Include a visualization and kinesthetic somewhere in the package. Like, you see what the action should look like, you see yourself doing it, and you also feel what that will be like.
Focusing on the first part of the motion actually seems fine to me, that sounds like what I do automatically.
Play around with getting a sense of what intentions feel like outside of the context of this exercise. For example, if you routinely get up to get a drink of I water, or habitually check your email, or something like that, pay attention to the inner experience of how that intention arises in your mind, how your mind appears to briefly examine the impulse before accepting it, and how your body executes it. Make it easy on yourself by picking something neutral like refilling your water, and not something you’re conflicted about like checking social media.
I think having a more precise inner sense of what naturally arising intentions feel like will help you craft valid ones.
I also wonder if you’re not expecting slightly too much. Here’s how I would describe the inner experience of it: If you do it right, tour body isn’t hijacked, you just gradually lose the feeling of resistance to the task and feel a growing positive compulsion to do the task. This (apparently) grows until you find that doing the task feels like the obvious thing to do. Does any part of that start to happen for you?
I can very easily imagine choosing the wrong task (e.g. stick your hand into a pot of boiling water) where the inhibitory impulse Is much stronger than any amount of micro-intending can overcome. But it doesn’t sound like that’s your problem.
My mind gets distracted, or I ‘hold onto’ the resistance so that it doesn’t go away. And I endorse the resistance more than the intent to get out of bed or w/e, which feels arbitrary or ‘from outside’.
I usually don’t do things that don’t come from my elephant directly or isn’t checked and greenlit by the elephant. (But then I get confused why it works for Qiaochu who seems similar to me.)
I might keep trying and seeing if I find a version that works.
I think how much you don’t want it to work probably matters. Again, not only will your mind inhibit you from sticking your hand in boiling water, but your mind will be right to do it. You have to pick something that you feel mild but not extraordinary resistance to doing.
Thanks for trying it and reporting back. I’m really curious to hear if you get it to work.
Well, I haven’t tried it on something I don’t elephant-endorse yet.
I think I previously had a strong sense of there being a part of me that actively didn’t want me to do various things, but in the striatum-receiving-bids model of action selection it makes more sense to think of not-doing-anything as the default thing that happens in the absence of sufficiently strong bids, and all I’m doing is amplifying whatever bids are present, which feels less bad to me than crashing through my resistance.
Was not able to get it to work.
Tried for push-ups. Then for standing up. Then for closing my laptop.
I think I’m confused how to do it. What am I supposed to do with my mind exactly?
What I’m trying:
a) I recall what it feels like to ‘intend’ to close the laptop
b) I pick the most salient bit of that (the motion of my hand swiping downward while feeling the edge of the laptop with my fingers)
c) I repeat this salient bit between breaths or maybe a bit more frequently than that
Am I supposed to, instead, be choosing the very initial bit, where I /start/ to move my hand, and then repeat that?
That didn’t quite work either, and my head is starting to hurt. Appreciate debugging here.
Some other ideas:
Include a visualization and kinesthetic somewhere in the package. Like, you see what the action should look like, you see yourself doing it, and you also feel what that will be like.
Focusing on the first part of the motion actually seems fine to me, that sounds like what I do automatically.
Play around with getting a sense of what intentions feel like outside of the context of this exercise. For example, if you routinely get up to get a drink of I water, or habitually check your email, or something like that, pay attention to the inner experience of how that intention arises in your mind, how your mind appears to briefly examine the impulse before accepting it, and how your body executes it. Make it easy on yourself by picking something neutral like refilling your water, and not something you’re conflicted about like checking social media.
I think having a more precise inner sense of what naturally arising intentions feel like will help you craft valid ones.
I also wonder if you’re not expecting slightly too much. Here’s how I would describe the inner experience of it: If you do it right, tour body isn’t hijacked, you just gradually lose the feeling of resistance to the task and feel a growing positive compulsion to do the task. This (apparently) grows until you find that doing the task feels like the obvious thing to do. Does any part of that start to happen for you?
I can very easily imagine choosing the wrong task (e.g. stick your hand into a pot of boiling water) where the inhibitory impulse Is much stronger than any amount of micro-intending can overcome. But it doesn’t sound like that’s your problem.
Well, maybe the problem is:
It doesn’t work because I don’t want it to work. This matches my understanding of predictive processing theory.
My mind gets distracted, or I ‘hold onto’ the resistance so that it doesn’t go away. And I endorse the resistance more than the intent to get out of bed or w/e, which feels arbitrary or ‘from outside’.
I usually don’t do things that don’t come from my elephant directly or isn’t checked and greenlit by the elephant. (But then I get confused why it works for Qiaochu who seems similar to me.)
I might keep trying and seeing if I find a version that works.
I think how much you don’t want it to work probably matters. Again, not only will your mind inhibit you from sticking your hand in boiling water, but your mind will be right to do it. You have to pick something that you feel mild but not extraordinary resistance to doing.
Thanks for trying it and reporting back. I’m really curious to hear if you get it to work.
Well, I haven’t tried it on something I don’t elephant-endorse yet.
I think I previously had a strong sense of there being a part of me that actively didn’t want me to do various things, but in the striatum-receiving-bids model of action selection it makes more sense to think of not-doing-anything as the default thing that happens in the absence of sufficiently strong bids, and all I’m doing is amplifying whatever bids are present, which feels less bad to me than crashing through my resistance.
Hmmmmmm. Yeahhh, let me try it on something I actually want to do.
Suspicious. I immediately sat up, and there was no notable resistance.
If it only works on things I want to do, then this technique is asymmetric, not symmetric for me. Which I guess is a good thing.
I can’t tell if it’s symmetric for the rest of ya’ll.