I am not sure about that. In any case some ‘hack’ is required. Merely knowing the right thing to do is not sufficient.
More broadly, the LW community has not really come to terms with the deep emotionality of the human brain. Yes we pay lip service to cognitive biases etc, but the assumption is more or less that if we gain rationality knowledge and skills we will be more rational.
This assumes our rational brain is in charge. In reality we are a fairly intelligent cognitive brain (average IQ on LW high 130s), with various well known limitations, tightly coupled to an emotional 4 year old. And that four year old can make us not see or notice what it doesn’t want us to know. It can make us forget things when it wants. It can control what we pay attention to and what we ignore. It can direct us to come up with elegant rationalisations for whatever it wants us to do.
Take something as simple as weight loss. The solution for most people [not everyone] is actually very simple—each fewer calories of nutrient rich food and exercise moderately. Track your weight and adjust the amount of food and exercise accordingly. Many really smart people struggle to execute this.
So you try to lose weight and what happens? You suddenly realize that you “forgot” your diet and ate a whole lot of food. Or you “realize” that when you try to lose weight you cannot concentrate. Also how irritable I get. Etc. My weight loss breakthrough occurred when I realized that a lot of the “problems” that happened when on weight loss diets were manufactured ie manipulation by my unconscious so it would get its food. As far as it knew, I was in a famine and I needed urgently to get some food, as much as possible actually. I needed to come to an accommodation with my unconscious and get it on board.
My commitment to it is a) I will stop dieting when I get to a healthy weight b) I will eat a nutrient rich diet c) I will reward myself for losing weight in various ways such as taking nootropics that I cannot take when very overweight due blood pressure side effects etc. So I think we are in it together now.
I think we as LWers need to take on board the whole issue of our tightly coupled unconscious and deal with it in a systematic way. The top post and above posts here are a start. I hope there will be a lot more to come.
It is interesting reading this whole thread how many of the gimmicks and tricks that we are talking about have a very long history. I wonder how much apparent irrationality is actually one of these gimmicks. They are irrational when looked at on their own, but in the context of the makeup of our brains they may make perfect sense.
I am not sure about that. In any case some ‘hack’ is required. Merely knowing the right thing to do is not sufficient.
More broadly, the LW community has not really come to terms with the deep emotionality of the human brain. Yes we pay lip service to cognitive biases etc, but the assumption is more or less that if we gain rationality knowledge and skills we will be more rational.
This assumes our rational brain is in charge. In reality we are a fairly intelligent cognitive brain (average IQ on LW high 130s), with various well known limitations, tightly coupled to an emotional 4 year old. And that four year old can make us not see or notice what it doesn’t want us to know. It can make us forget things when it wants. It can control what we pay attention to and what we ignore. It can direct us to come up with elegant rationalisations for whatever it wants us to do.
Take something as simple as weight loss. The solution for most people [not everyone] is actually very simple—each fewer calories of nutrient rich food and exercise moderately. Track your weight and adjust the amount of food and exercise accordingly. Many really smart people struggle to execute this.
So you try to lose weight and what happens? You suddenly realize that you “forgot” your diet and ate a whole lot of food. Or you “realize” that when you try to lose weight you cannot concentrate. Also how irritable I get. Etc. My weight loss breakthrough occurred when I realized that a lot of the “problems” that happened when on weight loss diets were manufactured ie manipulation by my unconscious so it would get its food. As far as it knew, I was in a famine and I needed urgently to get some food, as much as possible actually. I needed to come to an accommodation with my unconscious and get it on board.
My commitment to it is a) I will stop dieting when I get to a healthy weight b) I will eat a nutrient rich diet c) I will reward myself for losing weight in various ways such as taking nootropics that I cannot take when very overweight due blood pressure side effects etc. So I think we are in it together now.
I think we as LWers need to take on board the whole issue of our tightly coupled unconscious and deal with it in a systematic way. The top post and above posts here are a start. I hope there will be a lot more to come.
It is interesting reading this whole thread how many of the gimmicks and tricks that we are talking about have a very long history. I wonder how much apparent irrationality is actually one of these gimmicks. They are irrational when looked at on their own, but in the context of the makeup of our brains they may make perfect sense.