A pithy way to express this is along the lines of a sense that more is possible: we have a sense that more is out there. For example, I was researching an entirely unrelated post which began with a reference to the Litany of Gendlin, and from that learned who Eugene Gendlin was, found and read his book on therapy, which seems like it might be as useful for dealing with akrasia as it is for other problems. There was this whole well of value there- and far as I can tell the most LW drew out of that well was a paragraph that made for a nice poem.
Right now, LW is very philosophical, and seems like it’s for AGI researchers by AGI researchers. I think that’s a very good foundation to build off of, but it doesn’t feel complete to me. I would very much like to see more types of people involved in rationality- decision analysts, psychologists, atheist activists, scientists in general, etc.- as active participants in the conversations here. It would be awesome for us if Jonathan Baron started posting here, for example, but he’s not going to unless LW pays for the time it takes. It worried me that a number of the experts XiXiDu interviewed visited the site after the interview piqued their interest, and were turned off by commenters’ responses to their answers.
I’m advocating growth, but do care about making it sustainable and positive growth. If LW is more things to more people, then it’s not as optimized for the narrow group that it’s optimized for now, and careful thought needs to be put into how, when, and why to grow. As to why, it seems obvious that there’s a lot out there right now that LW readers would want to see but aren’t seeing because no one is showing it to them.
(I’ve got more to say, but it’ll have to wait until after I get back from a meeting.)
For example, I was researching an entirely unrelated post which began with a reference to the Litany of Gendlin, and from that learned who Eugene Gendlin was, found and read his book on therapy, which seems like it might be as useful for dealing with akrasia as it is for other problems.
It is. As it turns out, the thing I thought I invented called RMI is basically the same as Gendlin’s Focusing; I’d just never heard of it and came up with a version of my own. Nowadays, I recommend that book to my new students if they have trouble learning the method from my materials. (Like Gendlin, I’ve noticed that some people seem to just already know how to do it, or pick it up almost immediately; the rest need varying amounts of practice and training to do it successfully.)
In and of itself, I do not consider “focusing” (boy is that the wrong name for the process) to be a panacea or even much of a cure for anything, let alone everything. It’d be like saying that a screwdriver is a cure for your television set not working. All it really does is let you open up the access panel and have a look in… or in Gendlin’s case, provide an opportunity for the therapist to have a look in and offer some suggestions of what to tweak in there. If you’re going to do more with it than poke around randomly, it helps to have some schematics and assembly diagrams of what you’re working on.
(Btw, the reason I say “focusing” is the wrong name for the process, is because what most people would think of as a mental act of “focusing” would lead them to do almost the exact opposite of what is required to succeed at it. I wish he’d called it, I don’t know… searching? grasping? contemplating? I suppose those wouldn’t have sold a book as well, but then, it’s not a book for people who need to focus, either, so, go figure!)
Definitely- I would have gone for something like “listening” or “discovering.” (I think when I explain it to people, I’ll start off with the rider-elephant model of the conscious-unconscious brain, and then call it listening to your elephant.)
Definitely- I would have gone for something like “listening” or “discovering.” (I think when I explain it to people, I’ll start off with the rider-elephant model of the conscious-unconscious brain, and then call it listening to your elephant.)
Yep. He might’ve had an even bigger bestseller with a name like “Listening To Your Inner Self” or “The Wisdom Within” or some such.
Going somewhat back to the topic at hand, one of the best things about LW over the years has been finding out about stuff like this, prospect theory, and a whole bunch of other topics in research that I otherwise wouldn’t have heard of and incorporated into my work. I’d still be spending a lot of time trying to come up with exercises to teach what Gendlin already has in his book, for example.
I’m haven’t read Gendlin but got my interaction with emotions from other sources.
When trying to explain it to someone I think it can be useful to teach by example.
“Where in your body do you feel the emotion? Put your hand on that spot.”
The hand is a good feedback to know that the person understood what you want from them.
It also helps them to be more aware of the emotion.
From there it depends on what I want to do. If the goal is simply about knowledge it can be useful to let the person describe what they are feeling.
I don’t know whether having a word to describe the process helps for implementation in a way where it becomes your default way of dealing with emotions.
It just occurred to me in the other thread that he may have meant it more in the photographic sense of focusing a lens on an image until it becomes clear rather than in the conventional sense of concentrating.
