Lots of interesting stuff in this essay, glad to have read it.
I rely on views less. Therefore I “crash” less. I make fewer mistakes. I sin less.
This sounds to me like you are less fragile or mistaken in your conceptualization of the world, but at the same time I think that it is necessary to have a considered and reliable perspective on the world in order to be an ethical person. Someone who is floating around and whose views change like the wind cannot be pinned down to any beliefs or principles, and cannot pin themselves to the mast of certain principles in the face of great turbulence and storms. Having robust principles and values is required to enter challenging domains and not get captured by stronger egregores or adversaries.
(I don’t expect we disagree on this point, but I am failing to otherwise make sense of what you are writing about here.)
If we are just changing at the drop of a hat, not for truth, but for convenience or any old reason, like most people are, …
or even under very strenuous dire circumstances, like we’re about to die or in excruciating pain or something...
then that is a compromised mind. You’re working with a compromised, undisciplined mind that will change its answers as soon as externals change.
Views change. Even our “robust” principles can go out the window under extreme circumstances. (So what’s going on with those people who stay principled under extreme circumstances? This is worth looking into.)
Of course views are usually what we have, so we should use them to the best extent we are able. Make good views. Make better views. Use truth-tracking views. Use ethical views. Great.
AND there is this spiritual path out of views altogether, and this is even more reliable than solely relying on views or principles or commandments.
I will try out a metaphor. Perhaps you’ve read The Inner Game of Tennis.
In tennis, at first, you need to practice the right move deliberately over and over again, and it feels awkward. It goes against your default movements. This is “using more ethical views” over default habits. Using principles.
But somehow, as you fall into the moves, you realize: This is actually more natural than what I was doing before. The body naturally wants to move this way. I was crooked. I was bent. I was tense and tight. I was weak or clumsy. Now that the body is healthier, more aligned, stronger… these movements are obviously more natural, correct, and right. And that was true all along. I was lacking the right training and conditioning. I was lacking good posture.
It wasn’t just that I acquired different habits and got used to them. The new patterns are less effortful to maintain, better for for me, and they’re somehow clearly more correct. I had to unlearn, and now I somehow “know” less. I’m holding “less” patterning in favor of what doesn’t need anything “held onto.”
This is also true for the mind.
We first have to learn the good habits, and they go against our default patterning and conditioning. We use rules, norms, principles. We train ourselves to do the right thing more often and avoid the wrong thing. This is important.
Through training the mind, we realize the mind naturally wishes to do good, be caring, be courageous, be steadfast, be reliable. The body is not naturally inclined to sit around eating potato chips. We can find this out just by actually feeling what it does to the body. And so neither is the mind naturally inclined to think hateful thoughts, lie to itself and others, or be fed mentally addictive substances (e.g. certain kinds of information).
To be clear:
“More natural” does not mean more in line with our biology or evo-psych. It does not mean lazier or more complacent. It does not mean less energetic, and in some way it doesn’t even mean less “effort”. But it does mean less holding on, less tension, less agitation, less drowsiness, less stuckness, less hinderance.
“More natural” is even more natural than biology. And that’s the thing that’s probably going to trip up materialists. Because there’s a big assumption that biology is more or less what’s at the bottom of this human-stack.
Well it isn’t.
There isn’t a “the bottom.”
It’s like a banana tree.
When you peel everything away, what is actually left?
Well it turns out if you were able to PEEL SOMETHING AWAY, it wasn’t the Truth of You. So discard it. And you keep going.
I am reading this as “I rely on explicit theory much less when guiding my actions than I used to”. I think this is also true of me, much of my decision-making on highly important or high-stakes decisions (but also ~most decisions) is very intuitive and fast and I often don’t reflect on it very much. I have lately been surprised to notice how little cognition I will spend on substantial life decision, or scary decisions, simply trusting myself to get it right.
I know other people (who I like and respect) who rely on explicit reasoning when deciding whether to take a snack break, whether to go to a party, whether to accept a job, etc, and I think the stronger version of themselves would end up trusting their system 1 processes on such things.
But I think anyone who is not regularly doing ton of system 2 reflection on decisions that they are confused about or arguing about principles involved in their and others’ decisions will fail to act well or be principled. I do not think there is a way around it, of avoiding this hard work.
I think I would hazard a guess that the person who must rely on explicit theory for guiding behavior is more likely to be able to grow into a wholesome and principled person than the intuitive and kind person who doesn’t see much worth in developing and arguing about explicit principles. Caring about principles seems much rarer and non-natural to me.
