Group Rationality Diary, May 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 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.

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

Previous diary: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for May 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.

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

Previous diary: April 16-30

Next diary: May 16-31

Rationality diaries archive

I'm not sure if you describe Kim's touch game (the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention this only in German). I have played touch Kim with my sons and they can easily recognize most items when 5 years old so I wonder what the limitations of your box were - or what unusual items you chose. Many items can be recognzed by feeling them with the feet only. Remembering many of them is more difficult though.

I'm not familiar with Kim's touch game, but I did run across a different game that someone came up with to practice applying Bayes theorem, which involved touching people in the shoulder with one of two objects (in the example, it was a coat-hanger, if memory serves), and then testing their ability to update their predictions based on more information about the object they were touched with. I wish I could find that page again, but I haven't been able to find it again. It might have even been linked off of a LessWrong meetup group.

I'm less concerned with ... (read more)