One central rationalist insight is that thoughts are for guiding actions. Think of your thinking as the connecting tissue sandwiched between the sense data that enters your sense organs and the behaviors your body returns. Your brain is a function from a long sequence of observations (all the sensory inputs you’ve ever received, in the order you received them) to your next motor output.
Understood this way, the point of having a brain and having thoughts is to guide your actions. If your thoughts aren’t all ultimately helping you better steer the universe (by your own lights) … they’re wastes. Thoughts aren’t meant to be causally-closed-off eddies that whirl around in the brain without ever decisively leaving it as actions. They’re meant to transform observations into behaviors! This is the whole point of thinking! Notice when your thoughts are just stewing, without going anywhere, without developing into thoughts that’ll go somewhere … and let go of those useless thoughts. Your thoughts should cut.
One central rationalist insight is that thoughts are for guiding actions. Think of your thinking as the connecting tissue sandwiched between the sense data that enters your sense organs and the behaviors your body returns. Your brain is a function from a long sequence of observations (all the sensory inputs you’ve ever received, in the order you received them) to your next motor output.
Understood this way, the point of having a brain and having thoughts is to guide your actions. If your thoughts aren’t all ultimately helping you better steer the universe (by your own lights) … they’re wastes. Thoughts aren’t meant to be causally-closed-off eddies that whirl around in the brain without ever decisively leaving it as actions. They’re meant to transform observations into behaviors! This is the whole point of thinking! Notice when your thoughts are just stewing, without going anywhere, without developing into thoughts that’ll go somewhere … and let go of those useless thoughts. Your thoughts should cut.