I will respond to this more fully at a later point. But a quick correction I wish to make:
What I’m referring to is not about System 1 or System 2 so much. It’s not that I rely more on System 1 to do things. System 1 and System 2 are both unreliable systems, each with major pitfalls.
I’m more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any “process” whatsoever.
I keep trying to point at this, and people don’t really get it until they directly see it. That’s fine. But I wish people would at least mentally try to understand what I’m saying, and so far I’m often being misinterpreted. Too much mental grasping at straws.
The wisdom I refer to is able to skillfully use either System 1 or System 2 as appropriate. It’s not a meta-process. It’s not metacognition. It’s not intelligence. It’s also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesn’t get better with more intelligence or more intuition.
It’s fine to not understand what I’m referring to. But can anyone repeat back what I’m saying without adding or subtracting anything?
Broadly when gaining new skills we go from doing what feels natural, to doing things differently within rigid structures, to getting good at them, to releasing the structures and then just doing what comes naturally. And often afterwards it is both more effective and also comes more naturally than it did before.
Some people seem trapped in the middle step on certain things. They always practice music with a metronome ticking in order to keep the beat, they never trust themselves to just feel it. They always leave the party without drinking, never trusting themselves to behave well and have fun with it. They always need an explicit theory guiding their overall trajectory in life (e.g. career decisions involving spreadsheets), they can never make a major life decision because it feels good in their gut. They always have to discuss purchases over $1,000 with their spouse and sleep on it, they never feel comfortable just going with something that feels right in the moment.
Such people have successfully found useful structures, but are also trapped in them, never venturing forward into the world themselves, always bound by the formalities. This limits their personhood and humanity from coming through, it bounds them to only be as good as the structures they’ve adopted.
Insofar as you name a structure or set of rules for living life, you are always bound by them and will never let your humanity outshine them.
How close is this to what you’re saying, from 1 to 10?
First paragraph: 3⁄10. The claim is that something was already more natural to begin with, but you need deliberate practice to unlock the thing that was already more natural. It’s not that it ‘comes more naturally’ after you practice something. What ‘felt’ natural before was actually very unnatural and hindered, but we don’t realize this until after practicing.
2nd, 3rd, 4th paragraph: 2⁄10. This mostly doesn’t seem relevant to what I’m trying to offer.
...
It’s interesting trying to watch various people try to repeat what I’m saying or respond to what I’m saying and just totally missing the target each time.
It suggests an active blind spot or a refusal to try to look straight at the main claim I’m making. I have been saying it over and over again, so I don’t think it’s on my end. Although the thing I am trying to point at is notoriously hard to point at, so there’s that.
...
Anyway the cruxy part is here, and so to pass my ITT you’d have to include this:
“It’s not a meta-process. It’s not metacognition. It’s not intelligence. It’s also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesn’t get better with more intelligence or more intuition. ”
“I’m more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any “process” whatsoever. ”
“The “one weird trick” to getting the right answers is to discard all stuck, fixed points. Discard all priors and posteriors. Discard all aliefs and beliefs. Discard worldview after worldview. Discard perspective. Discard unity. Discard separation. Discard conceptuality. Discard map, discard territory. Discard past, present, and future. Discard a sense of you. Discard a sense of world. Discard dichotomy and trichotomy. Discard vague senses of wishy-washy flip floppiness. Discard something vs nothing. Discard one vs all. Discard symbols, discard signs, discard waves, discard particles.
All of these things are Ignorance. Discard Ignorance.”
I think you are actually emphasizing this section.
It wasn’t just that I acquired different habits and got used to them. The new patterns are less effortful to maintain, better for for me, and they’re somehow clearly more correct. I had to unlearn, and now I somehow “know” less. I’m holding “less” patterning in favor of what doesn’t need anything “held onto.”
...
Through training the mind, we realize the mind naturally wishes to do good, be caring, be courageous, be steadfast, be reliable. The body is not naturally inclined to sit around eating potato chips. We can find this out just by actually feeling what it does to the body. And so neither is the mind naturally inclined to think hateful thoughts, lie to itself and others, or be fed mentally addictive substances (e.g. certain kinds of information).
It sounds like you believe, as I become more aligned with who I want to be and with goodness, this will not feel strained or effortful, but in fact I will experience less friction than I used to feel, less discomfort or unease. This is not a learned way of being but rather a process of backing out of bad and unhealthy practices.
