Comment by Quasar on Take the Rationality Test to determine your rational thinking style · 2016-12-13T19:23:53.392Z · LW · GW

Interesting test but i think the questions "How many other causes of death aside from this one did you consider before you arrived at this conclusion?" and "How many weeks would you budget to write this paper?" can be answered in different rational ways.

1) I already know that smoke inhalation is the primary cause of fire deaths. For someone who doesn't know that, it can be rational to consider several options. But in my case it is enough to recall the aforementioned statitical fact and thus consider only one option to tell which cause of Bill's death will most likely turn out to be. (So i consider just one cause but according to the test i should consider many causes).

2) The average time of writing each of 3 previous papers is 3 weeks and minimum time is 2 weeks. The fourth paper is about the book i like, it is implied that now i have more thorough knowledge about the book than in previous cases which consequently means that i can devote less time to reading/research/thinking than i usually do. And since the minimum time previously was 2 weeks and in that case the paper was about less familiar book, i assume that writing the fourth paper (about more familiar book) will most likely take no more than 2 weeks. (So i would budget 2 weeks but according to the test i should budget 3 weeks).

What do you think, am i missing something?