5 ms·

On Facts and Thinking

89 points by ptbrodie 7y ago

mannykannot 7y ago
The author missed a chance to complete his example by showing how the 'right' sort of thinking about the 'right' sort of facts lead one to ask whether, and/or to what extent, attitudes about race shaped the current demographics of Chicago. Perhaps it is intended to be an exercise left to the reader, to notice that this would involve thinking causally about the given first-order fact of the matter, which puts it in the 'wisdom' quadrant.
moretai 7y ago
I liked the writing. Felt a bit short though
moretai 7y ago
Could someone explain what he meant about the wise abstracting their knowledge into myths? What’s so special about Jesus turning the other cheek and Odysseus going home? I feel like it’s straight forward what they are metaphors for (forgiveness and I guess for the odysessus one it’s you can’t run away from your problems), unless I’m still not going deep enough which is most likely the case. It’s this kind of thinking that scares me because I feel like I stop a bit short in my thought, and I’d like to go deeper without going off the deep end
- uncle_ted 7y ago
  My interpretation is that fof+hot might not have immediately obvious utility, so that it's made into myth(heuristics?) when it's particularly valuable. For example, in fof+fot it wouldn't make any sense to allow yourself to be slapped, because you need a complex casual model to justify it. But echoing others in the thread, I'm not too sure and wish the author had written more on the topic or gave some references.
meesterdude 7y ago
I think "higher order facts" is a shitty label. The premise's and grid outlined is right, but the labels used are simply not clear. Higher order thinking is a real thing that you can google for, but higher order facts is not.
ilaksh 7y ago
The problem is that no one agrees what the facts are. And each faction is sure that the other group is poorly informed and/or stupid.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Plus the "facts" are often misreported, selectively reported, manipulated on the ground, and several other kinds of trickery...
throwawaymath 7y ago
In my opinion the central thesis of this article is obscured by its framework of first vs higher order facts and thinking. The article states its real point quite simply: > You must temper your desire to jump to conclusions, explore the search space of possible conclusions, and generate probabilities of truth.
onefuncman 7y ago
> We may now deploy trust. Figuring out how to bootstrap trust in a network of anonymous actors is my white whale.
Chris2048 7y ago
"high order thinking" appears to be loose, metaphorical reasoning; or partial-information where a lot isn't explicitly stated, but assumed, or extrapolated (Pragmatic? Speculative?) - but that relies heavily on correlation too, and I find the distinction is hard to outline. It also dinstinguished facts by "topic relevance" i.e a less-relevant fact may require more speculation; However this ignore resolution - how accurate, and/or generalised a given fact is in the first place. Finally, any corrolation/speculation can be tainted when you include an uneven mix, or cherry-picked slection, of facts to be informed by which isn't handled when we start catagorising individual facts, rather than collections of facts as a whole.
tom-thistime 7y ago
Can we try this out? Here's a proposed 'fact': "If you don't eat with us at mealtimes, your whole caloric intake will be sugar and oil. That's probably unhealthy in the long run." Is that a 'first order fact' or a 'higher order fact'? How do we decide?

89 points by ptbrodie 7y ago

The author missed a chance to complete his example by showing how the 'right' sort of thinking about the 'right' sort of facts lead one to ask whether, and/or to what extent, attitudes about race shaped the current demographics of Chicago. Perhaps it is intended to be an exercise left to the reader, to notice that this would involve thinking causally about the given first-order fact of the matter, which puts it in the 'wisdom' quadrant.

moretai 7y ago

I liked the writing. Felt a bit short though

moretai 7y ago

Could someone explain what he meant about the wise abstracting their knowledge into myths? What’s so special about Jesus turning the other cheek and Odysseus going home? I feel like it’s straight forward what they are metaphors for (forgiveness and I guess for the odysessus one it’s you can’t run away from your problems), unless I’m still not going deep enough which is most likely the case. It’s this kind of thinking that scares me because I feel like I stop a bit short in my thought, and I’d like to go deeper without going off the deep end

uncle_ted 7y ago
My interpretation is that fof+hot might not have immediately obvious utility, so that it's made into myth(heuristics?) when it's particularly valuable. For example, in fof+fot it wouldn't make any sense to allow yourself to be slapped, because you need a complex casual model to justify it. But echoing others in the thread, I'm not too sure and wish the author had written more on the topic or gave some references.

meesterdude 7y ago

I think "higher order facts" is a shitty label. The premise's and grid outlined is right, but the labels used are simply not clear. Higher order thinking is a real thing that you can google for, but higher order facts is not.

ilaksh 7y ago

The problem is that no one agrees what the facts are. And each faction is sure that the other group is poorly informed and/or stupid.

coldtea 7y ago
Plus the "facts" are often misreported, selectively reported, manipulated on the ground, and several other kinds of trickery...

throwawaymath 7y ago

In my opinion the central thesis of this article is obscured by its framework of first vs higher order facts and thinking. The article states its real point quite simply: > You must temper your desire to jump to conclusions, explore the search space of possible conclusions, and generate probabilities of truth.

onefuncman 7y ago

> We may now deploy trust. Figuring out how to bootstrap trust in a network of anonymous actors is my white whale.

Chris2048 7y ago

"high order thinking" appears to be loose, metaphorical reasoning; or partial-information where a lot isn't explicitly stated, but assumed, or extrapolated (Pragmatic? Speculative?) - but that relies heavily on correlation too, and I find the distinction is hard to outline. It also dinstinguished facts by "topic relevance" i.e a less-relevant fact may require more speculation; However this ignore resolution - how accurate, and/or generalised a given fact is in the first place. Finally, any corrolation/speculation can be tainted when you include an uneven mix, or cherry-picked slection, of facts to be informed by which isn't handled when we start catagorising individual facts, rather than collections of facts as a whole.

tom-thistime 7y ago

Can we try this out? Here's a proposed 'fact': "If you don't eat with us at mealtimes, your whole caloric intake will be sugar and oil. That's probably unhealthy in the long run." Is that a 'first order fact' or a 'higher order fact'? How do we decide?