I don’t know that it’s easy for me to describe how this feels in more phenomenological detail. I’d have to find some examples. Most of my experiences of becoming a better person have been around finding good principles that I believe in, and feeling good relying on them and seeing that they indeed do improve the world and help me avoid unethical action/behavior. It has simplified my life tremendously (mostly).
So I believe you mean that, when you find the right way of acting, it feels more natural and less friction-y than the way you were previously behaving. The primary thing I don’t understand is that I can’t tell what claim you are making about what exactly one is approaching. You keep saying all the things it isn’t without saying what it is. I am not sure if you mean “You are born well and then have lots of bad habits and unhealthy practices added to you” or if you are saying “You were not necessarily ever in the right state of mind, but approach it through careful practice, and then it will feel better/natural-er/etc”. Also you keep saying that it’s not “state of mind” or anything other noun I might use to describe it, which isn’t helpful for saying what it is.
My current guess is that you don’t think it’s any particular state, but that being a spiritually whole person is more about everything (both in the mind and in the mind’s relationship to the environment) working together well. But not sure.
Regarding
But I wish people would at least mentally try to understand what I’m saying, and so far I’m often being misinterpreted. Too much mental grasping at straws.
and
It’s interesting trying to watch various people try to repeat what I’m saying or respond to what I’m saying and just totally missing the target each time.
It suggests an active blind spot or a refusal to try to look straight at the main claim I’m making. I have been saying it over and over again, so I don’t think it’s on my end. Although the thing I am trying to point at is notoriously hard to point at, so there’s that.
I think talking about phenomenology is hard and subtle and the fact you have failed to have people hear you as you use metaphor and poetry doesn’t mean you should talk down to me as though you are a wise teacher and I am a particularly dense student.
I am saying things in a direct and more or less literal manner. Or at least I’m trying to.
I did use a metaphor. I am not using “poetry”? When I say “Discard Ignorance” I mean that as literally as possible. I think it’s somewhat incorrect to call what I’m saying phenomenology. That makes it sound purely subjective.
Am I talking down to you? I did not read it that way. Sorry it comes across that way. I am attempting to be very direct and blunt because I think that’s more respectful, and it’s how I talk.
I propose we wrap this particular thread up for now (with another reply from you as you wish).
I will say that for this bit
Because there’s a big assumption that biology is more or less what’s at the bottom of this human-stack.
Well it isn’t.
There isn’t a “the bottom.”
It’s like a banana tree.
When you peel everything away, what is actually left?
Well it turns out if you were able to PEEL SOMETHING AWAY, it wasn’t the Truth of You. So discard it. And you keep going.
And that’s the path.
Being asked “So what’s the answer? What’s the path?” feels more like answering a riddle than being asked “The capital city of England is London. Please repeat back to me the capital city of England?”.
Direct speech is clear and unambiguous. Direct speech is like “Please can you close the door?” and indirect speech is like “Oh I guess it’s chilly in here” or “Perhaps we should get people’s temperature preferences”, which may be a sincere attempt to communicate that you want the door closed but isn’t direct. What you wrote was not especially unambiguous or non-metaphorical. I think it’s a sincere attempt at communication but it’s not direct. Being asked to just answer “can anyone repeat back what I’m saying without adding or subtracting anything?” seems hard when you wrote in a rather metaphorical and roundabout way.
Some people try to implement a decision-making strategy that’s like, “I should focus mostly on System 1” or “I should focus mostly on System 2.” But this isn’t really the point. The goal is to develop an ability to judge which scenarios call for which types of mental activities, and to be able to combine System 1 and System 2 together fluidly as needed.
Lots of interesting stuff in this essay, glad to have read it.
This sounds to me like you are less fragile or mistaken in your conceptualization of the world, but at the same time I think that it is necessary to have a considered and reliable perspective on the world in order to be an ethical person. Someone who is floating around and whose views change like the wind cannot be pinned down to any beliefs or principles, and cannot pin themselves to the mast of certain principles in the face of great turbulence and storms. Having robust principles and values is required to enter challenging domains and not get captured by stronger egregores or adversaries.
(I don’t expect we disagree on this point, but I am failing to otherwise make sense of what you are writing about here.)
Yes we agree. 👍🌻
I think I mention this in the essay too.
Views change. Even our “robust” principles can go out the window under extreme circumstances. (So what’s going on with those people who stay principled under extreme circumstances? This is worth looking into.)
Of course views are usually what we have, so we should use them to the best extent we are able. Make good views. Make better views. Use truth-tracking views. Use ethical views. Great.
AND there is this spiritual path out of views altogether, and this is even more reliable than solely relying on views or principles or commandments.
