I’m trying to combine different explanations (and the fact that obviously some people think this is a positive change) into a single picture. Right now I have this model/hypothesis:
I have many values/wishes/desires that affect the reward system in my brain. Suppose, for the sake of simplicity, I have two: I want one million dollars (money) and I want a dragon in my garage (dragon). Also, suppose this desires have the same strength: I’m indifferent between “money, but no dragon” and “dragon, but no money”.
The probability that I will have money in the future if I work towards this goal is much much higher than the probability that I will have a dragon if I work towards this goal. So, to guide me in the direction of the maximization of the fullfilment of my desires, my reward system should give me much higher negative reward for the lack of money, than for the lack of dragon. But by default my reward system is poorly calibrated, so the negative rewards in this two cases are much closer to each other than they should be. As a result, I work towards money less and towards dragon more, and my expected utility is lower.
Meditation practices fix this bug by recalibrating the reward system. Since as a result, the non-fulfillment of some desires ceases to have a non-negligible effect on the output of the reward system, it sometimes is described as “let go of [some] desires”. But it does not mean that I will not create a dragon in my garage in a Glorious Post-Singularity Transhumanist Future when I have the opportunity to do so.
Personally, my understanding is based on what might be a fundamentally different theory of mind. I believe there’s two major optimization algorithms at work.
Optimizer 1 is a real-time world model prediction error minimizer. Think predictive coding.
That’s my theory of mind. You describe two competing reward systems. But reward systems belong in the domain of Optimizer 2. The way I look at things, meditation (temporarily?) shuts down Optimizer 2, which allows Optimizer 1 to self-optimize unimpeded.
I don’t have a complete model of what exactly is going on either. My current guess is that there are something like two different layers of motivation in the brain. One calculates expected utilities in a relatively unbiased manner and meditation doesn’t really affect that one much, but then there’s another layer on top of that which notices particularly high-utility (positive or negative) scenarios and gives them disproportionate weight. That second one tends to mess things up and is the one that meditation seems to weaken.
It looks to me like weakening the second thing tends to make one’s decisions purely better, and more likely for the brain to just do the correct expected utility calculations. I acknowledge that this is very weird and implausible-sounding, because why would the brain develop a second layer of motivation that just messes things up?
My strong suspicion at the moment is that it has to do with social strategies. Calculating expected utilities wrong is normally just bad, but it can be beneficial if other agents are modeling you and making decisions based on their models of you. So if you end up believing that an actually impossible outcome is possible, you may not be able to ever achieve that outcome. But your opponents who see that you are impossible to reason with may still give in, letting you get at least somewhat closer to that outcome than as if you’d been reasonable.
I have some posts with more speculation about these things here and here.
I’m trying to combine different explanations (and the fact that obviously some people think this is a positive change) into a single picture. Right now I have this model/hypothesis:
I have many values/wishes/desires that affect the reward system in my brain. Suppose, for the sake of simplicity, I have two: I want one million dollars (money) and I want a dragon in my garage (dragon). Also, suppose this desires have the same strength: I’m indifferent between “money, but no dragon” and “dragon, but no money”.
The probability that I will have money in the future if I work towards this goal is much much higher than the probability that I will have a dragon if I work towards this goal. So, to guide me in the direction of the maximization of the fullfilment of my desires, my reward system should give me much higher negative reward for the lack of money, than for the lack of dragon. But by default my reward system is poorly calibrated, so the negative rewards in this two cases are much closer to each other than they should be. As a result, I work towards money less and towards dragon more, and my expected utility is lower.
Meditation practices fix this bug by recalibrating the reward system. Since as a result, the non-fulfillment of some desires ceases to have a non-negligible effect on the output of the reward system, it sometimes is described as “let go of [some] desires”. But it does not mean that I will not create a dragon in my garage in a Glorious Post-Singularity Transhumanist Future when I have the opportunity to do so.
Does this sound right?
Personally, my understanding is based on what might be a fundamentally different theory of mind. I believe there’s two major optimization algorithms at work.
Optimizer 1 is a real-time world model prediction error minimizer. Think predictive coding.
Optimizer 2 is is a operant reinforcement reward system. Optimizer 2 is parasitic on Optimizer 1. The conflict between Optimizer 1 and Optimizer 2 is a mathematical constraint inherent to embedded world optimizers.
That’s my theory of mind. You describe two competing reward systems. But reward systems belong in the domain of Optimizer 2. The way I look at things, meditation (temporarily?) shuts down Optimizer 2, which allows Optimizer 1 to self-optimize unimpeded.
I don’t have a complete model of what exactly is going on either. My current guess is that there are something like two different layers of motivation in the brain. One calculates expected utilities in a relatively unbiased manner and meditation doesn’t really affect that one much, but then there’s another layer on top of that which notices particularly high-utility (positive or negative) scenarios and gives them disproportionate weight. That second one tends to mess things up and is the one that meditation seems to weaken.
It looks to me like weakening the second thing tends to make one’s decisions purely better, and more likely for the brain to just do the correct expected utility calculations. I acknowledge that this is very weird and implausible-sounding, because why would the brain develop a second layer of motivation that just messes things up?
My strong suspicion at the moment is that it has to do with social strategies. Calculating expected utilities wrong is normally just bad, but it can be beneficial if other agents are modeling you and making decisions based on their models of you. So if you end up believing that an actually impossible outcome is possible, you may not be able to ever achieve that outcome. But your opponents who see that you are impossible to reason with may still give in, letting you get at least somewhat closer to that outcome than as if you’d been reasonable.
I have some posts with more speculation about these things here and here.