The last person that I remember writing something along the lines of You don’t have to experience negative emotion,on LessWrong didn’t turn out well. Be careful if you hack around to deeply without knowing what you are doing. Emotions have their role in providing meaning.
That said, depression is not necessary and I do encourage everybody to do what’s necessary to overcome.
The last person that I remember writing something along the lines of You don’t have to experience negative emotion, on LessWrong didn’t turn out well.
I’m not sure what this means.
Either you’re saying that the LW community disapproved of this person. In this case, see the frontpage guidelines: try to present arguments for your own view instead of stating opinions of others.
Or you’re saying that this person hacked around with they’re own emotions until they lost meaning. In this case, I am very curious about what they did!
Here’s Kaj Sotala talking about how he lost motivation after getting rid of many of his negative emotions
Note however that I’m pretty sure that the long-term impact will be increased motivation rather than reduced (am gradually getting more done and having more motivation again). Also, I wouldn’t really say that what I did was getting rid of negative emotions, just getting rid of one dysfunctional source of them.
I think what’s interesting in what happened to you after doing the self-concept work is that the source of negative emotions was also a strong motivational factor for you in finding meaning—This is something that I think ChristianKI was in a roundabout way trying point at.
I also think that what’s interesting about what you’ve done since then is that you’ve been able to build up positive alternatives for the negative motivational strategy. I’ve had similar experiences when doing my own mindhacks. I think a frequent pattern is something like a “trough of no motivation” when removing a large strategy that resulted in negative emotions internally, in which all of the things that strategy was regulating go out of wack for a bit (frequently motivation) until you work to find new strategies that don’t result in negative emotions.
To me, this gives credence to ChristianKI’s view that you should be careful with brain hacks that are removing negative emotions or sources of them, as this trough could be potentially disastrous. However, it also gives credence to Natalia’s view that coming up with strategies that have few or no negative emotions could actually be quite powerful, providing that you avoid potentially disastrous consequences of exposing yourself to the trough over and over (or making the trough quite sticky by removing multiple strategies/negative emotions in quick succession).
+1 eliminating certain negative emotions seems to temporarily get rid of any motivation structures that were using those negative emotions as a building block. Things I really value seem to rebuild themselves on better foundations.
From what I know about what you shared about your journey I also wouldn’t put yourself in the category of people who hack directly manipulatively on the emotion-layer.
I addition Focusing, Core, Transform Yourself, Internal Family System and Double Crux are all already system that were developed by people who know what they are doing and that went through a lot of practical testing.
If you work on your identity you don’t get into the problem that you changed your emotions and don’t really know who you are anymore.
I remember reading SquirrelInHell’s posts earlier and I’m really sorry to hear that. Is there any more public information regarding the circumstances of the suicide? Couldn’t find anything with google.
As mr-hire said, I’m referring to SquirrelInHell who committed suicide.
I hosted them as a couchsurfer for a few days, so I have a model that goes beyond what’s in the linked post of mr-hire.
I don’t know the exact details but there was a sense of I should speak with SquirrelInHell, to help them to sort through things that I had when I read that post and I unfortunately didn’t.
I wish I would have given a clear answer back then in private. I wish I could give a public one now, but in the absence of that, I prefer to have spoken up instead of stayed silent. In case anybody encounters related problem where they need somebody to talk them through, I’m happy to Skype.
Even if true, is meaning actually valuable? I would far rather be happy than meaningful, and a universe of truth, beauty, love and joy seems much more worthwhile than a universe of meaning.
Caveat-I feel much the same disconnect in hearing about meaning that Galton’s non-imagers appeared to feel about mental imaging, so there’s a pretty good chance I simply don’t have the mental circuitry needed to appreciate or care about meaning. You might be genuinely pursuing something very important to you in seeking meaning. On the other hand, even if that’s true, it’s worth noting that there are some people who don’t need it.
I’m fairly certain that in the vast majority of the time, negative emotions are ego-dystonic.
They’re not something actively sought out out of a desire for meaning, they’re something essentially inflicted upon the sufferer by parts of their mind that they can’t control.
I think acceptance of negative emotion is often driven from being in that position, a position of helplessness, often driven out of a desire to maintain a good self-image, and avoid entering the negativity loop — and not from a position of having control over whether it happens or not, and seeking it because it brings meaning.
I’m fairly certain that in the vast majority of the time, negative emotions are ego-dystonic.
Working with modalities like Coherence therapy, internal double crux, and Internal Family Systems, I’ve developed the almost reverse hypothesis.
In most cases, it seems like “negative” patterns and emotions come from a subconscious plan—If I experience these negative emotions in these ways, I can (eventually) get my needs meet.
Coherence therapy calls this the “pro-symptom position”.
Examples of pro-symptom positions might include:
“If I stop being miserable, then I won’t be able to relate to my mother, and she won’t love me. So I choose to continue to be miserable.”
““If I go on without Dad and decide to get somewhere on my own, then I’m responsible for my own life. That feels really scary, so I’m holding back.”
“If I stop feeling anxiety around other people, then I might not be as careful about what I say, and then they might hurt me. So I choose to continue to feel anxiety.”
The last person that I remember writing something along the lines of You don’t have to experience negative emotion, on LessWrong didn’t turn out well. Be careful if you hack around to deeply without knowing what you are doing. Emotions have their role in providing meaning.
