Useful Data

But is the information useful, monkey? Is it?!
(source)

In a recent attempt to "cheat" with science while creating a March Madness bracket, I rediscovered the online data-geek candy store FiveThirtyEighty.com, brain child of renowned statistician Nate Silver.  In another incredible display of sexy stats, Silver and Company have assembled a robust statistical model of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, adding evidence to the thesis that the geeks shall inherit the earth.

While the information on FiveThiryEight is beautifully presented and likely as accurate as one will get, I began to wonder: is this useful? More broadly, what makes information useful?

I don't want to get too hung up on what "useful" means, but for my purposes I'd like to define useful as enabling better performance: greater accuracy, greater speed, or higher success rates in some activity.  What feature of data would make it useful?

Here's my opinion: for information to be useful, it must be actionable.  In other words, for information to enable better performance or higher success rates it must inform what actions should, or should not be performed to improve accuracy.

A great example of this type of information for me has been heart rate data during exercise.  When I run according to my heart rate training plan, I know that I'm working too hard on my easy day when my heart rate goes above some threshold.  This is actionable information.  My heart rate is too high so I change my behavior and slow down.

For the FiveThirtyEighty March Madness predictions, the information is sort of actionable.  The FiveThirtyEight bracket is structured as probabilities of a team winning at each stage of the tournament.  This information is useful if I'm betting on a game (i.e. which team is likely to win) but isn't useful if I'm trying to make a bracket (i.e. which teams are most likely to be in each slot of the bracket).

The lesson here is that the structure of the information should match the decision to be made.  In the example of my hear rate data, my current heart rate is only useful in the context of a threshold.  I must know how my current data point relates to some useful scale.  Only then can I take action to bring my individual measure back into range.

However, generating actionable data is incredibly complicated because it requires a solid understanding of the mechanisms that explain a phenomenon.  In the case of heart rate training, heart rate is a well-established proxy for intensity and systematically modulating intensity is important to balance improvements in fitness against risk for injury.   Creating actionable data is also complicated by the need to understand how it will be used (i.e. betting on a game vs. making a bracket).  For these reasons, generating data without a solid theory to back up action is no better than rock collecting.

A related piece on FiveThirtyEight highlights an interview with White House Chief Data Scientist, Dr. D.J. Patel.   A topic of discussion that caught my attention was that of "Data Products" which Dr. Patel explains as "How do you use data to do something really beneficial?"  The true obstacle to creating powerful data products (the dream of Big Data) isn't access to data or data processing tools as these are now as ubiquitous  as the internet and the personal computer, respectively.  Instead, the obstacle to data products, or "useful data" as I'm calling it, is creating a solid theory about the mechanism driving a phenomenon.  Without this understanding, data remains noise.

For these reasons, while I am as enamored by sexy data as much as the next dork, I am reminded about the need for good scientific theories that allow us to interpret and structure sexy data in a way that makes it useful.  That is the real challenge for data scientists in the age of big data.

Intelligence in the information age

I know kung fu.

"I know kung fu." And with that, the download is complete: a martial art has been converted to tacit knowledge with little more than a USB cord connected to the cerebellum. Although a fanciful concept portrayed in the movie The Matrix and one that, as depicted, is far from reality, the information age is certainly changing the landscape of knowledge and expertise.  While an instant download to the brain isn't possible, anyone with a smart phone or cheap laptop has instant access to all of humanity's knowledge.

What are the implications of this access for our concepts of intelligence and education? For one, the goal of education can no longer be viewed as acquiring information.  Information is free and easily obtained.  Instead, from my humble perspective, the speed at which one can process this information is one critical skill needed.  A second is an ability to distill larger patterns from the information available.

The Matrix offers additional useful analogies here.  The protagonist, Neo, quickly learns that his enemies have access to all the same knowledge as he does: everyone knows kung fu.  It's only when Neo transcends this knowledge and begins to manipulate the matrix itself that he is able to conquer his enemies.  In other words, he goes meta.  Instead of mastering specific knowledge, Neo identifies that nature of knowledge itself and can manipulate it as he needs.

The same may be said of us in the information age.  Everyone knows kung fu because we all have access to all the same information.  In this situation the ability to process that information at a higher level becomes essential.  Meta-knowledge skills will separate the effective from the ineffective.  Examples of these skills include finding, filtering, creating, and communicating knowledge.  When everyone has access to the same facts, effectiveness will be measured at this higher level of abstraction.

