I’ve been whining at him for a while, though my complaint isn’t so much that his advice is misguided, as that he keeps offering pronouncements about how the mind works and how to make it work better, but evidence that his model and methods are sound seems sorely lacking (here, at least).
he keeps offering pronouncements about how the mind works and how to make it work better
...much of which has come attached with things that are actually possible to investigate and test on your own, and a few people have actually posted comments describing their results, positive or negative. I’ve even pointed to bits of research that support various aspects of my models.
But if you’re allergic to self-experimentation, have a strong aversion to considering the possibility that your actions aren’t as rational as you’d like to think, or just don’t want to stop and pay attention to what goes on in your head, non-verbally… then you really won’t have anything useful to say about the validity or lack thereof of the model.
I think it’s very interesting that so far, nobody has opposed anything I’ve said on the grounds that they tested it, and it didn’t work.
What they’ve actually been saying is, they don’t think it’s right, or they don’t think it will work, or that NLP has been invalidated, or ANYTHING at all other than: I tried thus-and-such using so-and-so procedure, and it appears that my results falsify this-or-that portion of the model you are proposing.”
In a community of self-professed rationalists, I find that very interesting. Not as interesting, mind you, as I would an actual result falsifying a portion of my model, though.
Because that, I would actually LEARN something from. I could try and replicate the person’s result, offer other things to try, or maybe even update my model. It does happen, pretty regularly—and the updates are almost equally likely to come from:
more-or-less mainstream psych and popularizations thereof,
pop, new age, or NLP stuff,
self-experimentation, and
unexpected events in client work
A recent mainstream psych example would be Dweck’s fixed/growth mindsets model, which I’ve now converted to a more specific model for change work that I call “or”/”more” thinking.
That is, a belief that “either I do this OR I fail”—a digital control variable of avoidance—is less useful than one where “the MORE I do this the more/closer I get”: an analog variable under your control.
This is a much finer-grained distinction than my older notion that didn’t include discrete/continuous, but focused strictly on the approach/avoidance aspect of the variables. It’s also a more narrowly-focused understanding of the difference than Dweck’s work, which speaks more about the effects of these mindsets than the mechanism of them, or how to change that mechanism in practice.
So now that I have this distinction, I’ve gone back and reviewed other things I’ve read that tie into this idea in one way or another, giving it more depth. That is, I can look at other discussions of “naturally successful” behavior, hypnotic techniques or NLP submodality techniques that link an increase in one thing to an increase in another, and so on.
In particular, I’ve found various techniques by Richard Bandler that describe how certain successful athletes and entertainers he worked with transformed “or” variables into “more” variables (although he didn’t use those terms).
I’m now in the process of self-experimenting with some of those techniques, preparatory to selecting ones to add to my personal and training repertoire.
That, more or less is my method for model refinement: read about ideas, try ideas, figure out what works, update models, find relevant techniques, try techniques w/self, w/clients, get ideas about what other ideas might be worth investigating, rinse and repeat.
Is it “the scientific method”. Probably not. Is it closer to the scientific method than the “I read something or believe something that means that won’t work, but can’t be bothered to tell whether it’s the same thing” approach favored by some folks? Hell yeah.
Btw, that attitude is why every new self-help author or guru has to come up with new names for every damn thing: the old names get worn out by people who conclude they already “know” what that thing is, because their brother told them something about something like that once and it sounded kind of like something else they tried that didn’t work.
Yet century-old techniques work fine, if you actually know how to do them, and you actually DO them. But surprisingly few people ever actually try, let alone try with all their might, in the “shut up and do the impossible” sense.
I am unable to make enough sense of what you say to try it. It is not written in a language I can read.
And that’s not a criticism I have a problem with. Hell, if you actually tried something and it didn’t work, and you gave me enough information to be able to tell what you did and what result you got instead , that would be excellent criticism, in my book.
Helpful criticism is helpful, and always welcomed, at least by me.
I don’t understand. Why should I have a problem with Eliezer’s criticism, or any considered criticism or honest opinion? It is only ignorant criticism and anti-applause lights that I have a problem with.
Well, that’s ambiguity in interpretation of “having a problem with something”. I (mis)interpreted your statement to mean “this kind of criticism doesn’t bother me”, that is you are not going to change anything in yourself in response, which would be unhealthy, whereas you seem to have intended it to say “this kind of criticism doesn’t offend me”.
I’m allergic to self-experimentation. I find that I’m not a very good judge on my own reactions. Furthermore, self-experimentation is probably the worst way to go about setting up a true model of the world.
I’m relieved to read this Eliezer, because I thought it was just me who perceived pjeby’s advice as misguided.
