Taure

An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic by Ian Hacking

Have any of you read this book?

I have been invited to join a reading group based around it for the coming academic year and would like the opinions of this group as to whether it's worth it.

I may join in just for the section on Bayes. I might even finally discover the correct pronunciation of "Bayesian". ("Bay-zian" or "Bye-zian"?)

Here's a link to the book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Probability-Inductive-Logic/dp/0521775019/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283464939&sr=8-2

You're missing my point somewhat. I'm not saying you can't get better at conversation. Nor am I saying that there aren't tips/instruction you can give. On this very page you see me do so here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2co/how_to_always_have_interesting_conversations/2a1j?c=1 Further, I just said above that this is exactly how people normally develop their conversational abilities.

My point is simply that decision procedures/algorithms are not the way to go, because they will not produce natural sounding conversation. In fact, using them to teach someone conversation would be counter-productive, because it would give them a false idea of what conversation is like. It represents conversation as mechanical, and if a person approaches a conversation as if it were mechanical then they will not succeed in having a genuine conversation.

I think the idea of learning conversational social norms and so forth by practice/instruction is a very different issue to consciously using a decision procedure to dictate your conversation.

The instruction you describe is pretty much a description of what most people experience growing up, through a combination of what their parents teach them and experience/trial and error.

This is not the same thing as standing next to someone and going through a mental flow chart, or list of "dos and don'ts" every time it's your turn to say something.

The former is genuinely learning conversation, the latter is trying to fake it.

Um, thanks, but I think wrong thread.

I assume you mean of my reply to HughRistik.

No statistical data, if that's what you want.

However, I think that in this case it isn't needed. It seems clear that following a conversation by rules and algorithms will be unable to replicate genuine conversation. Very little of a conversation is about what is actually said. You have to read body language, you have to read into what isn't said, you have to use intuition because you read these things unconsciously, not consciously.

I can't be bothered to find it at the moment - or in the foreseeable future - because this topic just doesn't mean hours of time to me, but I do recall studies in which people's ability to register body language consciously was compared to our ability to read it by intuition, sub-consciously. The results were something like this: the conscious mind could only spot 2 or 3 body language signs, whereas the unconscious mind was able to pick up on up to 15.

Which bit of it?

Certainly there are patterns in social interaction.

However, I think that if you go into social interaction aware of these patterns and meaning to act on them, then this very awareness will in fact ruin your social interaction, because one of the rules of genuine social interaction is that it's free flowing and natural-feeling. If you treat it like a formula, you'll break it.

When considering the initial probability question regarding Linda, it strikes me that it isn't really a choice between a single possibility and two conjoined possibilities.

Giving a person an exclusive choice between "bank teller" OR "bank teller and feminist" will make people imply that "bank teller" means "bank teller and not feminist".

So both choices are conjoined items, it's just that one of them is hidden.

Given this, people may not be so incorrect after all.

Edit: People should probably stop giving this post points, given Sniffnoy's linking of a complete destruction of this objection :)

I think you brush upon a quite important point here: good conversation is less about being good at conversation and more about not being bad at it. People will talk quite happily with someone who is utterly boring, so long as it's not for too long and they've got nothing better to do.

People are only really put off a conversation when a person does something odd.

Prime among these are non-sequiturs, unusually extreme opinions (especially about topics people normally don't have extreme opinions about), and discussing topics which are generally understood as not being suitable for general conversation (such as topics which are invasive/personal, obscure, or too academic for the context - it's fine to talk intellectually in the appropriate place, but not to strangers at a bar/club).