I think what quila is pointing at is their belief in the supposed fragility of thoughts at the edge of research questions.
Yes, thanks for noticing and making it explicit. It seems I was modelling Johannes as having a similar cognition type, since it would explain their behavior, which actually had a different cause.
I believe that if your research process / cognition algorithm is fragile enough that you’d be willing to take physical damage[1] to hold onto an inchoate thought, maybe consider making your cognition algorithm more robust.
My main response to ‘try to change your cognition algorithm if it is fragile’ is to remind that human minds tend to work differently on unexpected dimensions. (Of course, you know this abstractly, and have probably read the same post about the ‘typical mind fallacy’. But the suggestion seems like harmful advice to follow for some of the minds it’s directed at.) (Alternatively, since you wrote ‘maybe’, this comment can be seen as describing a kind of case where it would be harmful)
My highest value mental states are fragile: they are hard to re-enter at will once left, and they take some subconscious effort to preserve/cultivate. They can also feel totally immersing and overwhelming, when I manage to enter them. (I don’t feel confident in my ability to qualitatively write more, as much as I would like to (maybe not here or now)).
This is analogous to Johannes’ situation in a way. They believe the problem they have of working too hard is less bad to have than the standard problem of not feeling motive to work. The specific irrational behavior their problem caused also ‘stands out’ more to onlookers, since it’s not typical. (One wouldn’t expect the top comment here if one described succumbing to akrasia; but if akrasia was rare in humans, such that the distribution over most probable causes included some worrying possibilities, we might)
In the same way, I feel like my cognition-algorithm is in a local optima which is better than the standard one, where one lesser-problem I face is that my highest output mental states are ‘fragile’, and because this is not typical it may (when read of in isolation) seem like a sign of ‘a negative deviation from the normal local optima, which this person would be better off if they corrected’.
From my inside perspective, I don’t want to try to avoid fragile mental states, because I think it would only be a possible change as a more general directional change away from ‘how my cognition works (at its best)’ towards ‘how human cognition typically works’.
(And because the fragility-of-thought feels like a small problem, once I learned to work around it, e.g learning to preserve states and augmenting with external notes. At least when compared to the problem most have of not having a chance at generating insights of a high enough quality as our situation necessitates.)
… although, if you knew of a method to reduce fragility while not reducing other things, then I’d love to try it :)
On ‘willing to take physical damage …’, footnoted because it seems like a minor point—This seems like another case of avoiding the typical-mind-fallacy being important, since different minds have different pain tolerances / levels of experienced pain from a cut.
Yes, thanks for noticing and making it explicit. It seems I was modelling Johannes as having a similar cognition type, since it would explain their behavior, which actually had a different cause.
My main response to ‘try to change your cognition algorithm if it is fragile’ is to remind that human minds tend to work differently on unexpected dimensions. (Of course, you know this abstractly, and have probably read the same post about the ‘typical mind fallacy’. But the suggestion seems like harmful advice to follow for some of the minds it’s directed at.) (Alternatively, since you wrote ‘maybe’, this comment can be seen as describing a kind of case where it would be harmful)
My highest value mental states are fragile: they are hard to re-enter at will once left, and they take some subconscious effort to preserve/cultivate. They can also feel totally immersing and overwhelming, when I manage to enter them. (I don’t feel confident in my ability to qualitatively write more, as much as I would like to (maybe not here or now)).
This is analogous to Johannes’ situation in a way. They believe the problem they have of working too hard is less bad to have than the standard problem of not feeling motive to work. The specific irrational behavior their problem caused also ‘stands out’ more to onlookers, since it’s not typical. (One wouldn’t expect the top comment here if one described succumbing to akrasia; but if akrasia was rare in humans, such that the distribution over most probable causes included some worrying possibilities, we might)
In the same way, I feel like my cognition-algorithm is in a local optima which is better than the standard one, where one lesser-problem I face is that my highest output mental states are ‘fragile’, and because this is not typical it may (when read of in isolation) seem like a sign of ‘a negative deviation from the normal local optima, which this person would be better off if they corrected’.
From my inside perspective, I don’t want to try to avoid fragile mental states, because I think it would only be a possible change as a more general directional change away from ‘how my cognition works (at its best)’ towards ‘how human cognition typically works’.
(And because the fragility-of-thought feels like a small problem, once I learned to work around it, e.g learning to preserve states and augmenting with external notes. At least when compared to the problem most have of not having a chance at generating insights of a high enough quality as our situation necessitates.)
… although, if you knew of a method to reduce fragility while not reducing other things, then I’d love to try it :)
On ‘willing to take physical damage …’, footnoted because it seems like a minor point—This seems like another case of avoiding the typical-mind-fallacy being important, since different minds have different pain tolerances / levels of experienced pain from a cut.