I too find your friend's statement uncompelling. There's no reason to limit yourself like that; even assuming that the multiple-intelligence premise is true, the correct solution is to apply 100% of your logical-mathematical and interpersonal abilities. You might want to practice the logical-mathematical part first, to achieve a better ROI, but that's not the same thing as saying you should apply 60% of your ability just because logical-mathematical contributes to 60% of the result.
Unfortunately people usually find it distasteful to apply S2 to things that they're used to using S1 for. I've found that S2 is associated with negative feelings of coldness, calculation, and inauthenticity, so I avoid talking about rationality (when memes like "love isn't rational" dominate, good luck bridging the inferential distance). Instead, I solve their problem myself, and frame the result in their language. Your friend would probably accept advice of the form "do X, don't do Y, here's why [touchy-feely explanation]".
Some examples, just off the top of my head:
Yes, this is hard. It'll get easier as you practice and becomes an S1 process.
Thank you for this answer. It honestly deals with my core problem. I suspect it will be useful for me.
Say that listening to someone makes a friend 80% of the time and talking at them makes a friend 20% of that time.
The kind of mental model you need of friendship to model it in a way where that sentence makes sense might not be conductive to winning friends.
The problem is that my friends find Toolboxism an offensive descriptor.
Toolboxism isn't an inherently offensive descriptor. It's however not a term that describes the way of thinking that your friend describes in your quote. It might not be that your friend finds it offensive, but just finds it wrong.
It's problematic to have a mental model where you expect people to either be blues or greens and not be open for someone to come with a different position.
The idea of orthogonality isn't part of toolbox thinking the way it was previously described. When David Chapmen transfered what he learned from a religious ritual to his DARPA AI research Chapmen transfered knowledge across domains.
The kind of mental model you need of friendship to model it in a way where that sentence makes sense might not be conductive to winning friends.
For me personally, Bayes thinking is useful when I have some model that is wrong, but I refuse to let go of. In this case, I did not like "vibing" with people. I wanted all interactions to be problem solving-y in some way. Because I wanted the world to be like that, I didn't accept evidence that people do not prefer it. But I could look at attempts to make friends and notice "oh, vibing is...
I believe the term you are looking for is a fox, in the sense of Tetlock. But honestly, as someone who is generally pro-toolboxism, I don't understand why that's offensive. The whole point is that you have a whole toolbox of different approaches
Fox - that sounds like a good word. Can you link me the Tetlock book it comes from.
Yeah I agree that toolbox isn’t shouldn’t be offensive. I guess something in my tone offended the person, rather than the word itself.
Imagine that you are likely to make huge mistakes when trying to think rationally, but you usually get good results when you follow your instincts. Wouldn't it make sense to ignore rational arguments and just follow your instincts? I suspect that many neurotypical people are like that.
It is not about applying some Platonic "logical-mathematical intelligence". It is about your logical and mathematical skills. Maybe they suck. It is a fact about you, not about math per se. But it can be a true fact.
Drop generic Baye's rule recommendations in favor of applications:
Your friend might disagree because the idea of general methods are counter-intuitive. (Different types of people, different things that appeal, etc.) People do generally exhibit some pattern (like their interests) which are important, and important to them (shared interests can bring people together).
Emotional logic is orthogonal to formal logic,
Not completely.
we can’t always use one type of intelligence to make decisions related to another type of intelligence.
Indeed. Here the relation might be visible (and useful) around basic stuff. (Being nicer is more effective, etc.)
While there might not be a lot of overlap, maybe someday a computer will be able to infer 'frustration' from someone punching it - without otherwise being filled to the brim with emotional intelligence. (If only as a result of hardcoding.)
Why do you want to put a label on their belief? There are some adverse effects like they can get offended, or being a Toolboxist becomes a part of their identity and then it's even harder to change their mind.
It helps withdraw from the conversation. You believe in <belief> and I believe in One-Magisterium Bayes is a script that people use to abandon disagreements. Like saying "You are a Muslim and I am a Christian, so we should change topics".
This great LW post uses the phrases Toolboxism and Single-Magisterium Bayes to describe the two ways of thinking
Was this meant to include a link to that post?
hahaha no, I meant to link to this post https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GTAFKjdQoSa9smKmj/one-magisterium-bayes
I updated it.
I recently proposed to a friend applying Bayes rule to making friends, to observe which strategies make friends faster. My friend's response was as follows (quoting to avoid strawman)
"You’re trying to use one single type of intelligence to analyze and find patterns in human behavior driven by other types of intelligence. It’s like if I was trying to use my musical intuition to understand math. They’re orthogonal domains. (...)
"Emotional logic is orthogonal to formal logic, I’ve said it for ages and I’ll keep saying it forever because I know beyond a doubt that it’s true. And in my opinion we can train our intelligence in various domains but we can’t always use one type of intelligence to make decisions related to another type of intelligence. Let’s say that the field of economics is 60% logical-mathematical, 20% interpersonal, ... , 0% musical-rhythmic and harmonic. Then those are the proportions in which those intelligences should be applied to that field"
I was not compelled by my friends argument. Say that listening to someone makes a friend 80% of the time and talking at them makes a friend 20% of that time. Bayes rule is still an efficient way to notice that pattern, even though an emotionally intelligent person might have guessed it.
I want a way to describe our ways of thinking. This great LW post uses the phrases Toolboxism and Single-Magisterium Bayes to describe the two ways of thinking (the sequences are clearly in the Single-Magisterium Bayes camp). The problem is that my friends find Toolboxism an offensive descriptor. Any thoughts on a word they they would prefer?
edit: added link