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All of Taure's Comments + Replies

Less Wrong: Open Thread, September 2010
Taure00

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=boo... (read more)

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3sketerpot
I've only ever heard Bayesian pronounced "Bay-zian".
How to always have interesting conversations
Taure00

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 conv... (read more)

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4HughRistik
And matt and I are asking, what makes you so sure of this? Have you tried this approach? Have you watched other people try it? In the short term, no. Matt and I agree with you here. But remember, many socially-unskilled people already can't produce natural sounding conversation. They are wracked with indecision and "analysis paralysis" because they have no way to select a way to behave merely through their intuitions. People experiencing anxiety-provoking analysis paralysis can't produce natural sounding conversation. Giving them something to say and a set of algorithms or rules can cut down on the amount of analysis they are normally doing, and allow them to make progress. Again, I agree, but these problems are actually better than what a lot of socially unskilled people are currently facing. In conversations, they immediately put their feet in their mouths, or they get analysis paralysis and fade into the background. Either way, they don't learn anything, because they are either getting negative feedback, or no feedback at all. For many people, being able to have mechanical conversations is actually a better starting point for learning natural conversation, than the alternatives of "instant foot-in-mouth" or "analysis paralysis." Being able to get into conversations and have exchanges with people, even at a clunky level, gives you valuable social experience to fuel a more intuitive and spontaneous set of social skills. Once you get your foot into the door of social interaction, and get responses and feedback from people, then you can start learning on an implicit unconscious level via operant conditioning. Decision procedures and algorithms can be excellent ways to get people to the place where real learning can begin. Strangely, it actually works pretty well to algorithmically learn a clunky level of social skills to get your foot in the door, gain implicit social knowledge from operant conditioning, and then forget or diminish your reliance on algorithms (t
2mattnewport
It's seems our main area of disagreement is over whether certain teaching procedures and certain ways of practicing / developing conversational skills can be effective, namely those that frame the issue in more of a rules based / procedural style. I don't think anyone is claiming that you can simply learn these rules or procedures and you're done - apply them and be an instant master conversationalist. The claim is merely that these can be an effective means for people who have failed to develop these skills by the 'normal' means to become more competent conversationalists. I don't have much direct experience in this area and it appears you don't either so perhaps we should let the discussion rest at this point. I'm still more inclined to believe the reports of people who claim that they have observed these techniques working successfully than the dismissals from people who think they can't possibly work but settling the issue would require further evidence that I don't think either of us can provide.
How to always have interesting conversations
Taure00

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.

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2HughRistik
I'm not sure of this distinction. Why can't a conscious decision procedure be an element of instruction? Conscious decision procedures are a time-honored teaching tool in domains with similar features to social skills: music, sports, and dance. Look at musical or athletic exercises, and dance routines. Why does applying the same heuristics to learning social skills attract disdain? I think we agree that beginners who are making most of their choices at a conscious level will often produce clunky results. The cause that I am making is that a lot of cognitive systemizing about social interaction can be a valid and productive learning tool to many people. Clunky results can be better than no results, and pave the way to learning how to socialize without so much conscious processing. In many domains (e.g. music and dance), there is a time-tested process of consciously breaking down knowledge into component pieces, and teaching them to the student at a conscious level. Over time, the student stops needing to consciously attend to that knowledge, and it becomes encoded in intuitions and muscle-memory. See the four stages of competence: * unconscious incompetence * conscious incompetence * conscious competence * unconscious competence
2mattnewport
HughRistik was discussing the possibility of helping people to develop these sorts of skills who for whatever reason failed to acquire them when growing up. Many people claim that explicit instruction can be a valuable tool in developing such skills later in life. If true this is a lot more useful to people suffering from this problem than your 'advice'. To riff on HughRistik's music analogy, is a guitar player 'trying to fake it' by practicing scales and chords and learning musical theory before they have mastered improvisation?
Open Thread: July 2010
Taure00

Um, thanks, but I think wrong thread.

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0steven0461
Oops, you're right.
How to always have interesting conversations
Taure00

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 - bec... (read more)

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2mattnewport
You seem to be denying the possibility of teaching anyone to be better at conversation by explaining various norms, rules and constraints to them and getting them to practice while consciously attending to this information, at least initially. I don't think anyone would deny that the ultimate aim of any such instruction would be for the student to internalize the rules to an extent that they were applied largely unconsciously and automatically - most skills make this progression as they are developed. However I've seen plenty of people claim that instruction of this kind can be effective at improving conversational skills for people who are not able to 'just do it' as you seem to advise. Convincing evidence to the contrary would help save people from fruitless expenditure of time, money and effort trying to develop conversational skills if you were able to provide it.
0mattnewport
The second paragraph.
How to always have interesting conversations
Taure-10

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.

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4mattnewport
What evidence do you have for your theory?
Open Thread: July 2010
Taure20

Is self-ignorance a prerequisite of human-like sentience?

I present here some ideas I've been considering recently with regards to philosophy of mind, but I suppose the answer to this question would have significant implications for AI research.

Clearly, our instinctive perception of our own sentience/consciousness is one which is inaccurate and mostly ignorant: we do not have knowledge or sensation of the physical processes occurring in our brains which give rise to our sense of self.

