For each dataset, there is a limit to what we can use that dataset to test. Using the standard p-value based methods of science, the more hypotheses we check against the data, the more likely it will be that some of these checks give inaccurate conclusions. And this presents a big problem for the way science is practiced.
Let's take an example to illustrate the principle. Suppose that you have information about 1000 people selected at random from the U.S. adult population. Your dataset includ...
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Author: Spencer
Your Beliefs as a Temple
Your beliefs form something like a temple. The temple has many columns, rooms, and towers. The columns are facts and reasons that support the rooms. The rooms of the temple represent your major beliefs. The towers correspond to beliefs that build on each other.
For example, you have rooms corresponding to aspects of your moral philosophy. On top of these rooms, supported by your moral philosophy, are rooms corresponding to your political philosophy. On top of these are still other rooms, corr...
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Surprised? Update your model.
In order to make predictions, your brain must have a model of reality. This model is necessarily much simpler than reality itself. To see why, imagine that you are about to drop a baseball from waist height. Your brain can't possibly know enough about the atoms composing that baseball and the air around it to simulate what will happen at the atomic level. And even if your brain did have accurate knowledge about the atoms, using information at such a fine a level of detail would be extremely comp...
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Deconstructing Accomplishment
Accomplishments are usually only achieved when a number of factors all come together. Take, for example, a tennis player. It is unlikely that he will accomplish a lot if he doesn't have ambitious goals. If he only plays for fun, or to be the best player in his tennis club, it is very unlikely he'll put in sufficient effort to win a major tournament. So ambition will be an important ingredient in determining his level of success. What's more, to attain great things in tennis, the player need to s...
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Human Symbiogenesis
One of the most mutually beneficial states that two people can achieve is symbiogenesis, where they take such pleasure in each other's happiness (and displeasure in each other's unhappiness) that they start viewing each other's interests almost as their own. The more strongly this happens, the closer the pair is to being a single, two bodied organism, working towards a common set of goals.
One remarkable benefit to such a state is that it allows for a level of optimal allocation of resources ...
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If That Didn’t Solve Your Problems, Try Something Else
One of the big challenges to self-improvement is getting yourself to try a new strategy instead of the same thing over and over again. If you already experimented with calorie counting diets four times, only to gain the weight back after a few months, you'll be very likely to gain the weight back again next time you try this type of diet. If you tried to get yourself to exercise by buying a monthly gym membership, but barely used the gym in six months, the fact that you have a gym membership pro...
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Finding Our False Beliefs
By definition, we believe that each of our beliefs is true. And yet, simultaneously, we must admit that some of our beliefs must be wrong. We can't possibly have gotten absolutely everything right. This becomes especially obvious when we consider the huge number of beliefs we have, the complexity of the world we live in, and the number of people who disagree with us. The trouble though is that we don't know which of our many beliefs are wrong. If we knew that, we should have stopped believing th...
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(Almost) Everything is Uncertain
If you try to enumerate all of the things that you know with absolute, 100% certainty, you will find that the list is very small.
You know that “something” exists.
If you have mental experiences, then you know that “you” exist (though coming up with a reasonable definition for what “you” means can be remarkably tricky).
If your mental experiences are varied, then you know that whatever exists creates varied mental experiences.
With some cleverness, you may be able to add to this list ...
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Finding Good Relationships Faster
For those who are interested in finding someone to date, a little probabilistic thinking can help a lot. To see how, let's take a moment to analyze the situation.
Every time that you meet a new person, there is some chance that you will end up in a romantic relationship. If we want to assign a probability to this happening in any particular case, that probability will depend on the information that we know about both you and this other person. For instance, if we know that he or she is of a g...
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Predicting Using the Past
When we try to predict how long a task will take, we are in danger of falling prey to the planning fallacy. This is the natural human tendency to underestimate how long your own projects will take and the costs involved.
To give one of many possible examples, when a group of students were asked to estimate how long their senior theses would take if everything went as poorly as it possibly could, the average estimate was about 49 days. In fact, the average time it took the students to complete t...
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