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I'm talking about reasoning in day-to-day life. It's cool that you are able to use bayesian models & kalman filters to decide whether you should try diet X, or

I'm talking about reasoning in day-to-day life. It's cool that you are able to use bayesian models & kalman filters to decide whether you should try diet X, or whether someone is lying, or if crypto is a sound investment, or whether to take an umbrella with you when going out today. This is not even scratching the surface of the kinds of nuanced & personal problems that people go to therapists for. I'm a little dumber, I just overgeneralize to "fad diet X is probably not that great" and skip the hours long scientific paper review & construction of bayesian models and priors. Here is a recent tweet[1] claiming this paper is badly flawed because of changes in the content of the Google Books data this study was based on. Make sure to update your bayesian models accordingly! Should I lower my prior of "this recent scientific study is trustworthy so i should take it at face value" by 1%, or 5%, or 50%? [1] https://twitter.com/benmschmidt/status/1419497587296571395 https://twitter.com/benmschmidt/status/1419497587296571395

ajross 5y ago
> It's cool that you are able to use bayesian models & kalman filters to decide whether you should try diet X, or whether someone is lying, or if crypto is a sound investment, or whether to take an umbrella with you when going out today. This part isn't dichotomous, it's just a strawman (something that I'm guessing would go into the "overgeneralizing" bucket in the linked article). I didn't say you had to use fancy math to live your life. I replied to your statement that one had to use distorted reasoning, and cited the existence of two named techniques (about reasoning from limited evidence) as a fun way of making the point. My point wasn't about what you said anyway, it was that you were shouting and flaming about it using exactly the techniques the linked article was noting are on the rise. You see that, right?
- zaptheimpaler 5y ago
  I wasn't flaming anyone in my original post. Really just expressing some of my skepticisms of cognitive behavioral techniques. Personally I find it difficult to apply in real life when I believe that the technique is strong enough to discredit anything but the strongest scientific claim. The flaming was only to your reply, so you may be indulging in overgeneralization and mind-reading.
sitkack 5y ago
It sounds like you are more of a Markov kinda person. For me, analogies are like an easy crutch that can get you that last mile.

ajross 5y ago

> It's cool that you are able to use bayesian models & kalman filters to decide whether you should try diet X, or whether someone is lying, or if crypto is a sound investment, or whether to take an umbrella with you when going out today. This part isn't dichotomous, it's just a strawman (something that I'm guessing would go into the "overgeneralizing" bucket in the linked article). I didn't say you had to use fancy math to live your life. I replied to your statement that one had to use distorted reasoning, and cited the existence of two named techniques (about reasoning from limited evidence) as a fun way of making the point. My point wasn't about what you said anyway, it was that you were shouting and flaming about it using exactly the techniques the linked article was noting are on the rise. You see that, right?

zaptheimpaler 5y ago
I wasn't flaming anyone in my original post. Really just expressing some of my skepticisms of cognitive behavioral techniques. Personally I find it difficult to apply in real life when I believe that the technique is strong enough to discredit anything but the strongest scientific claim. The flaming was only to your reply, so you may be indulging in overgeneralization and mind-reading.

sitkack 5y ago

It sounds like you are more of a Markov kinda person. For me, analogies are like an easy crutch that can get you that last mile.