Yet I take it as true that our brains - like everything else - are purely ... (read more)

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0steven0461
Here's some evidence the other way -- paywalled, but the gist is on the first page.
So You Think You're a Bayesian? The Natural Mode of Probabilistic Reasoning
Taure120

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 :)

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2NihilCredo
I'll stick with my upmod because, while Sniffnoy's link explains that the Linda experiment did take this ambiguity into account and played around it, it was an entirely reasonable point to raise after reading this post, which gives no indication that those two weren't the only options or that they weren't placed side-by-side.
2mattnewport
Agreed, I've always thought that the heuristics and biases research is less clear cut than is usually presented due to ambiguity in the question and experimental setup. People naturally read more into questions than is strictly implied because that is the normal way we deal with language. They may make not unreasonable assumptions that would normally be valid and are only ruled out by the artificial and unnatural constraints of the experiment. For example, it has long struck me that the obvious explanation for hyperbolic discounting is people making quite reasonable assumptions about the probability of collecting the promised rewards and thus it is not good evidence for chronic time inconsistency in preferences. In looking up the Wikipedia reference for hyperbolic discounting I see that I am unsurprisingly not the first to notice this.
Sniffnoy140

This has already been addressed in Conjunction Controversy.

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How to always have interesting conversations
Taure20

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 ... (read more)

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How to always have interesting conversations
Taure10

I think that one of your main problems may be that you're thinking of conversation as something it isn't. There is no procedure for success. Genuine conversation is procedure-less (or at least practically so. I guess with sufficient processing power and knowledge of all the hundreds of variables you could replicate it, but I think such a feat would be beyond the abilities of the conscious mind).

I used to be extremely introverted. I found talking to people I didn't know very awkward. Even moderate acquaintances were tricky. Then I went to university and mad... (read more)

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HughRistik110

I think that one of your main problems may be that you're thinking of conversation as something it isn't. There is no procedure for success.

You can't create a procedure that maps out every branch in a conversation tree, no. But I think you are underestimating the ritualization and standardization of social activity. There really are patterns in how people do things. There are considerable norms, rules, and constraints. People who are intuitively social (whether they became that way earlier or later in life) may have trouble articulating these patterns. ... (read more)

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2SilasBarta
I must confess, I don't find your advice helpful either. * Whether or not there is a "procedure" for conversation, there a good ways to do it, and bad ways to do it. People can certainly handle it naturally, but that doesn't tell anything to the non-naturals about how to do it. If you actually find it to be procedureless, this means you're already a natural and only have Level 1 understanding, and so are unable to articulate where other's shortcomings are so that they can bridge the gap to reach your skill. See HughRistik's great article and in particular this comment about how much of your own knowledge you can be unaware of if you've never been without it. * "Try, try again" is insufficient to improve. You can try forever without improvement if you can't recognize what you were doing right, and what you weren't. This information doesn't spontaneously unfold from your DNA as a result of being in social situations. And (see below), I have indeed tried again and again and again (edit: sentence wasn't completed in original comment). * I've already done exactly what you suggest, going out, and drinking, and benefitting form the lower inhibitions to talking that come with alcohol. I've done this quite a bit, but I've never seen any of the skill carry over to when I'm not intoxicated. Furthermore, I've pretended to be an extrovert, but it really makes no difference from the inside or on the outside: it doesn't automagically allow me to make conversation where I otherwise wouldn't. * Whatever problems I might have, fear of failure is not among them. It is, at most, fear of that failure cascading into very damaging personal consequences. And given my personal experience, these fears are extremely well-grounded. Nevertheless, I quite often go out to socialize and join groups, actively participate in them, and -- suprise surprise -- I do fail to form relationships or improve social skills, and I fail quite often, to the point where it's no longer a big deal. I hate
How to always have interesting conversations
Taure00

To insert myself into your conversation:

One feels that the idea of caching component parts of conversations for use and re-use somewhat misses the point of a conversation in the first place. A conversation is a two-way interaction between real people. It's not a mechanical process, nor a debate, nor is it simply transfer of information. Human interaction isn't just about sharing ideas, it's about making a connection on a personal level.

If human conversation was as it is presented here, autistic people would not have so much trouble understanding normal hum... (read more)

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37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong
Taure120

This is a good post - there are a good number of philosophers who would benefit from reading this.

I'd like to add a 38, if I may, though it isn't mine. It's what Daniel Dennett calls a "deepity".

A deepity is a statement with two possible interpretations, such as "love is a word".

One of the interpretations is trivially true and trivially unspectacular. In this case, "love" - the word - is a word. The second interpretation is either false or suspect, but if it were true it would be profound. In this case, the non-existence of l... (read more)

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Where Philosophy Meets Science
Taure10

For a nice example of a philosopher who isn't afraid to conduct their own experiments, see the work of Sarah Jane Leslie of Princeton. Really interesting stuff on the truth conditions (or lack thereof) of generics (e.g. "ducks lay eggs", "mosquitoes carry the West Nile Virus").

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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread
Taure50

In an interview, JKR confirmed that arithmancy at Hogwarts is as it is in real life. Only I would imagine that it actually works - otherwise there would be no basis to Hermione's claim that it's more robust and trustworthy than divination.

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1Cyan
Awesome. Thanks!