Group Rationality Diary, October 1-15, plus frequency poll

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for October 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

New this month: If you have preferences about the future frequency of rationality diary posts, please express them in the poll below!

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: September 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for October 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

New this month: If you have preferences about the future frequency of rationality diary posts, please express them in the poll below!

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: September 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

I had a problem I was trying to work out. I thrashed about on it for a long time without making apparent progress. I decided I could ask a forum of people more experienced in this.

So I began I composing the question. I didn't want to seem like a total noob, so I set about forestalling the obvious suggestions by explaining what hadn't worked. I sort of set up an imaginary interlocutor and had it suggest things. Eventually, it suggested something and instead of my showing why it didn't apply to my situation, I showed that it did. So I copied the solution out of the forum post box and closed the browser window.

Now, the process of composing this question wasn't exactly quick or easy, but it did take a lot less time than I'd been using before.

I wonder if I can replicate this on purpose. I imagine writing to (or start writing to) someone more knowledgeable than me whom I don't want to seem stupid to, and explain the problem. It seems a lot like just writing a summary of the question for myself, but by giving it that additional purpose, it became more focused and self-critical.

Or maybe there's nothing to it, and I got lucky that I happened to be sitting on everything I needed and was one inference away from the answer.

I got lucky that I happened to be sitting on everything I needed and was one inference away from the answer.

Even so, finding a way to make the missing inference is not necessarily trivial.

8Shmi13y

Similar experience here. When I was doing my grad research and hit a snag, my first reaction was to ask my supervisor if I was unable to make any progress for a few days. I did it a few times, and sometimes the feedback was unexpected and based on the experience, skills and knowledge I simply didn't have at the time. But quite often, to my embarrassment, the useful reply was well within my capabilities. That made me uncomfortable and the look I got from my supervisor didn't make me feel any better. So eventually I started imagining asking the question and getting a reply, as per my model of the interlocutor. That cut down on stupid questions significantly at the actual meetings, saved me time waiting for them, and (eventually) improved my supervisor's opinion of me. I rarely face similarly challenging issues while writing software, so simply clearly writing down the issue I am facing tends to be enough to see possible solutions.

5arundelo13y

This is called rubber ducking or the teddy bear technique.