How has Bayes’ Rule changed the way I think?

People talk about how Bayes’ Rule is so central to rationality, and I agree. But given that I don’t go around plugging numbers into the equation in my daily life, how does Bayes actually affect my thinking?
A short answer, in my new video below:

 

 

(This is basically what the title of this blog was meant to convey — quantifying your uncertainty.)

Will moving to California make you happier?

I pass dozens of brilliantly-colored flowers like this on my daily walk to work. (Photo credit: B Mully, Flickr)

I might have to disagree with a Nobel Laureate on this one.

According to Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize-winning psychologist and author of the excellent Thinking Fast and Slow, the answer is “No.” A recent post on Big Think describes how Kahneman asked people to predict who’s happier, on average, Californians or Midwesterners. Most people (from both regions!) say, “Californians.” That’s because, Kahneman explains, the act of comparison highlights what’s saliently different between the two regions: their climate. And on that dimension, California’s a pretty clear winner.

And indeed, Californians report loving their climate and Midwesterners loathing theirs. Yet despite that, the overall life satisfaction in the two regions turns out to be nearly identical, according to a 1998 survey by Kahneman. Climate just isn’t that important to happiness, it turns out. The fact that it greatly influences people’s predictions of relative happiness in California vs. the Midwest stems from something called the “Focusing illusion,” Kahneman explains — a bias he sums up with the pithy, “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.”

So far, I have no beef with this interpretation. What I *do* object to is the conclusion, which Kahneman implies and Big Think makes explicit, that “moving to california won’t make you happy.”

I moved from New York, NY to Berkeley, CA, earlier this year, and — having read Kahneman — I didn’t expect the climate to make a noticeable difference in my mood. And yet, every day, when I would leave my house, I found my spirits buoyed by the balmy weather and the clear blue sky. I noticed, multiple times daily, how beautiful the vegetation was and how fresh, fragrant, and — well — un-Manhattanlike the air smelled. It made a noticeable difference in my mood nearly every day, and continues to, six months after I moved.

I was a little surprised that my result was so different from Kahneman’s. And then I realized: Most of those Californians in his study have always been Californians. They grew up there; they didn’t move from the Midwest (or Manhattan) to California. So it’s understandable that their climate doesn’t make a big impact on their happiness, because they have no standard of comparison. They’re not constantly thinking to themselves — as I have been — “Man, it’s so *nice* not to have to shiver inside a bulky winter coat!” or “Man, it’s such a relief not to smell garbage bags sitting out on the sidewalk,” or “Wow, it’s quite pleasant not to be sticky with sweat.”

I’m only one data point, of course, and it’s possible that if you studied people who moved from the Midwest to CA, you’d find that their change in happiness was in fact no different than that of people who moved from CA to the Midwest. But at least, I think it’s important to note that that’s not the study Kahneman did. And that, as a general rule in reading (or conducting!) happiness research, it’s important to remember that the happiness you get from a state depends on your previous states.

How to Raise a Rationalist Kid

In honor of Father’s Day, I talk about the things Jesse’s and my parents did that helped make us intellectually curious and interested in rationality.

Pick a name for a rationality non-profit!

ImageMy new job is basically my dream job: I just moved to the Bay area to help launch a non-profit devoted to teaching rationality.

But we need your help settling on a name. We’ve got it narrowed down to three contenders; click here to vote for your favorite. Thanks!

The Simulation Hypothesis and the Problem of Evil

ImageIn this special live episode recorded at the 2012 Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, Massimo and I discuss the “simulation argument” — the case that it’s roughly 20% likely that we live in a computer simulation — and the surprising implications that argument has for religion. Our guest is philosopher David Kyle Johnson, who is professor of philosophy at King’s College and author of the blog “Plato on Pop” for Psychology Today, and who hosts his own podcast at philosophyandpopculture.com. Elaborating on an article he recently published in the journal Philo, Johnson lays out the simulation argument and his own insight into how it might solve the age-old Problem of Evil (i.e., “How is it possible that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and good God could allow evil to occur in the world?”). As usual, Massimo and I have plenty of questions and comments!

Rationally Speaking Episode #59

Spirituality and “skeptuality”

Is “rational” spirituality a contradiction in terms? In the latest episode of the Rationally Speaking podcast, Massimo and I try to pin down what people mean when they call themselves “spiritual,” what inspires spiritual experiences and attitudes, and whether spirituality can be compatible with a naturalist view of the world.

Are there benefits that skeptics and other secular people could possibly get from incorporating some variants on traditional spiritual practices — like prayer, ritual, song, communal worship, and so on — into their own lives?

We xamine a variety of attempts to do so, and ask: how well have such attempts worked, and do they come with any potential pitfalls for our rationality?

http://www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs55-spirituality.html

How to want to change your mind

New video blog: “How to Want to Change your Mind.”

This one’s full of useful tips to turn off your “defensive” instincts in debates, and instead cultivate the kind of fair-minded approach that’s focused on figuring out the truth, not on “winning” an argument.

RS episode #54: The “isms” episode

In RS #54 — dubbed “The isms episode” —  Massimo and I ask, “Is the fundamental nature of the world knowable by science alone?”, looking at the issue through the lenses of a series of related philosophical positions: determinism, reductionism, physicalism, and naturalism. All of those “isms” take a stance on the question of whether there are objectively “correct” ways to interpret scientific facts — like physical laws, or causality — and if so, how do we decide what the correct interpretation is? Along the way, we debate the nature of emergent properties, whether math is discovered or invented, and whether it’s even logically possible for “supernatural” things to exist.

http://www.rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs54-the-isms-episode.html

 

A rational view of tradition

In my latest video blog I answer a listener’s question about why rationalists are more likely to abandon social norms like marriage, monogamy, standard gender roles, having children, and so on. And then I weigh in on whether that’s a rational attitude to take:

My kind of protest sign

Via Occupy Sanity, on Facebook:

And how about a: “Two, four, six, eight! And if you could please register your studies ahead of time to combat publication bias, that would be great!”

 

%d bloggers like this: