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Rationality: From AI to Zombies #2
How to Actually Change Your Mind
“I believe that it is right and proper for me, as a human being, to have an interest in the future, and what human civilization becomes in the future. One of those interests is the human pursuit of truth, which has strengthened slowly over the generations (for there was not always science). I wish to strengthen that pursuit further, in this generation. That is a wish of mine, for the Future. For we are all of us players upon that vast gameboard, whether we accept the responsibility or not. “And that makes your rationality my business. “Is this a dangerous idea? Yes, and not just pleasantly edgy 'dangerous.' People have been burned to death because some priest decided that they didn’t think the way they should. Deciding to burn people to death because they ‘don’t think properly’—that’s a revolting kind of reasoning, isn’t it? You wouldn’t want people to think that way, why, it’s disgusting. People who think like that, well, we’ll have to do something about them...“I agree! Here’s my Let’s argue against bad ideas but not set their bearers on fire.” Human intelligence is a an amazing capacity that has single-handedly put humans in a dominant position on Earth. When human intelligence defeats itself and goes off the rails, the fallout therefore tends to be a uniquely big deal. In How to Actually Change Your Mind , decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky asks how we can better identify and sort out our biases, integrate new evidence, and achieve lucidity in our daily lives. Because it really seems as though we should be able to do better— —and a three-pound all-purpose superweapon is a terrible thing to waste.
322 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2018
171 people are currently reading
1437 people want to read
About the author
Eliezer Yudkowsky
47 books1,990 followersEliezer Yudkowsky is a founding researcher of the field of AI alignment and played a major role in shaping the public conversation about smarter-than-human AI. He appeared on Time magazine's 2023 list of the 100 Most Influential People In AI, was one of the twelve public figures featured in The New York Times's "Who's Who Behind the Dawn of the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement," and has been discussed or interviewed in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Forbes, Wired, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Washington Post, and many other venues.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
April 10, 2019
Imagine someone great - I think of Bertrand Russell or Dan Dennett or CS Peirce or Alan Turing - writing really well about actually scientific self-help. Imagine they wrote most days for 2 years, and so distilled decades of trying to find the truth as a heavily biased primate barely out of the trees. Imagine it was empathic and well-justified with argument and experimental data. But imagine it turns out it wasn't a Canonical figure writing it, but instead some guy on the internet with no credentials and weird opinions. But imagine - or rather, I ask you to trust me, til you see for yourself - that the result matches what the greats achieved in the theory of practical reasoning. (Dennett actually wrote a practical-reason how-to book, and it isn't nearly as good.)
This is only one-sixth of Yudkowsky's enormous Sequences - an unusually scientifically accurate philosophical system covering statistics, physics, psychology, history, ethics, and, most importantly, the specific universal obstacles to your being rational. (As a brutal compression, the philosophy can be glossed as radical Bayesian-Quinean evidentialism.) I've read it three times in 10 years, and got more from it each time. Quite a lot of it seemed absurd the first time I read it, for instance his principle of Conservation of Expected Evidence, but I now know it to be mathematically safe.
There are loads of great tools here. Just one example out of dozens: the idea of a pejorative Fully General Counterargument, a good-sounding objection which applies equally to all possible arguments, and which thus tells you nothing about the truth of the matter. Examples
* “Oh he's an 'expert' is he? Experts are systematically miscalibrated”
* “My opponent is [just] a clever arguer”
* “That evidence was filtered by a biased person, therefore I can ignore it”
* "There are arguments both for and against”
Along with Kant's Transcendental Analytic, The Great Gatsby (don't ask), and Marfarquhar's Strangers Drowning, it's one of the only books I've ever taken paragraph-by-paragraph notes on.
Free, or by donation to his nonprofit, here.
These essays are fumbling attempts to put into words lessons better taught by experience. But at least there’s underlying math, plus experimental evidence from cognitive psychology on how humans actually think. Maybe that will be enough to cross the stratospherically high threshold required for a discipline that lets you actually get it right, instead of just constraining you into interesting new mistakes.
This is only one-sixth of Yudkowsky's enormous Sequences - an unusually scientifically accurate philosophical system covering statistics, physics, psychology, history, ethics, and, most importantly, the specific universal obstacles to your being rational. (As a brutal compression, the philosophy can be glossed as radical Bayesian-Quinean evidentialism.) I've read it three times in 10 years, and got more from it each time. Quite a lot of it seemed absurd the first time I read it, for instance his principle of Conservation of Expected Evidence, but I now know it to be mathematically safe.
There are loads of great tools here. Just one example out of dozens: the idea of a pejorative Fully General Counterargument, a good-sounding objection which applies equally to all possible arguments, and which thus tells you nothing about the truth of the matter. Examples
* “Oh he's an 'expert' is he? Experts are systematically miscalibrated”
* “My opponent is [just] a clever arguer”
* “That evidence was filtered by a biased person, therefore I can ignore it”
* "There are arguments both for and against”
Along with Kant's Transcendental Analytic, The Great Gatsby (don't ask), and Marfarquhar's Strangers Drowning, it's one of the only books I've ever taken paragraph-by-paragraph notes on.
Free, or by donation to his nonprofit, here.
January 27, 2021
I'm now convinced that changing one's mind is most difficult. If nothing else sticks, I'll try to remember the litanies. "What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse." (Gendlin)
May 14, 2025
If there is any flaw here, it is with the reader or perhaps with our species. It is that thinking clearly is so, so difficult.
There are more Named Pitfalls than one can count and there are almost as many Named Solutions.
It is a marvel that this book lists many of both of them. It is a tragedy that applying even a fraction is extremely challenging.
As an aside, it is also worth lamenting that many of the Named Solutions can turn into New Named Problems if one is not extremely careful - Fully General Counterarguments leading to Fully General Countercounterarguments, for instance.
Highly recommend (this and the previous book) to anyone interested in Argumentation and What Things to Believe. At the very least, it is intellectually rewarding. Even if the jargon might take a little getting used to.
There are more Named Pitfalls than one can count and there are almost as many Named Solutions.
It is a marvel that this book lists many of both of them. It is a tragedy that applying even a fraction is extremely challenging.
As an aside, it is also worth lamenting that many of the Named Solutions can turn into New Named Problems if one is not extremely careful - Fully General Counterarguments leading to Fully General Countercounterarguments, for instance.
Highly recommend (this and the previous book) to anyone interested in Argumentation and What Things to Believe. At the very least, it is intellectually rewarding. Even if the jargon might take a little getting used to.
June 11, 2021
Changing one's mind seems easy but I've now seen enough counter-evidence. Looking to start with something simple like recognizing semantic stop signs. Thoroughly enjoyed the essays.
September 7, 2019
Surprisingly, the best part of the book was not the "how to think rationally" part, but the "how to think about thinking rationally." I began thinking rationality is basically synonymous with being a good Bayesian updater (having read some lesswrong posts of this flavor) and expected most of the book to be about recognizing and combatting common biases. This does occupy sections "Seeing with Fresh Eyes" and "Death Spirals", but I came away from my favorite sections realizing that there's a lot to be learned here about thinking clearly in general. Yudkowsky framed a lot of common excuses/pitfalls/modes of thinking in interesting ways that made me recognize my own habitually flawed thought patterns - e.g. being personally attached to beliefs, using humility as an excuse not to pursue complicated questions further, etc.
Some chapters are skippable (and designed to be that way; all of them are basically blog posts on lesswrong sequenced in a particular way), but overall there are a lot of great observations about thinking that are worth a read.
Some chapters are skippable (and designed to be that way; all of them are basically blog posts on lesswrong sequenced in a particular way), but overall there are a lot of great observations about thinking that are worth a read.
July 31, 2020
I was fascinated with an idea of objective truths ever since I took Formal Logic in college. I prided myself on the ability to determine if an argument is valid, true, or both. But then when I graduated, the real world is not as rational as I thought, and that deeply troubled me. The faults in our thinking (myself included) are much more complex and harder to identify, especially when one takes into account our many heuristics (think shortcuts) that are wired as default into our brains. Until this book comes along. Despite the unfortunate title (he's a rationalist, not a novelist after all), this book really does help me to actually change my mind, or at least try. To quote Eugene Gendlin: "What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with."
