What I don’t even—what would it look like if there were more and less efficient ways to waste time?
I am reminded of this Anscombe quote:
“The general method that Wittgenstein does suggest is that of ‘shewing that a man has supplied no meaning [“no reference”?] for certain signs in his sentences’. I can illustrate the method from Wittgenstein’s later way of discussing problems. He once greeted me with the question: ’Why do people say that it was natural to think that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth turned on its axis? I replied: ‘I suppose, because it looked as if the sun went round the earth.’ ‘Well,’ he asked, ‘what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth turned on its axis?‘ This question brought it out that I had hitherto given no relevant meaning to ‘it looks as if’ in ‘it looks as if the sun goes round the earth’.
My reply was to hold out my hands with the palms upward, and raise them from my knees in a circular sweep, at the same time leaning backwards and assuming a dizzy expression. ‘Exactly!’ he said.”
Haha, good quotation. I take ‘efficiently wasting time’ to mean ‘decreasing the ratio of perceived time to actual time’. Cryopreserving oneself is probably the best method. Doing some drug that messed with your perspective of time in the right way would be an efficient waste of time, but far less so than just entering a coma. If one does not have the necessary drugs or willpower to attain them then I would suggest doing fun things that require little sustained effort like an endless string of pirated computer role playing games punctuated by sleep, hot pockets, a multivitamin, and water. Actually I wouldn’t recommend any of those, but for the sake of this thought experiment they seem to be decent suggestions.
What I don’t even—what would it look like if there were more and less efficient ways to waste time?
I am reminded of this Anscombe quote:
Haha, good quotation. I take ‘efficiently wasting time’ to mean ‘decreasing the ratio of perceived time to actual time’. Cryopreserving oneself is probably the best method. Doing some drug that messed with your perspective of time in the right way would be an efficient waste of time, but far less so than just entering a coma. If one does not have the necessary drugs or willpower to attain them then I would suggest doing fun things that require little sustained effort like an endless string of pirated computer role playing games punctuated by sleep, hot pockets, a multivitamin, and water. Actually I wouldn’t recommend any of those, but for the sake of this thought experiment they seem to be decent suggestions.