Thanks for writing this post! This is something that I’ve noticed and have been trying to actively fight. (DA sequence, Thinking and Deciding review.)
A pithy way to express this is along the lines of a sense that more is possible: we have a sense that more is out there. For example, I was researching an entirely unrelated post which began with a reference to the Litany of Gendlin, and from that learned who Eugene Gendlin was, found and read his book on therapy, which seems like it might be as useful for dealing with akrasia as it is for other problems. There was this whole well of value there- and far as I can tell the most LW drew out of that well was a paragraph that made for a nice poem.
Right now, LW is very philosophical, and seems like it’s for AGI researchers by AGI researchers. I think that’s a very good foundation to build off of, but it doesn’t feel complete to me. I would very much like to see more types of people involved in rationality- decision analysts, psychologists, atheist activists, scientists in general, etc.- as active participants in the conversations here. It would be awesome for us if Jonathan Baron started posting here, for example, but he’s not going to unless LW pays for the time it takes. It worried me that a number of the experts XiXiDu interviewed visited the site after the interview piqued their interest, and were turned off by commenters’ responses to their answers.
I’m advocating growth, but do care about making it sustainable and positive growth. If LW is more things to more people, then it’s not as optimized for the narrow group that it’s optimized for now, and careful thought needs to be put into how, when, and why to grow. As to why, it seems obvious that there’s a lot out there right now that LW readers would want to see but aren’t seeing because no one is showing it to them.
(I’ve got more to say, but it’ll have to wait until after I get back from a meeting.)
It is. As it turns out, the thing I thought I invented called RMI is basically the same as Gendlin’s Focusing; I’d just never heard of it and came up with a version of my own. Nowadays, I recommend that book to my new students if they have trouble learning the method from my materials. (Like Gendlin, I’ve noticed that some people seem to just already know how to do it, or pick it up almost immediately; the rest need varying amounts of practice and training to do it successfully.)
In and of itself, I do not consider “focusing” (boy is that the wrong name for the process) to be a panacea or even much of a cure for anything, let alone everything. It’d be like saying that a screwdriver is a cure for your television set not working. All it really does is let you open up the access panel and have a look in… or in Gendlin’s case, provide an opportunity for the therapist to have a look in and offer some suggestions of what to tweak in there. If you’re going to do more with it than poke around randomly, it helps to have some schematics and assembly diagrams of what you’re working on.
(Btw, the reason I say “focusing” is the wrong name for the process, is because what most people would think of as a mental act of “focusing” would lead them to do almost the exact opposite of what is required to succeed at it. I wish he’d called it, I don’t know… searching? grasping? contemplating? I suppose those wouldn’t have sold a book as well, but then, it’s not a book for people who need to focus, either, so, go figure!)
Definitely- I would have gone for something like “listening” or “discovering.” (I think when I explain it to people, I’ll start off with the rider-elephant model of the conscious-unconscious brain, and then call it listening to your elephant.)
Yep. He might’ve had an even bigger bestseller with a name like “Listening To Your Inner Self” or “The Wisdom Within” or some such.
Going somewhat back to the topic at hand, one of the best things about LW over the years has been finding out about stuff like this, prospect theory, and a whole bunch of other topics in research that I otherwise wouldn’t have heard of and incorporated into my work. I’d still be spending a lot of time trying to come up with exercises to teach what Gendlin already has in his book, for example.
Listening seems to be a bad word when you want someone to focus on something kinesthetic.
“Gendling”.
Is there a word you like better than “listening” and “focusing”? Maybe “attuning”?
I’m fond of “attending”.
I’m haven’t read Gendlin but got my interaction with emotions from other sources.
When trying to explain it to someone I think it can be useful to teach by example. “Where in your body do you feel the emotion? Put your hand on that spot.”
The hand is a good feedback to know that the person understood what you want from them. It also helps them to be more aware of the emotion.
From there it depends on what I want to do. If the goal is simply about knowledge it can be useful to let the person describe what they are feeling.
I don’t know whether having a word to describe the process helps for implementation in a way where it becomes your default way of dealing with emotions.
“Monitoring”? (I’m not actually familiar with the subject.)
It just occurred to me in the other thread that he may have meant it more in the photographic sense of focusing a lens on an image until it becomes clear rather than in the conventional sense of concentrating.