I don’t really see the point. On the first page of Discussion there currently “On Straw Vulcan Rationality” with is about the relation of rationality to emotions which has a lot to do with emotional intelligence.
There also “Applying reinforcement learning theory to reduce felt temporal distance”, “Beware Trivial Fears”, “How can I spend money to improve my life?” and “How to become a PC?”.
I think “On Straw Vulcan Rationality” illustrates the issue well. Here on Lesswrong there are people who actually think that Vulcans do things quite alright. In an environment where it’s not clear that one shouldn’t be a Vulcan it’s difficult to communicate about some aspects of emotional intelligence.
Recently asked for ways to find a career for himself but it it all in the third person instead of the first. My post suggesting that he should change to first person was voted down because it was to far out of LW culture.
If I’m around people who do a lot of coaching changing someone who speaks in third person about his own life to first person to increase his agentship is straightforward advice. It’s a basic.
I had experience where encouraging a person to make that change produced bodylanguage changes that are visible to me because the person is more associated with themselves. On the other hand I’m hardpressed if you ask me for peer reviewed research to back up my claim that it’s highly useful to use the first person when speaking about what one wants to do with his life.
Not being able to rely on basics makes it hard to talk when on Lesswrong we usually do talk about advanced stuff.
I see your comments are downvoted quite often. They sometimes contain some element of emotion or empathy. If it was possible to view down- and upvotes seperately you’d see that my post garnered quite some downvotes, meaning that there actually are quite a few people who either think that the topic is well covered by LW or it does not have a place on LW. I obviously disagree with both positions.
You say you don’t see the point of doing this here on LW, can you then point me to a site where they ‘start at the basics’? I refuse to give in to the meme “being a Vulcan is perfectly fine”.
You say you don’t see the point of doing this here on LW
No, in that case I wouldn’t write the comments that are downvoted. I do have a bunch of concepts in my mind that I can use to do stuff in daily life. But my understanding is not high enough at the moment to reach academic levels of scrutiny.
I do have a bunch of mental frameworks from different context that I use. My main framework at the moment is somato-psychosomatic. From that framework there nothing published in English. But even if you could read German or French and read the introductory book I doubt it would help you. The general experience is that people who don’t have in person experience with the method don’t get the book.
Books are usually limited in teaching emotional intelligence. I have heared that there are good self study books for cognitive behavior therapy but I don’t have personal experience with them.
Next I do recommend mediation. It builds awareness of your own state of mind.
I would recommend a teacher but if you just want to do it on your own I would recommend a meditation where you focus on something within your own body like your breath.
If you are a beginner I would recommend against meditating by focusing on an object that’s external to your body. As far as sitting position goes, sitting still in a chair does it’s job. For beginners I would recommend against laying down.
Taking different positions does have effects but if you think that meditation is about sitting in lotus position, you focus on the wrong thing.
Emotions are something that happens in your own body. People usually feel emotions as something that moves within their own body.
But you also need some cognitive categorization to have an emotions. Fear and anticipation are pretty similar on a physical level but have other attached meaning. The meaning makes us enjoy anticipation and not enjoy fear.
Both the meaning as well as the physical level are points of intervention where one create change.
If I personally have an emotion I don’t want to have I strip it of meaning and resolve it on the physical level. I think I do that through using qualia that I learned to be aware of while doing meditation.
When talking in person it’s possible to see body language changes to verify whether someone switching to being aware of his emotion. It’s on the other hand nearly impossible through this medium to get an idea of what qualia other people on lesswrong have at a particular moment in time.
I don’t really see the point. On the first page of Discussion there currently “On Straw Vulcan Rationality” with is about the relation of rationality to emotions which has a lot to do with emotional intelligence.
There also “Applying reinforcement learning theory to reduce felt temporal distance”, “Beware Trivial Fears”, “How can I spend money to improve my life?” and “How to become a PC?”.
I think “On Straw Vulcan Rationality” illustrates the issue well. Here on Lesswrong there are people who actually think that Vulcans do things quite alright. In an environment where it’s not clear that one shouldn’t be a Vulcan it’s difficult to communicate about some aspects of emotional intelligence.
Recently asked for ways to find a career for himself but it it all in the third person instead of the first. My post suggesting that he should change to first person was voted down because it was to far out of LW culture. If I’m around people who do a lot of coaching changing someone who speaks in third person about his own life to first person to increase his agentship is straightforward advice. It’s a basic.
I had experience where encouraging a person to make that change produced bodylanguage changes that are visible to me because the person is more associated with themselves. On the other hand I’m hardpressed if you ask me for peer reviewed research to back up my claim that it’s highly useful to use the first person when speaking about what one wants to do with his life.
Not being able to rely on basics makes it hard to talk when on Lesswrong we usually do talk about advanced stuff.
I see your comments are downvoted quite often. They sometimes contain some element of emotion or empathy. If it was possible to view down- and upvotes seperately you’d see that my post garnered quite some downvotes, meaning that there actually are quite a few people who either think that the topic is well covered by LW or it does not have a place on LW. I obviously disagree with both positions.
You say you don’t see the point of doing this here on LW, can you then point me to a site where they ‘start at the basics’? I refuse to give in to the meme “being a Vulcan is perfectly fine”.
No, in that case I wouldn’t write the comments that are downvoted. I do have a bunch of concepts in my mind that I can use to do stuff in daily life. But my understanding is not high enough at the moment to reach academic levels of scrutiny.
I do have a bunch of mental frameworks from different context that I use. My main framework at the moment is somato-psychosomatic. From that framework there nothing published in English. But even if you could read German or French and read the introductory book I doubt it would help you. The general experience is that people who don’t have in person experience with the method don’t get the book.
Books are usually limited in teaching emotional intelligence. I have heared that there are good self study books for cognitive behavior therapy but I don’t have personal experience with them.
Nonviolent Communication is a fairly widely known framework. I can recommend http://www.wikihow.com/Practice-Nonviolent-Communication as an article that looks to me straightforward to understand.
To understand what other people are saying Schulz von Thun provides a model that’s quite popular in German (we learned it even in school): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-sides_model
Next I do recommend mediation. It builds awareness of your own state of mind. I would recommend a teacher but if you just want to do it on your own I would recommend a meditation where you focus on something within your own body like your breath. If you are a beginner I would recommend against meditating by focusing on an object that’s external to your body. As far as sitting position goes, sitting still in a chair does it’s job. For beginners I would recommend against laying down.
Taking different positions does have effects but if you think that meditation is about sitting in lotus position, you focus on the wrong thing.
Emotions are something that happens in your own body. People usually feel emotions as something that moves within their own body.
But you also need some cognitive categorization to have an emotions. Fear and anticipation are pretty similar on a physical level but have other attached meaning. The meaning makes us enjoy anticipation and not enjoy fear. Both the meaning as well as the physical level are points of intervention where one create change.
If I personally have an emotion I don’t want to have I strip it of meaning and resolve it on the physical level. I think I do that through using qualia that I learned to be aware of while doing meditation. When talking in person it’s possible to see body language changes to verify whether someone switching to being aware of his emotion. It’s on the other hand nearly impossible through this medium to get an idea of what qualia other people on lesswrong have at a particular moment in time.