I will try out a metaphor. Perhaps you’ve read The Inner Game of Tennis.
In tennis, at first, you need to practice the right move deliberately over and over again, and it feels awkward. It goes against your default movements. This is “using more ethical views” over default habits. Using principles.
But somehow, as you fall into the moves, you realize: This is actually more natural than what I was doing before. The body naturally wants to move this way. I was crooked. I was bent. I was tense and tight. I was weak or clumsy. Now that the body is healthier, more aligned, stronger… these movements are obviously more natural, correct, and right. And that was true all along. I was lacking the right training and conditioning. I was lacking good posture.
It wasn’t just that I acquired different habits and got used to them. The new patterns are less effortful to maintain, better for for me, and they’re somehow clearly more correct. I had to unlearn, and now I somehow “know” less. I’m holding “less” patterning in favor of what doesn’t need anything “held onto.”
This is also true for the mind.
We first have to learn the good habits, and they go against our default patterning and conditioning. We use rules, norms, principles. We train ourselves to do the right thing more often and avoid the wrong thing. This is important.
Through training the mind, we realize the mind naturally wishes to do good, be caring, be courageous, be steadfast, be reliable. The body is not naturally inclined to sit around eating potato chips. We can find this out just by actually feeling what it does to the body. And so neither is the mind naturally inclined to think hateful thoughts, lie to itself and others, or be fed mentally addictive substances (e.g. certain kinds of information).
To be clear:
“More natural” does not mean more in line with our biology or evo-psych. It does not mean lazier or more complacent. It does not mean less energetic, and in some way it doesn’t even mean less “effort”. But it does mean less holding on, less tension, less agitation, less drowsiness, less stuckness, less hinderance.
“More natural” is even more natural than biology. And that’s the thing that’s probably going to trip up materialists. Because there’s a big assumption that biology is more or less what’s at the bottom of this human-stack.
Well it isn’t.
There isn’t a “the bottom.”
It’s like a banana tree.
When you peel everything away, what is actually left?
Well it turns out if you were able to PEEL SOMETHING AWAY, it wasn’t the Truth of You. So discard it. And you keep going.
And that’s the path.
I am reading this as “I rely on explicit theory much less when guiding my actions than I used to”. I think this is also true of me, much of my decision-making on highly important or high-stakes decisions (but also ~most decisions) is very intuitive and fast and I often don’t reflect on it very much. I have lately been surprised to notice how little cognition I will spend on substantial life decision, or scary decisions, simply trusting myself to get it right.
I know other people (who I like and respect) who rely on explicit reasoning when deciding whether to take a snack break, whether to go to a party, whether to accept a job, etc, and I think the stronger version of themselves would end up trusting their system 1 processes on such things.
But I think anyone who is not regularly doing ton of system 2 reflection on decisions that they are confused about or arguing about principles involved in their and others’ decisions will fail to act well or be principled. I do not think there is a way around it, of avoiding this hard work.
I think I would hazard a guess that the person who must rely on explicit theory for guiding behavior is more likely to be able to grow into a wholesome and principled person than the intuitive and kind person who doesn’t see much worth in developing and arguing about explicit principles. Caring about principles seems much rarer and non-natural to me.
I will respond to this more fully at a later point. But a quick correction I wish to make:
What I’m referring to is not about System 1 or System 2 so much. It’s not that I rely more on System 1 to do things. System 1 and System 2 are both unreliable systems, each with major pitfalls.
I’m more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any “process” whatsoever.
I keep trying to point at this, and people don’t really get it until they directly see it. That’s fine. But I wish people would at least mentally try to understand what I’m saying, and so far I’m often being misinterpreted. Too much mental grasping at straws.
The wisdom I refer to is able to skillfully use either System 1 or System 2 as appropriate. It’s not a meta-process. It’s not metacognition. It’s not intelligence. It’s also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesn’t get better with more intelligence or more intuition.
It’s fine to not understand what I’m referring to. But can anyone repeat back what I’m saying without adding or subtracting anything?
Okay, sounds like I have misunderstood you.
Sure, I can retry.
My next attempt to pass your ITT is thus:
How close is this to what you’re saying, from 1 to 10?
First paragraph: 3⁄10. The claim is that something was already more natural to begin with, but you need deliberate practice to unlock the thing that was already more natural. It’s not that it ‘comes more naturally’ after you practice something. What ‘felt’ natural before was actually very unnatural and hindered, but we don’t realize this until after practicing.