That said, depression is not necessary and I do encourage everybody to do what’s necessary to overcome.
I’m not sure what this means.
Either you’re saying that the LW community disapproved of this person. In this case, see the frontpage guidelines: try to present arguments for your own view instead of stating opinions of others.
Or you’re saying that this person hacked around with they’re own emotions until they lost meaning. In this case, I am very curious about what they did!
(Or you’re saying something completely different.)
There’s a few documented cases in the community of a lose of negative emotion leading to a general malaise and lack of motivation (Here’s Kaj Sotala talking about how he lost motivation after getting rid of many of his negative emotions https://kajsotala.fi/2018/12/18-month-follow-up-on-my-self-concept-work/).
Here’s an example of the reverse case, in which someone claimed to have a method to remove negative emotions and feel bliss, but was not motivated to use it: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3Hkpttb6WsJwr5WdF/happiness-is-a-chore#comments
I suspect Christian may have been talking about the second example, as the author in the second post committed suicide.
Note however that I’m pretty sure that the long-term impact will be increased motivation rather than reduced (am gradually getting more done and having more motivation again). Also, I wouldn’t really say that what I did was getting rid of negative emotions, just getting rid of one dysfunctional source of them.
I think what’s interesting in what happened to you after doing the self-concept work is that the source of negative emotions was also a strong motivational factor for you in finding meaning—This is something that I think ChristianKI was in a roundabout way trying point at.
I also think that what’s interesting about what you’ve done since then is that you’ve been able to build up positive alternatives for the negative motivational strategy. I’ve had similar experiences when doing my own mindhacks. I think a frequent pattern is something like a “trough of no motivation” when removing a large strategy that resulted in negative emotions internally, in which all of the things that strategy was regulating go out of wack for a bit (frequently motivation) until you work to find new strategies that don’t result in negative emotions.
To me, this gives credence to ChristianKI’s view that you should be careful with brain hacks that are removing negative emotions or sources of them, as this trough could be potentially disastrous. However, it also gives credence to Natalia’s view that coming up with strategies that have few or no negative emotions could actually be quite powerful, providing that you avoid potentially disastrous consequences of exposing yourself to the trough over and over (or making the trough quite sticky by removing multiple strategies/negative emotions in quick succession).
+1 eliminating certain negative emotions seems to temporarily get rid of any motivation structures that were using those negative emotions as a building block. Things I really value seem to rebuild themselves on better foundations.
From what I know about what you shared about your journey I also wouldn’t put yourself in the category of people who hack directly manipulatively on the emotion-layer.
I addition Focusing, Core, Transform Yourself, Internal Family System and Double Crux are all already system that were developed by people who know what they are doing and that went through a lot of practical testing.
If you work on your identity you don’t get into the problem that you changed your emotions and don’t really know who you are anymore.
I remember reading SquirrelInHell’s posts earlier and I’m really sorry to hear that. Is there any more public information regarding the circumstances of the suicide? Couldn’t find anything with google.
As far as I know there’s no public information. There’s some nonpublic information ; )
As mr-hire said, I’m referring to SquirrelInHell who committed suicide.
I hosted them as a couchsurfer for a few days, so I have a model that goes beyond what’s in the linked post of mr-hire.
I don’t know the exact details but there was a sense of I should speak with SquirrelInHell, to help them to sort through things that I had when I read that post and I unfortunately didn’t.
I wish I would have given a clear answer back then in private. I wish I could give a public one now, but in the absence of that, I prefer to have spoken up instead of stayed silent. In case anybody encounters related problem where they need somebody to talk them through, I’m happy to Skype.
“Emotions have their role in providing meaning.”
Even if true, is meaning actually valuable? I would far rather be happy than meaningful, and a universe of truth, beauty, love and joy seems much more worthwhile than a universe of meaning.
Caveat-I feel much the same disconnect in hearing about meaning that Galton’s non-imagers appeared to feel about mental imaging, so there’s a pretty good chance I simply don’t have the mental circuitry needed to appreciate or care about meaning. You might be genuinely pursuing something very important to you in seeking meaning. On the other hand, even if that’s true, it’s worth noting that there are some people who don’t need it.
I’m fairly certain that in the vast majority of the time, negative emotions are ego-dystonic.
They’re not something actively sought out out of a desire for meaning, they’re something essentially inflicted upon the sufferer by parts of their mind that they can’t control.
I think acceptance of negative emotion is often driven from being in that position, a position of helplessness, often driven out of a desire to maintain a good self-image, and avoid entering the negativity loop — and not from a position of having control over whether it happens or not, and seeking it because it brings meaning.
Working with modalities like Coherence therapy, internal double crux, and Internal Family Systems, I’ve developed the almost reverse hypothesis.
In most cases, it seems like “negative” patterns and emotions come from a subconscious plan—If I experience these negative emotions in these ways, I can (eventually) get my needs meet.
Coherence therapy calls this the “pro-symptom position”.
Examples of pro-symptom positions might include:
“If I stop being miserable, then I won’t be able to relate to my mother, and she won’t love me. So I choose to continue to be miserable.”
““If I go on without Dad and decide to get somewhere on my own, then I’m responsible for my own life. That feels really scary, so I’m holding back.”
“If I stop feeling anxiety around other people, then I might not be as careful about what I say, and then they might hurt me. So I choose to continue to feel anxiety.”