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My contention is that I make a good faith effort to be open to the idea that others know or have experienced things or might have some thoughts that I haven’t c
by makmanalp 2y ago
My contention is that I make a good faith effort to be open to the idea that others know or have experienced things or might have some thoughts that I haven’t considered adequately. And that I think this concept would be helpful to others here. That’s all, no more, no less.
It isn’t that I’m perfect, or infallible, or even immune to frustration and the occasional bout of snark. It doesn’t mean that I’m a “better” person. It also doesn’t mean that I have to accept every viewpoint as true or equally likely. Nor does it mean that I can’t criticize. Nor that I can’t take a side on a considered opinion. It doesn’t mean that this always leads to perfect results or that I’m always successful. It doesn’t mean that it’s a perfect heuristic. It’s only one more tool in a toolbox.
I think it is undervalued - and sometimes angrily pushed back against - in this community, maybe because it gets dismissed as “feelings” (and not “reason”). The reason I think this is that I've encountered here the “experienced expert with healthy self doubt versus passionate amateur with little self awareness” dynamic in action over and over again.
There’s an ongoing, half century current in the field trying to examine whether reasoning may often involve a heuristic-based, adaptive process based on incomplete and imperfect information, and less so something resembling a pure application of formal logic.
In this universe, cognitive biases extend more clearly to things like which facts you consider as possible at all in the first place and by which methods you weight them as more or less likely or influential, as opposed to merely fallacies of formal logic that we’re most often exposed to. So, the thinking goes, it can help to try to fill some gaps in this area by trying to increase the breadth of what you’re exposing yourself to and allowing yourself to take into account.
In my experience this can be a frustrating and exhausting concept to contend with as a person. You certainly can tu quoque yourself - or me, like you and others in this thread have - into oblivion. After all, what business do I have talking about cognitive biases if I've been shown to be subject the very same, and am not an expert in it? I don't know where the line is but I'm not certain it makes the concept less helpful outright. At the very least I don't think I'm claiming something that'd be considered very controversial as far as I'm aware.
- pseudalopex 2y agoPlease continue preaching empathy and self awareness. But please practice them also. Your interpretation of sanderjd's comment was uncharitable and incorrect.[1] Saying you had a chuckle at their expense was condescending and added nothing. zmgsabst's reply to you was rude. But it was a challenge to reflect. No one suggested you thought you were perfect. No one suggested your stumble disproved the utility of empathy. You wrote paragraphs against straw men. Please receive criticism from others as you want others to receive criticism from you. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40190376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40190376
- makmanalp 2y agoOP’s remark just reminded me of something more general not necessarily in that remark that really has been bothering me. It wasn't very clear that I was going off on a tangent, and I tried to keep it lighthearted in a hamfisted way that ended up being more condescending than I intended, and then I got more defensive about it than I should when it wasn’t received well. Sorry about that - thanks for keeping me honest.
- sanderjd 2y agoFor what it's worth, when I (the author of that first comment) first read your comment, my thought was "wait, how is this responsive to what I wrote?". But now I've read this whole thread, and while I do think it was a bit of a tangent not super directly related to what I wrote, I have found it interesting and reflective in a positive way. And I agree with your broad point about empathy and such.
- mistermann 2y ago> Your interpretation of sanderjd's comment was uncharitable and incorrect. Which parts were incorrect, and how? > Saying you had a chuckle at their expense was condescending and added nothing. Are you referring to your model of reality or all models of reality?
- sanderjd 2y agoI've mentioned in a few comments now that the point I wanted to make (which I clearly did a poor job of), is that it's obviously easier to deal with only "internal interruptions", rather than both those and "external interruptions" additionally. You don't get to choose between the two, because the "internal interruptions" will exist regardless of how well you've managed to control "external interruptions".
- mistermann 2y agoWell I think you catalyzed a fantastic meta conversation! I wonder if it's really as simple as your theory though...I don't disagree as a generalization, but perhaps certain classes of internal issues can be bypassed/moderated by external stimulus?