October 14, 2025
This would have been a really good book if it wasn't for the constant stabs at religion. It was fine the first two times, but beyond that, it got tiring.
Not every intelligent person will come to the conclusion that atheism is the way to go. There are very rational reasons for choosing to follow a religion, or believe in something that cannot be proven by science. A lot of people do it because it works for them.
I am an agnostic myself. I follow an organized religion, yes, but faith is irrelevant in my case. I do not "believe" in a higher power or in heaven and hell etc. It just pains me when someone who makes a lot of good points otherwise disrespects entire communities because of their faith.
Anyways, I will read the rest of the segments because there are lots of good things there. Just people stop trying to prove that people cannot be rationalists and religious.
Not every intelligent person will come to the conclusion that atheism is the way to go. There are very rational reasons for choosing to follow a religion, or believe in something that cannot be proven by science. A lot of people do it because it works for them.
I am an agnostic myself. I follow an organized religion, yes, but faith is irrelevant in my case. I do not "believe" in a higher power or in heaven and hell etc. It just pains me when someone who makes a lot of good points otherwise disrespects entire communities because of their faith.
Anyways, I will read the rest of the segments because there are lots of good things there. Just people stop trying to prove that people cannot be rationalists and religious.
November 2, 2024
This book is a huge source of motivation for me. I love going through Yudkowsky’s essays because each time, they push me to try or change something. Every read leaves me inspired, feeling stronger, and ready to face anything in the world. There’s truly no other rating than 5 stars. It’s not my first time reading it, and it won’t be my last. I’ll be back, my dear—thank you for everything!
March 6, 2026
Nice book. Lots of short chapters explaining many different processes one has that are trying to prevent you from having to actually change your mind. Quite a bit of repetition, but those feel very deliberate to try to drive home some key points.
May 7, 2024
Didn't feel quite as interesting as the first book. The title suggests something more concrete, but the content is at the same level of abstraction. Did provide some really interesting food for thought about the foundations of rationality - bootstrapping up belief systems, the empirical nature of logical axioms, Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, etc.
Notes:
• The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.”
The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .”
• "Politics is the mind-killer"
• "But studies such as the above show that people tend to judge technologies—and many other problems—by an overall good or bad feeling. If you tell people a reactor design produces less waste, they rate its probability of meltdown as lower"
• Students guessed 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8=512, but 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1=2250
• Anchoring is suspected to be due to priming, or "contamination" as it's called at the cognitive level
• "cognitive business", distraction, interruption seem to interfere with our ability to recognize and reject falsehoods, but not to accept truths. Proposed conclusion: we accept ideas as true be default, and it takes effort to reject
• Affect heuristic: people tend to judge things as overall "good" or "bad", even when various aspects aren't necessarily related like that
○ Presenting information about high benefits made people perceive lower risks; presenting information about higher risks made people perceive lower benefits
○ Exacerbated by time pressure
○ Causes halo effect
• Affective death spirals
○ Similar to what I called "building a philosophical system", where one idea lies at the crux of every issue and could solve every problem. Taleb with black swans, Walker with sleep, possibly me with incentive alignment
○ Probably the single most reliable sign of a cult guru is that the guru claims expertise, not in one area, not even in a cluster of related areas, but in everything.
• "Cognitive dissonance" explanation of increased backfire effect seems weak. Cognitive dissonance seems either like a mysterious answer, or just a term for "threat to established beliefs". In either case, the question of why views get stronger in response to dissonance instead of weaker still stands.
• EY's explanation is that the counter-evidence pushes people closer to leaving, the ones that go over the threshold leave, and the more extreme ones stay. But if this is like pushing a queue over a cliff, then the average should still decrease - it's as if the most extreme disappeared, since the least extreme disappear but everyone else shifts to doubting more. The only way this would lead to an increase in fanaticism is if the people that don't change their minds don’t even shift towards doubt (or do so very little), or if the fanaticism is distributed super-linearly in the first place.
• It's important to be tolerant of criticism to yourself because if you eject, the group you left will shift away from you. If everyone ejects early, groups will tend to get more extreme very quickly.
