Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:10:24 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:54:23 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>
>>>> Instinctive certainties, however, are wrong more than half the time.
>>> Citation?
>>>
>> Uh.. Such numbers are also made up and wrong, more than half the time?
>> lol
> 
> It is true that 78.64% (I'm rounding) of all statistics are made up on 
> the spot.  :-)
> 
>> Seriously though, I don't know the actual number, or have a cite, but I
>> *have* seen cases dealing with cognition, where you can not only get
>> 50-50 fails, but even 99% failures. One of the best examples is the,
>> "two people with a big sign walking rudely between two people talking.",
>> experiment they run, yearly, at some colleges, for their psychology
>> experiments. The one where they replace the person asking the question
>> of some random person with someone the wrong height, dressed wrong, in
>> clothing some **totally** different color, or even the wrong gender, and
>> like 90% of the people being "asked", never notice the substitution. The
>> brain just starts over where it was interrupted, so long as the
>> conversation "seems" to be the same, and ignore **everything** else. The
>> replacement could probably be standing their nude and the only reaction
>> you would get was, "Damn, I didn't realize when you came up that you
>> where nude.", not, "Where the hell did the original person I was talking
>> to go?"
>>
>> The ease by which the mind can be tricked is actually quite scary.
> 
> True, but at the same time, some people have *very* good instincts.  I 
> seem to be one of those kinds of people - because I have an instinct that 
> something's going to be OK or work out for the best, and I find that 
> better than 90% of the time, I'm right.  That's far better than the luck 
> of averages.
> 
Actually. No. There are two problems with this. One is called 
"confirmation bias". The mind, as a means of helping itself *make* such 
good choices, de-emphasizes bad ones, while exaggerating perceived good 
ones. The result is that we tend to forget the bad things. Someone gave 
and example of this about why we tend to, in old age, think the past was 
better than now. The way they put it is, "50% of everything ever made is 
useless crap, whether it be music, literature, or anything else. Much of 
the good stuff is kept, some of the bad stuff survives, but, overall, we 
only ever actually remember the good bits, so the past always **seems** 
to contain fewer problems, better ideas, better things, etc. than now." 
Or, something roughly to that effect.

Everyone thinks that they make good instinctive decisions 90% of the 
time, save for those people that are totally disfunctional and hide in 
their houses, unwilling to make *any* decisions. Its our nature to 
forget the cases where we screwed up, or at least marginalize them, in 
favor of a self perception of being right most of the time. We couldn't 
function effectively if we second guessed every action, based on a 
recognition that we get it close enough to right only half the time to 
call it "good instinct".

Its also a tested psychological factor that the true twits in society 
have a coping mechanism, by which they "exaggerate" their own competence.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/01/18/MN73840.DTL

By the same token, people *good at their jobs*, tend to know that they 
could be wrong, are prone to mistakes, and can get to be hyper critical 
of their own successes. What would appear to be "pride" or "humility" in 
people with high positions could very well be signs of instead 
"incompetence" and "great skill", in the same order. Left me struggling 
with an infinite loop though, "are the things I am bad at, things I am 
actually pretty good at, but I didn't see it, because I am too critical, 
or am I instead horrible at the things I think I am good at, and still 
as bad at the ones I think I am, as I believe." lol

> I've also been told by people in professions that depend on the ability 
> to read people and situations that my instincts are exceptionally good - 
> I have an extremely good track record and picking out attempts at 
> deception.  Part of that I attribute to the fact that I tend not to trust 
> very easily because I know that people will generally try to get away 
> with whatever they can.
> 
> Jim

I would, with some caveats, tend to allow for their perceptions to be 
less flawed than yours. The caveats being, for starters, that their 
perception of "why" you seem to have good instincts may be due to their 
own flawed views of who a good candidate for deception are, and the 
like, due to personal bias, than to actual skill in the matter. Good 
example of this sort of fun thing:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8183502.stm

Now, if everyone that was telling you that you are good at detecting 
deceit where one of those who claimed to trust priests, farmers and 
prostitutes, before scientists, what would your reaction be to their 
certainty of how good you are?

Point being, pretty much by definition, any social group you are in is 
**already** predisposed, by you as a member, to perceive your 
contribution as more trustworthy than someone else's. Its the whole my 
tribe/monkey-troop is more worthy than those other monkeys, thing. ;)

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message