The Matrix has another sobering lesson to offer us in this time of the information age.  Even after Neo masters the matrix, transcending it, the Matrix isn't the real world.  The Matrix is a construct that clouds the mind of humanity, preventing access to reality.  The same could be said for the internet and information technology.  At the end of the day, knowledge workers and information technology must create real world value.  People must eat and sleep, be sheltered and clothed.  Information can do none of those things but can enable them if applied well.  Like Neo, none of us can be considered effective (and by extension, intelligent) if we are unable to apply the information available to us to problems in the real world.  In this way, applying information to reality is the ultimate transcendent skill and, simultaneously, the hardest to master.

My gut tells me to trust my gut

My gut says: trust your gut!

Is there an optimal strategy for making a big decision?  Should we trust our intuition (our "gut") or should we engage in some methodical, step-wise approach?  You know, writing out the pros and cons.

I care right now because I'm trying to make a big decision: what do I want to do with my life?  Yikes.  So, yeah, I'm interested in learning a bit about how to tackle this.

I stumbled upon research suggesting conscious thought is better in some contexts while intuitive decision-making is better in others.  For example, check out this tidbit on decision-making.  In that example, the conclusion was that experts performed best when they relied on unconscious thinking.  Also, it sounds like expertise became less useful to expert decision-makers when they engaged in a conscious decision making process.

Hmm.  So what does that mean for me?  Here's what my gut tells me to do... When making this very complex decision I will engage in four steps:

1. Collect shit-loads of information - In essence, my goal is to actually become an expert on the topic that relates to the decision.  What are all the variables?  Pros, cons? List 'em out and learn them all.  Gather as much information as possible about the decision and feed it to my brain like some giant super-computer (which is sort of is).  But don't decide immediately.

2. Sleep on it - Next, I let all that information percolate through my nervous system.  It will create new connections and recognize patterns.  I will not be consciously aware of most of this.  Also, getting more sleep will speed the process along and help with fidelity.

3. Repeat as long as possible - Every decision has a timeline.  I will repeat the info-gathering and sleeping steps for as long as possible.  How long can I reasonably delay making the decision?  That may be a decision too, so fold that into the larger decision-making process and keep repeating for as long as is reasonable.

4. Trust my gut - Finally, once I've spent as much time as possible considering all the variables, I will trust my gut.  At the end of that time, my super-computer-like brain will print out a small slip of paper (essentially a fortune cookie) and I will do what it says.

Why does this make sense?  Here's my philosophy: the "conscious" part of our brain is a very tiny part of our brain.  Also, it's evolutionarily new and isn't very good at multitasking.  However, our brain has a lot of processing power that goes on behind the scenes and which contributes to all our decisions and actions.  We ignore all that parallel processing at great risk.

Also, big decisions are very complicated and require an understanding of a lot of moving parts.  While our conscious mind is a shitty multitasker, our brain at-large is great at multitasking (think driving and talking on the phone).  Why not exploit that?

So, that's the plan.  Hopefully it's a good decision...

Flexibility of focus: what and how much?

Multitasking?

Attention deficit: another modern malady of excess.  Too much food, and we became larger.  A surfeit of sitting, and we grew softer.  Now, with the information revolution, we wrestle with an excess of ideas, and we grow distracted.

Recently, science has begun to unearth the pitfalls of poor focus.  In one study, researchers at Stanford examined the cognitive consequences of multitasking and found that the chronically distracted lost the ability to control attention.  Cognitive performance suffered as a result.  Gross.

But regulating our attention is more interesting, and complicated, than focusing on one task at a time.  Yes, we must choose where to place our attention. However, we must also decide how much to focus.

A recent article in the Journal of Neuroscience, emphasizes the importance of intensity of attention as it relates to cognitive performance.  In this fascinating study, the authors rely on recordings from a group of neurons in the monkey brain that correlate with attention: the more neurons firing in this brain region, the more focused the monkey.  Intriguingly, the authors found that as the focus of the monkeys increased, so did performance on a visual discrimination task... To a point.  Surprisingly, when the monkeys were most focused, they often performed poorly when the task demanded recognition of large changes.  In these cases, focused monkeys were very good at detecting minute changes, yet large visual changes resulted in more errors for dialed-in monkeys.  Did the monkeys miss the forest for the trees?