○ Although I guess they'll also shrink very quickly. If everyone ejects at criticism, groups just collapse to the most extreme member shouting at nobody.
○ Makes sense given echo chamber intuition. Desire to avoid criticism is what leads to bubbles
• EY's "hate death spirals" are what I've been calling signaling races. It's where everybody wants to get their signaling and say how bad the enemy is, and the discussion (negative halo effect) doesn't allow consideration of the other side.
○ 9/11 hyper-patriotism reaction
○ Excessive political correctness/cancel culture
○ Red Scare
• To be one more milestone in humanity’s road is the best that can be said of anyone; but this seemed too lowly to please Ayn Rand. And that is how she became a mere Ultimate Prophet.
• The presence of a single dissenter dramatically decreases conformity bias, but only while they are dissenting. Immunity to confirmation bias doesn't seem to be learned from past dissenters paving the way.
• Careful about self-image as a rationalist. Can lead to motivated investigation - thinking hard enough to satisfy your self-image, but not actually optimal
• The principles of rationality are the same kind of laws as the Laws of Thermodynamics
○ Ong says writing enables syllogisms. But if logic is learned, not somehow "unlocked", how does this work?
• For ideas that you are attached to, consider what would happen if they were false, simply as a hypothetical. Once this "retreat" is planned out and mapped, hopefully the fear of abandoning the idea if it does turn out to be false will be reduced.
Notes:
• The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.”
The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .”
• "Politics is the mind-killer"
• "But studies such as the above show that people tend to judge technologies—and many other problems—by an overall good or bad feeling. If you tell people a reactor design produces less waste, they rate its probability of meltdown as lower"
• Students guessed 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8=512, but 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1=2250
• Anchoring is suspected to be due to priming, or "contamination" as it's called at the cognitive level
• "cognitive business", distraction, interruption seem to interfere with our ability to recognize and reject falsehoods, but not to accept truths. Proposed conclusion: we accept ideas as true be default, and it takes effort to reject
• Affect heuristic: people tend to judge things as overall "good" or "bad", even when various aspects aren't necessarily related like that
○ Presenting information about high benefits made people perceive lower risks; presenting information about higher risks made people perceive lower benefits
○ Exacerbated by time pressure
○ Causes halo effect
• Affective death spirals
○ Similar to what I called "building a philosophical system", where one idea lies at the crux of every issue and could solve every problem. Taleb with black swans, Walker with sleep, possibly me with incentive alignment
○ Probably the single most reliable sign of a cult guru is that the guru claims expertise, not in one area, not even in a cluster of related areas, but in everything.
• "Cognitive dissonance" explanation of increased backfire effect seems weak. Cognitive dissonance seems either like a mysterious answer, or just a term for "threat to established beliefs". In either case, the question of why views get stronger in response to dissonance instead of weaker still stands.
• EY's explanation is that the counter-evidence pushes people closer to leaving, the ones that go over the threshold leave, and the more extreme ones stay. But if this is like pushing a queue over a cliff, then the average should still decrease - it's as if the most extreme disappeared, since the least extreme disappear but everyone else shifts to doubting more. The only way this would lead to an increase in fanaticism is if the people that don't change their minds don’t even shift towards doubt (or do so very little), or if the fanaticism is distributed super-linearly in the first place.
• It's important to be tolerant of criticism to yourself because if you eject, the group you left will shift away from you. If everyone ejects early, groups will tend to get more extreme very quickly.
○ Although I guess they'll also shrink very quickly. If everyone ejects at criticism, groups just collapse to the most extreme member shouting at nobody.
○ Makes sense given echo chamber intuition. Desire to avoid criticism is what leads to bubbles
• EY's "hate death spirals" are what I've been calling signaling races. It's where everybody wants to get their signaling and say how bad the enemy is, and the discussion (negative halo effect) doesn't allow consideration of the other side.
○ 9/11 hyper-patriotism reaction
○ Excessive political correctness/cancel culture
○ Red Scare
• To be one more milestone in humanity’s road is the best that can be said of anyone; but this seemed too lowly to please Ayn Rand. And that is how she became a mere Ultimate Prophet.
• The presence of a single dissenter dramatically decreases conformity bias, but only while they are dissenting. Immunity to confirmation bias doesn't seem to be learned from past dissenters paving the way.
