"Cognitive effort is described as aversive, and people will generally avoid it when possible. This aversion to effort is believed to arise from a cost–benefit analysis of the actions available. The comparison of cognitive effort against other primary aversive experiences, however, remains relatively unexplored. Here, we offered participants choices between performing a cognitively demanding task … Continue reading Preferring Pain to High Cognitive Effort
Tag: thinking
Destruction & Creation
"There are two ways in which we can develop and manipulate mental concepts to represent observed reality: we can start from a comprehensive whole and break it down to its particulars or we can start with the particulars and build towards a comprehensive whole.[28,24] Saying it another way, but in a related sense, we can … Continue reading Destruction & Creation
The Rule of Awkward Silence
"[T]he rule of awkward silence is simple: When faced with a challenging question, instead of answering, you pause and think deeply about how you want to answer. This is no short pause; rather, it involves taking several seconds (10, 20, or longer) to think things through before responding.If you're on the receiving end--and not used to … Continue reading The Rule of Awkward Silence
We Are All Confident Idiots
"An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge. This clutter is an unfortunate by-product of one of our greatest … Continue reading We Are All Confident Idiots
Cognitive Bias Cheat Sheet
Four problems that biases help us address:Problem 1: Too much information.Problem 2: Not enough meaning.Problem 3: Need to act fast.Problem 4: What should we remember?-Buster Benson, "Cognitive bias cheat sheet." Medium.com. September 1, 2016. Recommend reading this in its entirety, but at minimum, it is worth a click through and scroll to the bottom to … Continue reading Cognitive Bias Cheat Sheet
Pity the Feeling
On top of Everest, in my mind,a dark cloud, lightning blasts, a hurricane of controversies, unwindbelow, nonsense sea, fish net casts.The Sherpa is fishing aboutprefers an understanding cartel.Procrustean commodities—easier without a heart, a totalitarian Tinkerbell.Feelings, the repugnant social Other,are the dream within the dream.Before we think, we must feel, brother,a mind | heart alone, cannot reign supreme.
How to Teach Yourself Hard Things
Identify what you don’t understand (maybe the most important one) Have confidence in your knowledge Ask questions Do research ...Taking a bit of extra time to take a piece of knowledge that you’re pretty sure of (“there are 65535 ports, Wikipedia said so”) and make it totally ironclad (“that’s because the port field in the … Continue reading How to Teach Yourself Hard Things
Rearranging Our Minds
Open Question: Should we make an effort to change our minds in some fundamental way? And if so, how? There are a number of stories of people suffering a traumatic brain injury that results in the brain being rearranged in a way that gives them a new ability. Generally, this involves some skill with art, … Continue reading Rearranging Our Minds
Thinking Itself Is Dangerous – Los Angeles Review of Books
"Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationships with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men as well as the reality around them, for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity … Continue reading Thinking Itself Is Dangerous – Los Angeles Review of Books
My Affair With the Intellectual Dark Web – Great Escape – Medium
"If the idea is that I piss people off by being disloyal to my likely tribes, well, I don’t think that makes me unusual. I think it just makes me a good intellectual." —Alice Dreger quoted in Meghan Daum. "My Affair With the Intellectual Dark Web." Medium. August 24, 2018. Easy test to see if … Continue reading My Affair With the Intellectual Dark Web – Great Escape – Medium
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