be recheck without using '''cached thoughts''' if a high probability of correctness is necessary or if the '''cached thoughts''' are more then slightly flawed.
Is this an appropriate expansion of the wiki entry? The words are drawn from my observation of the world. How else should the above wiki entry be expanded?