• Careful about self-image as a rationalist. Can lead to motivated investigation - thinking hard enough to satisfy your self-image, but not actually optimal
• The principles of rationality are the same kind of laws as the Laws of Thermodynamics
○ Ong says writing enables syllogisms. But if logic is learned, not somehow "unlocked", how does this work?
• For ideas that you are attached to, consider what would happen if they were false, simply as a hypothetical. Once this "retreat" is planned out and mapped, hopefully the fear of abandoning the idea if it does turn out to be false will be reduced.
September 3, 2021
This is Book 2 of Rationality: From AI to Zombies, a series of blog posts by Eliezer Yudkowsky on human rationality and irrationality in cognitive science. Book 2 discusses motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. Why do we keep jumping to conclusions, digging our heels in and recapitulating the same mistakes? Why are we so bad at acquiring accurate beliefs and how can we do better? *
The book addressed these topics brilliantly in my opinion. Every chapter broke down how we usually think and the heuristics and biases we so naturally fall back on. This is great and all but I think the problem, first and foremost, is why should anyone care if their thinking is flawed and that their beliefs are wrong. Why care about truth?
In one of the chapters, Yudkowsky answers - "I believe that it is right and proper for me, as a human being, to have an interest in the future, and what human civilization becomes in the future. One of those interests is the human pursuit of truth [...] For we are all of us players upon that vast gameboard, whether we accept the responsibility or not. And that makes your rationality my business."
Indeed we need to get our head on straight if we want to shape the future in a way that is good for all of us. But how do you teach people to care beyond their own selves? There has been an emphasis on individualistic pursuits recently and I wholeheartedly support this. But I think ultimately, the goal of individuation is the realization that one is part of a whole, to see where one fits in a group. It starts and ends in collectivism. This, among other things, is unteachable.
Truth is a good thing. Maps should reflect territories. Beliefs require evidence. And if you are curious about/questioning this, you can read the entire collection at readthesequences.com where you can also just pick topics that pique your interest. There is also a website called lesswrong.com which aims to understand the world and be less and less wrong about it each day.
*excerpt from lesswrong.com
The book addressed these topics brilliantly in my opinion. Every chapter broke down how we usually think and the heuristics and biases we so naturally fall back on. This is great and all but I think the problem, first and foremost, is why should anyone care if their thinking is flawed and that their beliefs are wrong. Why care about truth?
In one of the chapters, Yudkowsky answers - "I believe that it is right and proper for me, as a human being, to have an interest in the future, and what human civilization becomes in the future. One of those interests is the human pursuit of truth [...] For we are all of us players upon that vast gameboard, whether we accept the responsibility or not. And that makes your rationality my business."
Indeed we need to get our head on straight if we want to shape the future in a way that is good for all of us. But how do you teach people to care beyond their own selves? There has been an emphasis on individualistic pursuits recently and I wholeheartedly support this. But I think ultimately, the goal of individuation is the realization that one is part of a whole, to see where one fits in a group. It starts and ends in collectivism. This, among other things, is unteachable.
Truth is a good thing. Maps should reflect territories. Beliefs require evidence. And if you are curious about/questioning this, you can read the entire collection at readthesequences.com where you can also just pick topics that pique your interest. There is also a website called lesswrong.com which aims to understand the world and be less and less wrong about it each day.
*excerpt from lesswrong.com
January 9, 2020
This is a rock and roll guide to BayesCraft and clear thinking. Entertaining, witty and illuminating. A must read for those wanting to be able to see and understand the world a bit more accurately.
''If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer''
''You shouldn’t be afraid to just visualize a world you fear. If that world is already actual, visualizing it won’t make it worse; and if it is not actual, visualizing it will do no harm.
What is true is already so; owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.''
''That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself.''
''Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is necessarily a change. If we only admit small local errors, we will only make small local changes. The motivation for a big change comes from acknowledging a big mistake.''
''A doubt that neither destroys itself nor destroys its target might as well have never existed at all. It is the resolution of doubts, not the mere act of doubting, which drives the ratchet of rationality forward.''
