To notice strangeness is to intuitively detect bad explanations. Strangeness is a function of surprise, and surprise is a function of ignorance
Show this thread
I call this "noticing confusion" (by way of @ESYudkowsky) and it's probably sufficient to be a singular hallmark of interesting people. The superpower comes from playing with what anomalies suggest about the explanations that fail to predict themhttps://twitter.com/paulg/status/1147505767039287296 …
-
-
-
Yesterday I asked "why don't sharks eat people?" This is the kind of question that an 8-year-old might ask, so it seems cute now. But all the obvious answers are non-answers. "We're not a part of their natural diet." Really? Where do they learn that, shark school?
Show this thread -
I don't mean to pick on my "natural diet" answerers too much, because they're answering in a way that makes sense in a world where you're treated like you must've gotten kicked in the head if you suggest that sharks not eating people is some great mystery
Show this thread -
A subskill of this process is noticing when an explanation doesn't contain new information, e.g. "the gods did it." Another is simulating a lack of familiarity with the world such that you can make predictions from explanation even after seeing the answer at the back of the book
Show this thread -
If you're a smart person who values being smart, it's critical that you notice that "because of evolutionary processes" isn't all that different from "because of the gods" if that's where your thinking terminates
Show this thread -
Smart people who value being smart can be very bad at noticing confusion in part because being good at it sometimes makes you look very naive and childlike, and can therefore threaten the social goods you're accustomed to getting for intelligence
Show this thread -
Peter Thiel helped make noticing confusion trendy by pointing out that certain secrets hiding in plain sight can translate to big money. Unfortunately, people can get very frustrated looking for high-value secrets if they have no practice looking for low-value secrets
Show this thread -
Because secret-seeking can look weird and foolish, people are usually only willing to look for secrets with cash value. But the people who find these are mostly weirdos, people who are constitutionally incapable of being well-adjusted adults and gave up trying a long time ago
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
As they say, the most useful and important thing that you hear in all science is not, "Eureka!" It's, "Hmm. That's strange..."
-
Or, one of my favorites - "Why aren't you working, [expletive]?!" Which would normally be uttered at a volume that coincides with the level of my frustration. As would the exclaimation of my eventual understanding.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.