I suspect that achieving a clear mental picture of the sheer depth and breadth of the mind projection fallacy is a powerful mental tool. It's hard for me to state this in clearer terms, though, because I don't have a wide collection of good examples of the mind projection fallacy.
In a discussion yesterday, we all had trouble finding actual example of the mind projection fallacy. Overall, we had essentially two examples:
- Taste. People frequently confuse "I like this" and "this is good." (This really subsumes the attractiveness example.)
- Probability. This seems like a pretty good just-so-story for where frequentist probability comes from, as opposed to Bayesian probability.
Searching for "mind projection fallacy" on Less Wrong, I also see:
- Thinking that purpose is an inherent property of something, instead of it having been placed there by someone for some reason. (here)
- Mulling or arguing over definitions to solve object-level problems. (actually, most the ways words can be wrong sequence)
A friend of mine once said that often people would be astonished how rich he must be, however, what happens is that my friend values things differently (e.g. he does not own a car which is quite unusual in Stuttgart). So when people see the high-tech gadgets he buys they think about all the other stuff that they would buy before that and then sum over that completely imagined spending.