April - Thinking and Deciding

[Kyle]

This month we will be reading (parts of) Thinking and Deciding, by Jonathan Baron.

Unfortunately, this book is not available in Audiobook format (although maybe we didn't look hard enough). However, the book itself can be pretty dense and we don't expect everyone to make it through. Thus, we are encouraging people to select chapters to their liking, and share their thoughts with the group

Here's a chapter-by-chapter review from Lesswrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/cb1/thinking_...

There also appear to be plenty of PDF copies of the book floating around the internet. But when in doubt, support your local bookstore (I think... should we support our local bookstores?).

Let us know in the discussion what sections you plan on reading! I'm also thinking of extending discussion to a select few Lesswrong posts, so do recommend any you think would be relevant.

[Matt]

Thanks Kyle. I just secured my copy of the book and will start reading in a week or two. It is hefty! At about 600 pages.

[Kyle]

Sweet - do you think you'll have enough time to read the chapters you'd like? The discussion date is still flexible (others feel free to let me know!)

[Matt]

Yes! I should have enough time. No worries.

[Matt]

Are there any chapters we'd like to discuss more than others?

For myself, I found the first few chapters quite interesting (the search-inference framework and actively open-minded thinking).

Also, the last chapters look very interesting although I still haven't read them. Will try to by tomorrow.

[Kyle]

I also really enjoyed the first few chapters, maybe that can be the focus of discussion! Given our recent reading of the Righteous Mind, I'm interested in the cross section between Baron's 'human thinking' framework and Haidt's 'human morals' framework. Baron is discussing how to think well about our goals, but can his framework help us make good goals?