"But maybe they are equivalent under a non-logical-omniscience view of updating, and it's necessary to factor in meta-information about the quality and reliability of the introspection."
Yes, that is what I was thinking in a wishy-washy intuitive way, rather than an explicit and clearly stated way, as you have helpfully provided.
The act of visualizing the future and planning how long a task will take based on guesses about how long the subtasks will take, I would call generating new data which one might use to update a probability of finishing th...
Once again, Bayesian reasoning comes to the rescue. The assertion to stop updating based on new data (ignore the inside view!) is just plain wrong.
However a reminder to be careful and objective about the probability one might assign to a new bit of data (Inside view data is not privileged over outside view data! And it might be really bad!) is helpful.
The assertion to stop updating based on new data (ignore the inside view!) is just plain wrong.
I'd like to be able to say that, but there actually is research showing how human beings get more optimistic about their Christmas shopping estimates as they try to visualize the details of when, where, and how.
Your statement is certainly true of an ideal rational agent, but it may not be carried in human practice.
Doctors make decisions based on a mix of theoretical knowledge and experience. More the experience than the knowledge.
'Experience' is another word for their subjective view of the patient histories that they have observed through their career. Why not make the decision based on an emprical measure of patient histories, taken over a large random-ish sample, rather than one particular physicians subjective interpretation of only the patients he has seen?
Better yet, why not present this data to your physician and have a talk about it?
Watch this video of Richard Dawkins debating a creationist and take a drink every time she says "So what I would go back to..."
When Dawkins starts trying to psychoanalyze his opponent he really starts to look like the one being logically rude. At this point he has lost the high ground in the argument. He might be right about his diagnosis about her "emotional agenda", but since he asked where she studied science, shouldn't she be equally entitled to ask him where he studied clinical psychology?
This video is a good example of logical rudeness, but not only from one of the participants.
It seems to me that Dawkins is the first to shift the "argument", when he asks "Where did you study science"; and yet again when he brings up the "emotional agenda".
This isn't to defend the creationist's blabbering, just saying - sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Basically it comes down to a measure of the degree to which the other person cares about what you are saying. What Eliezer puts as "sticking his neck out", I would describe more specifically as "listening carefully to the other person". In this way I would connect 'logical rudeness' with plain old manners.
To put it another way, while the person is talking, are you thinking about what they are saying, or preparing your response? I try to be generous in this way, and most of the people in my life respond well to it. But then I'm choosy...
In the old days we used to use ice cream as an inverse semaphore; the listener held the pint and the spoon, and ate and listened while the talker talked. Then the talker took the ice cream and had to shut up until the other person asked for it.
This is awesome. I would be tempted to shut up earlier than I usually would just for the reward of getting some ice cream. :)
Yes, it's right up there with asking questions about the argument that you are uncertain about.
An aside; how often do you ask people to be quiet for a second so you can think about what they said? How many people are comfortable giving you that space?
It often happens to me that someone sees me stopped and staring into space thinking as a result of what they say, and conclude that what they said was a really strong argument for their position, where what's actually happening is that they've revealed such a depth of confusion that I'm briefly lost looking where to start unpicking it.
You've got to be careful though. Some people, i.e. many creationists, will just take that as an invitation to ramble ad infinitum.
Sounds like a good project for stackexchange.
Yes, this is the crux of the difference between the two scenarios. We accept many things from authority figures at face value, but they fall into two categories, testable and untestable, and we can easily figure out which is which.
Richard Feynman's experiences investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion are very, very good reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Do_You_Care_What_Other_People_Think%3F
Without risk, there is no growth.
If your practice isn't making you feel scared and uncomfortable, it's not helping. Imagine training for a running race without any workouts that raise your heart rate and make you breathe hard.
Feeling out of your comfort zone and at risk of failure is something everybody should seek out on a regular basis.
This is where the martial arts analogy shows some of it's power.
I do Aikido. My dojo enjoys a nice diversity of genders, ages, and body types. We don't all practice the same; our styles are as diverse as our backgrounds.
However, it's not a free-for-all. Some people in the dojo are clearly better at this than others, and people find others to look up to, people to follow. And there is a very strong agreement on who the best people in the dojo are.
This strong agreement comes from the fact that Aikido is a martial art, and we train with each other. On a ...
It is also explicit instruction for first aiders; "You! Call 911 and tell them I need an ambulance at the corner of x and y! Tell them I'm performing CPR on an unconscious non-breathing victim! Ask them for an ETA and tell me what they said!"
The psychologist Eliezer cited, Cialdini, was involved in a car accident. Both he and the other driver were clearly hurt. He watched as other cars passed by without stopping.
"I remember thinking, Oh No, it’s happening just like the research says. They are all passing by! I considered it fortunate as a Social Psychologist I knew exactly what to do. Pulling myself up so I could be seen clearly, I pointed at the driver of one car; Call the Police – to a second driver and third driver pointing directly each time; Pull over we need help – The responses of ...
Some thoughts from my experience in a martial arts dojo:
We avoid lots of failure modes by making sure (as far as reasonably possible) that people are there to train first and everything else second. One consequence of this is that we don't attach a whole lot of our progress to any particular instructor; we're blessed with a number of people who are really good at aikido, and we learn from all of them, and from each other.
On setting the bar too high for instructors: Most martial arts rely on a hierarchy of instructors, where the average dojo head is a
Ottawa, Canada
Yes, for me too. I watched a documentary about the lifestyle, and was just baffled that people would shoulder the n^2 communication burden and associated drama.
But a poly friend of main maintains that for him it's worth it. We agreed that the two of us have different thresholds for drama and relationship effort, hence a different result from the same cost-benefit analysis.