2nd, 3rd, 4th paragraph: 2⁄10. This mostly doesn’t seem relevant to what I’m trying to offer.
...
It’s interesting trying to watch various people try to repeat what I’m saying or respond to what I’m saying and just totally missing the target each time.
It suggests an active blind spot or a refusal to try to look straight at the main claim I’m making. I have been saying it over and over again, so I don’t think it’s on my end. Although the thing I am trying to point at is notoriously hard to point at, so there’s that.
...
Anyway the cruxy part is here, and so to pass my ITT you’d have to include this:
“It’s not a meta-process. It’s not metacognition. It’s not intelligence. It’s also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesn’t get better with more intelligence or more intuition. ”
“I’m more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any “process” whatsoever. ”
“The “one weird trick” to getting the right answers is to discard all stuck, fixed points. Discard all priors and posteriors. Discard all aliefs and beliefs. Discard worldview after worldview. Discard perspective. Discard unity. Discard separation. Discard conceptuality. Discard map, discard territory. Discard past, present, and future. Discard a sense of you. Discard a sense of world. Discard dichotomy and trichotomy. Discard vague senses of wishy-washy flip floppiness. Discard something vs nothing. Discard one vs all. Discard symbols, discard signs, discard waves, discard particles.
All of these things are Ignorance. Discard Ignorance.”
Sure, I can try again during my lunch break.
I think you are actually emphasizing this section.
It sounds like you believe, as I become more aligned with who I want to be and with goodness, this will not feel strained or effortful, but in fact I will experience less friction than I used to feel, less discomfort or unease. This is not a learned way of being but rather a process of backing out of bad and unhealthy practices.
I don’t know that it’s easy for me to describe how this feels in more phenomenological detail. I’d have to find some examples. Most of my experiences of becoming a better person have been around finding good principles that I believe in, and feeling good relying on them and seeing that they indeed do improve the world and help me avoid unethical action/behavior. It has simplified my life tremendously (mostly).
So I believe you mean that, when you find the right way of acting, it feels more natural and less friction-y than the way you were previously behaving. The primary thing I don’t understand is that I can’t tell what claim you are making about what exactly one is approaching. You keep saying all the things it isn’t without saying what it is. I am not sure if you mean “You are born well and then have lots of bad habits and unhealthy practices added to you” or if you are saying “You were not necessarily ever in the right state of mind, but approach it through careful practice, and then it will feel better/natural-er/etc”. Also you keep saying that it’s not “state of mind” or anything other noun I might use to describe it, which isn’t helpful for saying what it is.
My current guess is that you don’t think it’s any particular state, but that being a spiritually whole person is more about everything (both in the mind and in the mind’s relationship to the environment) working together well. But not sure.
Regarding
and
I think talking about phenomenology is hard and subtle and the fact you have failed to have people hear you as you use metaphor and poetry doesn’t mean you should talk down to me as though you are a wise teacher and I am a particularly dense student.
I am saying things in a direct and more or less literal manner. Or at least I’m trying to.
I did use a metaphor. I am not using “poetry”? When I say “Discard Ignorance” I mean that as literally as possible. I think it’s somewhat incorrect to call what I’m saying phenomenology. That makes it sound purely subjective.
Am I talking down to you? I did not read it that way. Sorry it comes across that way. I am attempting to be very direct and blunt because I think that’s more respectful, and it’s how I talk.
I propose we wrap this particular thread up for now (with another reply from you as you wish).
I will say that for this bit
Being asked “So what’s the answer? What’s the path?” feels more like answering a riddle than being asked “The capital city of England is London. Please repeat back to me the capital city of England?”.
Direct speech is clear and unambiguous. Direct speech is like “Please can you close the door?” and indirect speech is like “Oh I guess it’s chilly in here” or “Perhaps we should get people’s temperature preferences”, which may be a sincere attempt to communicate that you want the door closed but isn’t direct. What you wrote was not especially unambiguous or non-metaphorical. I think it’s a sincere attempt at communication but it’s not direct. Being asked to just answer “can anyone repeat back what I’m saying without adding or subtracting anything?” seems hard when you wrote in a rather metaphorical and roundabout way.
To have a go at it:
Some people try to implement a decision-making strategy that’s like, “I should focus mostly on System 1” or “I should focus mostly on System 2.” But this isn’t really the point. The goal is to develop an ability to judge which scenarios call for which types of mental activities, and to be able to combine System 1 and System 2 together fluidly as needed.
I appreciate this attempt… but no it is not it.
What I’m talking about is not the skill to combine S1 and S2 fluidly as needed.