Physical Feedback

If you've been channeling an ostrich as your spirit animal, it's time for an upgrade.  How are we going to be more awesome if we just stick our head in the sand and pretend we're perfect?  I've got a newsflash for you Walter Cronkite, you won't.   That's why we've dedicated this whole week at The Happy Homunculus to getting ourselves some feedback.  However, while previous Daily Mind Games focused on verbal communication, today we're going all non-verbal on this feedback thing.  Say wha?

Tell Me About Myself

I just realized that seeking feedback is a very selfish thing.  As I've discussed before, the act of talking can be thought of as an act of charity: you are giving away your hard-earned experience for use by others.  In contrast, the act of listening is an exercise in selfishness: you are more likely to gain new information and expertise.  After simple listening, asking questions is even more selfish!  By asking questions, you can steer a conversation in a direction that is interesting or useful to you.  Today, we're going to take selfishness to a whole new level.

Question and Question

This week at The Happy Homunculus, it's all about feedback for us and our homunculi, and if we're ever going to get and use quality feedback to be awesome, then we need to work on a few mental-ninja-skillz.  Yesterday, we practiced not speaking and used our aural acumen as a first step to learning something new.  Today, we're going to take things a step further and prompt for more information: forget Q&A, today is all about Q&Q.

Introducing Homunky!

Homunky!

Hi there Homunculus-owners - hopefully you've noticed by now, but I've hobbled together a new look for the site: new fonts, new colors, and, oh yes, a new mascot!  At the top of your screen, you can meet Homunky, The Happy Homunculus Monkey.  This little fella was designed by my favorite graphic designer of all time (I'm not revealing my sources), and represents what my homunculus aspires to be: a coy, confident, super-monkey!  Isn't he cute?  I feel like he belongs on a backpack from IKEA or something :)

At this point, you're probably starting to wonder: "what's the deal with all the monkey references?"  It's true.  I'm always posting goofy pictures of monkeys in my posts and, now, an official monkey mascot.  What gives?  The truth is, the monkey has a very special meaning for a blog about human thinking.  Specifically, as members of the great tree of life, we share common ancestors with our monkey-brethren.  Don't get me wrong, we're a lot cooler and smarter than monkeys, but we have a whole lot of "monkeyness" driving our behavior.  I guess you could say we're Monkey 2.0.  Or, maybe a better metaphor is Monkey 7 vs. Monkey Vista?  Hmmm, or maybe we're iMonkey?  Whatever.  Bottom line: when my homunculus is misbehaving, I can't help but think of my monkey ancestors trying to influence my behavior.

What about you?  What is your homunculus-animal?  Don't you love Homunky?

Thanks for the Support!

I couldn't do it without you.

Dear readers!  Thanks to you early adopters for following The Happy Homunculus during its earliest days.  I hope you continue to enjoy the posts.  Please, let me know what you think in the comments of the Daily Mind Games.  I would really appreciate feedback on what types of posts are the most valuable.

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New to The Happy Homunculus?

You must be new here.

Welcome to the Happy Homunculus!  You might be wondering what the heck is going on here?  Fair question: we're talking about some funky stuff after all.

Simply, our mission is to improve our thinking via metacognition (thinking about our thinking) - essentially, we want to understand what science can tell us about the most effective thinking strategies and apply those principles to our own thinking.  The goal?  Better performance and improved mood.

To that end, we've been conducting a little experiment in applied metacognition: each day we are attempting a different Daily Mind Game that is designed to improve some aspect of our thinking.  In addition, we've been grouping these challenges into week-long themes in order to maintain some focus and make some lasting changes in how we think.

So far, we've completed a Week of Focus and a Week of Empathy.  Currently, we've been trying to improve our own motivation to change during this Week of Motivation.  So far, we've tried the following challenges:

Day 1: Benefits of Change
Day 2: No to the Status Quo
Day 3: Characteristics for Change
Day 4: Expertise for Change
Day 5: Intention to Change

We have one more challenge to go for the week (then one day off).  Hopefully, you'll follow along as I put my own homunculus through his paces.  Also, please comment on the articles.  My homunculus would love some feedback about how these challenges work for you!