''If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer''
''You shouldn’t be afraid to just visualize a world you fear. If that world is already actual, visualizing it won’t make it worse; and if it is not actual, visualizing it will do no harm.
What is true is already so; owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.''
''That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself.''
''Not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is necessarily a change. If we only admit small local errors, we will only make small local changes. The motivation for a big change comes from acknowledging a big mistake.''
''A doubt that neither destroys itself nor destroys its target might as well have never existed at all. It is the resolution of doubts, not the mere act of doubting, which drives the ratchet of rationality forward.''
September 6, 2021
This is without a doubt one of my new favorite books when it comes to decision making and being more rational. We all love to think we’re rational, but we’re wired to be irrational, and the first step towards working on it is to recognize it. I love learning about becoming a better decision maker and being more rational, which is why I’m so glad I came across this book from Eliezer Yudkowsky. I hadn’t heard of his work until I saw Julia Galef (another great voice in this realm) tweet one of the essays from Eliezer’s website LessWrong.com.
Eliezer is a rationalist, and while there are some arguments that none of us should be completely rational, Eliezer makes excellent arguments for how we should be “less wrong”. This book is a collection of essays, and I loved 90% of them. Part of being rational is having the ability to change your mind and update your beliefs. Throughout the essays, you can see Eliezer’s intellectual humility, and he has no problem sharing personal stories of when he was wrong and the lessons he’s learned from it. So, if you want to be less wrong, read this book, and I can definitely see myself reading it again in the future to freshen up my skills in being rational.
Eliezer is a rationalist, and while there are some arguments that none of us should be completely rational, Eliezer makes excellent arguments for how we should be “less wrong”. This book is a collection of essays, and I loved 90% of them. Part of being rational is having the ability to change your mind and update your beliefs. Throughout the essays, you can see Eliezer’s intellectual humility, and he has no problem sharing personal stories of when he was wrong and the lessons he’s learned from it. So, if you want to be less wrong, read this book, and I can definitely see myself reading it again in the future to freshen up my skills in being rational.
August 11, 2020
This is a collection of many very short... micro-essays, I guess, each of which looks closely at a specific bias, problem, proof, or other interesting titbit in the sphere of rationality and how to be more rational.
Because each essay is so short (sometimes only three or four pages when read through the Kindle app on an iPhone), the collection lends itself to being read in fits and starts, being dropped and returned to as needed. It's not the sort of thing you'd probably power through in one go, although it's sometimes beneficial to at least try to read several parts at once because each will often be related to its neighbours.
Yudkowsky explains most concepts in a way that almost anyone could understand, although you might occasionally find yourself feeling reluctant to listen to him purely because the entire premise of his work is that he knows better than you and that can be a bit annoying. Still, that's kind of the point: it's worth undertaking the endeavour of improving one's own critical thinking so that one can in fact come to know better.
Because each essay is so short (sometimes only three or four pages when read through the Kindle app on an iPhone), the collection lends itself to being read in fits and starts, being dropped and returned to as needed. It's not the sort of thing you'd probably power through in one go, although it's sometimes beneficial to at least try to read several parts at once because each will often be related to its neighbours.
Yudkowsky explains most concepts in a way that almost anyone could understand, although you might occasionally find yourself feeling reluctant to listen to him purely because the entire premise of his work is that he knows better than you and that can be a bit annoying. Still, that's kind of the point: it's worth undertaking the endeavour of improving one's own critical thinking so that one can in fact come to know better.
September 25, 2022
A lot to think about and remember (for example the piece about political arguments, priming/contamination/cached thoughts and conformity). But also quite a bit of patronising and at times even disdainful attitude towards the "unenlightened" (people not employing rational methods), especially in the beginning of the book.
September 24, 2025
This is the second book I’ve read by Eliezer Yudkowsky. I was very impressed by Map and Territory, but this one didn’t land with me in quite the same way.
Content-wise, it’s a 5/5. Eliezer is still a brilliant teacher if you want to dig deep into rationality.
The reason it didn’t resonate as strongly is that it’s not really a “book” in the traditional sense—it’s a collection of blog posts. Yudkowsky himself has responded to this criticism with a simple “oops,” and honestly, that’s fair enough.
