Hmm, this project might be of interest http://cci.mit.edu/deliberatoriumresearchpage.html Wad'ya think of it?

Tangential: I like the idea of having mnemonics for biases but that they can't be shared bugs me. I mean they could by publishing 'standard' mnemoncs but then they don't naturally fit in anybodys memory palace - at least not without additional mnemonic work.

So the idea is: Couldn't we have 'standardized memory palaces'? At least a few rooms which everybody shares. Kind of like a standard floorplan where everybody knows that the entrance (zero) with the stone floor (appeal to the stone) leads into the kitchen (1) with the sun-bathed flowers (halo effect) - or whatever. A memory palace everybody learns in kindergarten could be a great aid for communication and learning for everybody.

What do you think?

Maybe this says more about me than about the world, but if this was StackOverflow, this comment would get the star. Thanks.

Discussing "humility" and "arrogance" is difficult without careful definitions. I was thinking about this recently; this is how I would like to define them.

Whenever I end up feeling like I have been arrogant, it is because I underestimated someone else's abilities, and I ended up surprised by what they were capable of. If humility is the opposite of arrogance, then humility is the ability to accept, as your prior, that somebody you meet just might end up being more wise or more accomplished than you. To be arrogant is to fail to realize that you might have something to learn from other people.

(These definitions of arrogance and humility thus only relate to mental habits, not to social behaviors.)

Note how this makes humility valuable -- if you expect everyone around you to be dumb and inferior and not worth learning from, if you don't give others the chance to prove you otherwise, you're going to miss out on everything that you could be learning from them. I wouldn't expect your putative arrogant academic to have very many fruitful collaborations.

So yes, I would say that arrogance is bad intellectual hygiene -- it's having the wrong priors about the people around you.

Note also that it's also possible to be unfair to oneself in this way. Impostor syndrome should not be confused for humility. High self-esteem should not be confused for arrogance.

... I realize only after writing all of this that there's also intellectual arrogance and intellectual humility; it seems that they can be modeled the same way, but with ideas instead of people.

But, above all, there is the conviction that the pursuit of truth, whether in the minute structure of the atom or in the vast system of the stars, is a bond transcending human differences.

-- Arthur Eddington, "The Future of International Science", as quoted in An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War: the 1919 Eclipse Expedition and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer

I couldn't attend this year, but I loved the album and I'm really looking forward to it next year!

My understanding, you might believe in some continued life after death, something about human souls, any sort of supernatural things, but not believe in a personified interacting deity who gave humans orders like worship me, do this/that etc., nor be a deist who thinks there is such a being but doesn't give orders for some reason.

Is there anywhere I can read an explanation of (or anyone who can explain) the distinction between "Atheist but spiritual" and "Atheist and not spiritual"?