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As a person who is more experienced than most at "inventing rationality", this is a pretty good example of what it often looks like (for me at least). https://twitter.com/EpistemicHope/status/1330414166352359426
Some highlights:
I'm very sensitive to little objections / confusions. Trying a mental motion is cautious and CoZE-like. If something seems wrong about a move I'm trying, I DON'T just force-execute the move anyway. https://twitter.com/EpistemicHope/status/1330417187580887041?s=20
I'm very sensitive to little objections / confusions. Trying a mental motion is cautious and CoZE-like. If something seems wrong about a move I'm trying, I DON'T just force-execute the move anyway. https://twitter.com/EpistemicHope/status/1330417187580887041?s=20
Instead, I treat that as a flag that there's some part of what I'm trying to do that I haven't understood yet.
In some sense, most of the activity is ferreting out sub-skills that you're missing.
In some sense, most of the activity is ferreting out sub-skills that you're missing.
If you power through little objections, you're papering over the places where there is missing mental mechanism.
For mental skills, if some part of you doesn't want to do the thing, that's usually because 1) it won't actually work or 2) it would interfere with something else that works.
So the meta-process is actually a dialog between the theoretical good-rationality-practice (in this case, evaluating evidence in terms of Bayesian odds ratios), and you're real-life living brain.
It's a two-way dialogue. It isn't about just installing the "correct" process.
It's a two-way dialogue. It isn't about just installing the "correct" process.
(That said, it is often the case that your mind will execute a move by default, and you want to design a drill to train a different TAP that over rides that default.
Like returning to your breath with meditation, or coming back to the intention of trying to change your mind in Double Crux.
But if part of me _objects_ to that redirect, I dialogue with the objection or, sometimes, voice the objection and then put it aside for the time being.
But if part of me _objects_ to that redirect, I dialogue with the objection or, sometimes, voice the objection and then put it aside for the time being.
And in this case, I'm trying a move, noticing slight "agitation" about it, doing Focusing on that agitation to get some sense of what's up with it, designing a process that accommodates that agitation.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
And sometimes I encounter, not an objection, but a "that doesn't compile" / or a "baffled drawing a blank" feeling.
I do the same basic thing, backing up, making sense of why the move I'm trying doesn't make sense, feel out what my mind is trying to do instead, and then figure out what procedure would accommodate both.
To read the whole thing, go to this tweet, and then back up to @ben_r_hoffman's first comment. https://twitter.com/EpistemicHope/status/1330428783707320320?s=20
Oh. It's also probably good to note that this thread represents an hour of mental work, which may seem like a long time for one simple question, but that's how it goes.
