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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> "Cognitive distortions" are the only tools we have to reason about anything in the presence of limited information

No, clearly they aren't. But you know what does qualify as a cognitive distortion? That very statement[1]. The "only" way to reason about "anything" based on limited evidence? Really? I mean, Kalman and Bayes would maybe like to have words.

[1] I can see a few, but I'll go with "dichotomous" as the biggest mistake you made. You lept straight from "Sometimes these mental tools produce correct results" (which is true) to "These tools are the only way to produce correct results" (a ridiculous distortion).

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One of the results that stood out to me was that (a) dichotomous thinking was the most notable distortion in germany during nazism and (2) they (and the rest of us) are back to peak levels.

I'm talking about reasoning in day-to-day life. It's cool that you are able to use bayesian models & kalman filters to decide whether you should try diet X, or whether someone is lying, or if crypto is a sound investment, or whether to take an umbrella with you when going out today. This is not even scratching the surface of the kinds of nuanced & personal problems that people go to therapists for.

I'm a little dumber, I just overgeneralize to "fad diet X is probably not that great" and skip the hours long scientific paper review & construction of bayesian models and priors.

Here is a recent tweet[1] claiming this paper is badly flawed because of changes in the content of the Google Books data this study was based on. Make sure to update your bayesian models accordingly! Should I lower my prior of "this recent scientific study is trustworthy so i should take it at face value" by 1%, or 5%, or 50%?

[1] https://twitter.com/benmschmidt/status/1419497587296571395

> It's cool that you are able to use bayesian models & kalman filters to decide whether you should try diet X, or whether someone is lying, or if crypto is a sound investment, or whether to take an umbrella with you when going out today.

This part isn't dichotomous, it's just a strawman (something that I'm guessing would go into the "overgeneralizing" bucket in the linked article).

I didn't say you had to use fancy math to live your life. I replied to your statement that one had to use distorted reasoning, and cited the existence of two named techniques (about reasoning from limited evidence) as a fun way of making the point.

My point wasn't about what you said anyway, it was that you were shouting and flaming about it using exactly the techniques the linked article was noting are on the rise. You see that, right?

I wasn't flaming anyone in my original post. Really just expressing some of my skepticisms of cognitive behavioral techniques. Personally I find it difficult to apply in real life when I believe that the technique is strong enough to discredit anything but the strongest scientific claim. The flaming was only to your reply, so you may be indulging in overgeneralization and mind-reading.

It sounds like you are more of a Markov kinda person.

For me, analogies are like an easy crutch that can get you that last mile.

You lept straight from "Sometimes these mental tools produce correct results" (which is true) to "These tools are the only way to produce correct results" (a ridiculous distortion).

Those aren't mutually exclusive. Something can do something only sometimes, and also be the only way to do that thing. If he/she is wrong, It should be easy to prove that their claim is incorrect though by thinking of a counterexample

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