I’ve been whining at him for a while, though my complaint isn’t so much that his advice is misguided, as that he keeps offering pronouncements about how the mind works and how to make it work better, but evidence that his model and methods are sound seems sorely lacking (here, at least).
...much of which has come attached with things that are actually possible to investigate and test on your own, and a few people have actually posted comments describing their results, positive or negative. I’ve even pointed to bits of research that support various aspects of my models.
But if you’re allergic to self-experimentation, have a strong aversion to considering the possibility that your actions aren’t as rational as you’d like to think, or just don’t want to stop and pay attention to what goes on in your head, non-verbally… then you really won’t have anything useful to say about the validity or lack thereof of the model.
I think it’s very interesting that so far, nobody has opposed anything I’ve said on the grounds that they tested it, and it didn’t work.
What they’ve actually been saying is, they don’t think it’s right, or they don’t think it will work, or that NLP has been invalidated, or ANYTHING at all other than: I tried thus-and-such using so-and-so procedure, and it appears that my results falsify this-or-that portion of the model you are proposing.”
In a community of self-professed rationalists, I find that very interesting. Not as interesting, mind you, as I would an actual result falsifying a portion of my model, though.
Because that, I would actually LEARN something from. I could try and replicate the person’s result, offer other things to try, or maybe even update my model. It does happen, pretty regularly—and the updates are almost equally likely to come from:
more-or-less mainstream psych and popularizations thereof,
pop, new age, or NLP stuff,
self-experimentation, and
unexpected events in client work
A recent mainstream psych example would be Dweck’s fixed/growth mindsets model, which I’ve now converted to a more specific model for change work that I call “or”/”more” thinking.
That is, a belief that “either I do this OR I fail”—a digital control variable of avoidance—is less useful than one where “the MORE I do this the more/closer I get”: an analog variable under your control.
This is a much finer-grained distinction than my older notion that didn’t include discrete/continuous, but focused strictly on the approach/avoidance aspect of the variables. It’s also a more narrowly-focused understanding of the difference than Dweck’s work, which speaks more about the effects of these mindsets than the mechanism of them, or how to change that mechanism in practice.
So now that I have this distinction, I’ve gone back and reviewed other things I’ve read that tie into this idea in one way or another, giving it more depth. That is, I can look at other discussions of “naturally successful” behavior, hypnotic techniques or NLP submodality techniques that link an increase in one thing to an increase in another, and so on.
In particular, I’ve found various techniques by Richard Bandler that describe how certain successful athletes and entertainers he worked with transformed “or” variables into “more” variables (although he didn’t use those terms).
I’m now in the process of self-experimenting with some of those techniques, preparatory to selecting ones to add to my personal and training repertoire.
That, more or less is my method for model refinement: read about ideas, try ideas, figure out what works, update models, find relevant techniques, try techniques w/self, w/clients, get ideas about what other ideas might be worth investigating, rinse and repeat.
Is it “the scientific method”. Probably not. Is it closer to the scientific method than the “I read something or believe something that means that won’t work, but can’t be bothered to tell whether it’s the same thing” approach favored by some folks? Hell yeah.
Btw, that attitude is why every new self-help author or guru has to come up with new names for every damn thing: the old names get worn out by people who conclude they already “know” what that thing is, because their brother told them something about something like that once and it sounded kind of like something else they tried that didn’t work.
Yet century-old techniques work fine, if you actually know how to do them, and you actually DO them. But surprisingly few people ever actually try, let alone try with all their might, in the “shut up and do the impossible” sense.
I am unable to make enough sense of what you say to try it. It is not written in a language I can read.
And that’s not a criticism I have a problem with. Hell, if you actually tried something and it didn’t work, and you gave me enough information to be able to tell what you did and what result you got instead , that would be excellent criticism, in my book.
Helpful criticism is helpful, and always welcomed, at least by me.
Why shouldn’t you?
I don’t understand. Why should I have a problem with Eliezer’s criticism, or any considered criticism or honest opinion? It is only ignorant criticism and anti-applause lights that I have a problem with.
Well, that’s ambiguity in interpretation of “having a problem with something”. I (mis)interpreted your statement to mean “this kind of criticism doesn’t bother me”, that is you are not going to change anything in yourself in response, which would be unhealthy, whereas you seem to have intended it to say “this kind of criticism doesn’t offend me”.
I’m allergic to self-experimentation. I find that I’m not a very good judge on my own reactions. Furthermore, self-experimentation is probably the worst way to go about setting up a true model of the world.
So basically are you saying Eliezer, gjm and others are falling for the fallacy fallacy ?