The book is packed with insights and plenty of eye-opening moments, but it’s also messy and somewhat disorganized. I often felt that topics overlapped, and as someone who’s still fairly new to this side of rationalist thinking (coming in as a “traditional rationalist” who thought I knew everything—i.e., a beginner), I found it hard to follow at times and even harder to translate the lessons into actionable takeaways for my own life.
English isn’t my first language either, which doesn’t make things easier.
On a lighter note, when I ordered my copy, I noticed it was “made for me” with the date July 20, 2025—which, as a book nerd, I thought was pretty cool.
Content-wise, it’s a 5/5. Eliezer is still a brilliant teacher if you want to dig deep into rationality.
The reason it didn’t resonate as strongly is that it’s not really a “book” in the traditional sense—it’s a collection of blog posts. Yudkowsky himself has responded to this criticism with a simple “oops,” and honestly, that’s fair enough.
The book is packed with insights and plenty of eye-opening moments, but it’s also messy and somewhat disorganized. I often felt that topics overlapped, and as someone who’s still fairly new to this side of rationalist thinking (coming in as a “traditional rationalist” who thought I knew everything—i.e., a beginner), I found it hard to follow at times and even harder to translate the lessons into actionable takeaways for my own life.
English isn’t my first language either, which doesn’t make things easier.
On a lighter note, when I ordered my copy, I noticed it was “made for me” with the date July 20, 2025—which, as a book nerd, I thought was pretty cool.
August 19, 2025
One of the best books I've EVER read.
Because I am by nature, shall we say, episodically 'more human than most people' in having illogical and warped thoughts, cognitive biases, and just strange weird thoughts that come from nowhere and make zero sense retrospectively - I have been looking for help to analytically 'reason' about these thoughts and examine internally the probability that such a thing is true, when it randomly pops into my head.
This book has helped SO MUCH more than many attempts at Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which aims to do exactly the same thing, but fails for my particular brain. For whatever reason. But not through lack of trying.
It also gives me GREAT comfort in realising how irrational everyone else is by default anyway, so I'm not really all that 'different' or 'cursed' after all, providing I can use these tools to reason better.
So yes, if you want to learn how to reason and think properly, then this book is amazing. I'm currently buying everything else he's ever written and anything associated with Eliezer.
Because I am by nature, shall we say, episodically 'more human than most people' in having illogical and warped thoughts, cognitive biases, and just strange weird thoughts that come from nowhere and make zero sense retrospectively - I have been looking for help to analytically 'reason' about these thoughts and examine internally the probability that such a thing is true, when it randomly pops into my head.
This book has helped SO MUCH more than many attempts at Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which aims to do exactly the same thing, but fails for my particular brain. For whatever reason. But not through lack of trying.
It also gives me GREAT comfort in realising how irrational everyone else is by default anyway, so I'm not really all that 'different' or 'cursed' after all, providing I can use these tools to reason better.
So yes, if you want to learn how to reason and think properly, then this book is amazing. I'm currently buying everything else he's ever written and anything associated with Eliezer.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 8, 2026
4 stars = really liked it
The author thinks about the world and analyzes it in exactly the way that I aspire to, throwing in delightful scientific analogies to explain ordinary concepts, such as the strengthening of cult beliefs post-failed-prediction being akin to evaporative cooling, where those with the most doubts fly away from the group, leaving only those with unabashed conviction.
The litanies are great: "People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it"
Overall, it's given me a lot of food for thought and it's made me realize how much effort it takes to be a rational human being who's able to give up their beliefs in the face of compelling evidence. Like Map and Territory, it's built a healthier and more nuanced view for me of how to go about changing beliefs, and how to not let the ego get in the way of the truth, but to instead leave that aside in the unbiased search for the answer.
The author thinks about the world and analyzes it in exactly the way that I aspire to, throwing in delightful scientific analogies to explain ordinary concepts, such as the strengthening of cult beliefs post-failed-prediction being akin to evaporative cooling, where those with the most doubts fly away from the group, leaving only those with unabashed conviction.
The litanies are great: "People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it"
Overall, it's given me a lot of food for thought and it's made me realize how much effort it takes to be a rational human being who's able to give up their beliefs in the face of compelling evidence. Like Map and Territory, it's built a healthier and more nuanced view for me of how to go about changing beliefs, and how to not let the ego get in the way of the truth, but to instead leave that aside in the unbiased search for the answer.
January 12, 2020
'How to Actually Change Your Mind', the second in a series by Eliezer Yudkowsky, ambitiously seeks to deepen the reader's understanding of rationality and teach 'rationality as a martial art'.
It is successful, at least for me, in causing reflection upon one's perspective on institutions and human nature, on encouraging the reader to hold himself or herself accountable for irrational patterns of thinking, and teaching red flags to watch for in order to find gaps or errors in reasoning.
There is, however, a little effort required; Yudkowsky can be a little self-important sometimes, and gets a bit self-indulgent. Despite this, the book is highly recommended as a primer on clear thinking.
It is successful, at least for me, in causing reflection upon one's perspective on institutions and human nature, on encouraging the reader to hold himself or herself accountable for irrational patterns of thinking, and teaching red flags to watch for in order to find gaps or errors in reasoning.
There is, however, a little effort required; Yudkowsky can be a little self-important sometimes, and gets a bit self-indulgent. Despite this, the book is highly recommended as a primer on clear thinking.
March 25, 2019
This second instalment of Yudkowsky's Sequences is a lot more practical than the first. Where Map and Territory focussed on the fundamentals of cognitive biases, models, and beliefs, this collection presents heuristics for avoiding pitfalls, integrating evidence, and updating your beliefs like a good rationalist.
Whilst an incredibly valuable piece of work, it still loses a star for its inaccessibility to the uninitiated and being (at times) deliberately confusing. It's also really long.
Sections:
E. Overly-Convenient Excuses
F. Politics and Rationality
G. Against Rationalization
H. Against Doublethink
I. Seeing with Fresh Eyes
J. Death Spirals
K. Letting Go
Whilst an incredibly valuable piece of work, it still loses a star for its inaccessibility to the uninitiated and being (at times) deliberately confusing. It's also really long.
Sections:
E. Overly-Convenient Excuses
F. Politics and Rationality
G. Against Rationalization
H. Against Doublethink
I. Seeing with Fresh Eyes
J. Death Spirals
K. Letting Go
February 9, 2021
Brilliant, Pushes the envelope and thinks through where you actually stop thinking.
lines like "Rationality is not about winning debates, it is for deciding which side to join"
and conclusion like "distraction only impaired one’s ability to detect false statements but had no effect on one’s ability to detect true statements. "
are plain insightful-
Turbid, mind-bending but must read!
lines like "Rationality is not about winning debates, it is for deciding which side to join"
and conclusion like "distraction only impaired one’s ability to detect false statements but had no effect on one’s ability to detect true statements. "
are plain insightful-
Turbid, mind-bending but must read!
January 31, 2022
Great book. You need to read the first book to understand this one well. It had many great concepts that were ingrained into me. It had many ideas I never thought of, and many ideas which seemed wrong first but then made complete sense. The death spiral chapter had an article which was mostly a repetition, but everything else was amazing.
September 7, 2020
Even if the book is divided in sections, I find it lacks structure, reading each chapter rarely was a building idea but a bunch of ideas thrown together and going back to a previous idea occasionally.
March 22, 2025
Much like the first book in the series, “How to Actually Change Your Mind” explores different cognitive biases and rationalism-related topics.
If you didn’t enjoy the first book, you probably won't enjoy this one, and vice-versa. Not much more to say beyond that
If you didn’t enjoy the first book, you probably won't enjoy this one, and vice-versa. Not much more to say beyond that
March 23, 2026
Insightful, challenging, funny, and at many points humbling, this is a fun read. He takes risks, and takes us on the journey with him. His approach - and what could be our approach - to the act of thinking is valuable.
January 10, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed it. ~70 essays from a rationalist on forming beliefs and making decisions. In-depth discussion of bias and fallacy.
March 19, 2021
The book has interesting ideas but lacks a decent structure.
January 19, 2023
Me and all my homies are Bayesian rationalists
May 20, 2023
amazing - defo worth reading over and taking notes
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