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, ā¦
or even under very strenuous dire circumstances, like weāre about to die or in excruciating pain or something...
then that is a compromised mind. Youāre working with a compromised, undisciplined mind that will change its answers as soon as externals change.
Views change. Even our ārobustā principles can go out the window under extreme circumstances. (So whatās 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 youāve 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 āusing more ethical viewsā 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, strongerā¦ 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 wasnāt just that I acquired different habits and got used to them. The new patterns are less effortful to maintain, better for for me, and theyāre somehow clearly more correct. I had to unlearn, and now I somehow āknowā less. Iām holding ālessā patterning in favor of what doesnāt need anything āheld onto.ā
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:
āMore naturalā 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 doesnāt even mean less āeffortā. But it does mean less holding on, less tension, less agitation, less drowsiness, less stuckness, less hinderance.
āMore naturalā is even more natural than biology. And thatās the thing thatās probably going to trip up materialists. Because thereās a big assumption that biology is more or less whatās at the bottom of this human-stack.
Well it isnāt.
There isnāt a āthe bottom.ā
Itās 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 wasnāt the Truth of You. So discard it. And you keep going.
I am reading this as āI rely on explicit theory much less when guiding my actions than I used toā. 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 donāt 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 othersā 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 doesnāt 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 Iām referring to is not about System 1 or System 2 so much. Itās not that I rely more on System 1 to do things. System 1 and System 2 are both unreliable systems, each with major pitfalls.
Iām more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any āprocessā whatsoever.
I keep trying to point at this, and people donāt really get it until they directly see it. Thatās fine. But I wish people would at least mentally try to understand what Iām saying, and so far Iām 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. Itās not a meta-process. Itās not metacognition. Itās not intelligence. Itās also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesnāt get better with more intelligence or more intuition.
Itās fine to not understand what Iām referring to. But can anyone repeat back what Iām 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 theyāve 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 youāre saying, from 1 to 10?
First paragraph: 3ā10. 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. Itās not that it ācomes more naturallyā after you practice something. What āfeltā natural before was actually very unnatural and hindered, but we donāt realize this until after practicing.
2nd, 3rd, 4th paragraph: 2ā10. This mostly doesnāt seem relevant to what Iām trying to offer.
...
Itās interesting trying to watch various people try to repeat what Iām saying or respond to what Iām 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 Iām making. I have been saying it over and over again, so I donāt think itās on my end. Although the thing I am trying to point at is notoriously hard to point at, so thereās that.
...
Anyway the cruxy part is here, and so to pass my ITT youād have to include this:
āItās not a meta-process. Itās not metacognition. Itās not intelligence. Itās also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesnāt get better with more intelligence or more intuition. ā
āIām more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any āprocessā whatsoever. ā
āThe āone weird trickā 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.ā
I think you are actually emphasizing this section.
It wasnāt just that I acquired different habits and got used to them. The new patterns are less effortful to maintain, better for for me, and theyāre somehow clearly more correct. I had to unlearn, and now I somehow āknowā less. Iām holding ālessā patterning in favor of what doesnāt need anything āheld onto.ā
...
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 donāt know that itās easy for me to describe how this feels in more phenomenological detail. Iād 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/ābehavior. 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 donāt understand is that I canāt tell what claim you are making about what exactly one is approaching. You keep saying all the things it isnāt without saying what it is. I am not sure if you mean āYou are born well and then have lots of bad habits and unhealthy practices added to youā or if you are saying āYou were not necessarily ever in the right state of mind, but approach it through careful practice, and then it will feel better/ānatural-er/āetcā. Also you keep saying that itās not āstate of mindā or anything other noun I might use to describe it, which isnāt helpful for saying what it is.
My current guess is that you donāt think itās any particular state, but that being a spiritually whole person is more about everything (both in the mind and in the mindās relationship to the environment) working together well. But not sure.
Regarding
But I wish people would at least mentally try to understand what Iām saying, and so far Iām often being misinterpreted. Too much mental grasping at straws.
and
Itās interesting trying to watch various people try to repeat what Iām saying or respond to what Iām 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 Iām making. I have been saying it over and over again, so I donāt think itās on my end. Although the thing I am trying to point at is notoriously hard to point at, so thereās 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 doesnāt 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 Iām trying to.
I did use a metaphor. I am not using āpoetryā? When I say āDiscard Ignoranceā I mean that as literally as possible. I think itās somewhat incorrect to call what Iām 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 thatās more respectful, and itās 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 thereās a big assumption that biology is more or less whatās at the bottom of this human-stack.
Well it isnāt.
There isnāt a āthe bottom.ā
Itās 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 wasnāt the Truth of You. So discard it. And you keep going.
And thatās the path.
Being asked āSo whatās the answer? Whatās the path?ā feels more like answering a riddle than being asked āThe capital city of England is London. Please repeat back to me the capital city of England?ā.
Direct speech is clear and unambiguous. Direct speech is like āPlease can you close the door?ā and indirect speech is like āOh I guess itās chilly in hereā or āPerhaps we should get peopleās temperature preferencesā, which may be a sincere attempt to communicate that you want the door closed but isnāt direct. What you wrote was not especially unambiguous or non-metaphorical. I think itās a sincere attempt at communication but itās not direct. Being asked to just answer ācan anyone repeat back what Iām saying without adding or subtracting anything?ā seems hard when you wrote in a rather metaphorical and roundabout way.
Some people try to implement a decision-making strategy thatās like, āI should focus mostly on System 1ā or āI should focus mostly on System 2.ā But this isnāt 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.
Yes we agree. šš»
I think I mention this in the essay too.
Views change. Even our ārobustā principles can go out the window under extreme circumstances. (So whatās 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 youāve 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 āusing more ethical viewsā 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, strongerā¦ 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 wasnāt just that I acquired different habits and got used to them. The new patterns are less effortful to maintain, better for for me, and theyāre somehow clearly more correct. I had to unlearn, and now I somehow āknowā less. Iām holding ālessā patterning in favor of what doesnāt need anything āheld onto.ā
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:
āMore naturalā 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 doesnāt even mean less āeffortā. But it does mean less holding on, less tension, less agitation, less drowsiness, less stuckness, less hinderance.
āMore naturalā is even more natural than biology. And thatās the thing thatās probably going to trip up materialists. Because thereās a big assumption that biology is more or less whatās at the bottom of this human-stack.
Well it isnāt.
There isnāt a āthe bottom.ā
Itās 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 wasnāt the Truth of You. So discard it. And you keep going.
And thatās the path.
I am reading this as āI rely on explicit theory much less when guiding my actions than I used toā. 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 donāt 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 othersā 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 doesnāt 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 Iām referring to is not about System 1 or System 2 so much. Itās not that I rely more on System 1 to do things. System 1 and System 2 are both unreliable systems, each with major pitfalls.
Iām more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any āprocessā whatsoever.
I keep trying to point at this, and people donāt really get it until they directly see it. Thatās fine. But I wish people would at least mentally try to understand what Iām saying, and so far Iām 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. Itās not a meta-process. Itās not metacognition. Itās not intelligence. Itās also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesnāt get better with more intelligence or more intuition.
Itās fine to not understand what Iām referring to. But can anyone repeat back what Iām 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 youāre saying, from 1 to 10?
First paragraph: 3ā10. 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. Itās not that it ācomes more naturallyā after you practice something. What āfeltā natural before was actually very unnatural and hindered, but we donāt realize this until after practicing.
2nd, 3rd, 4th paragraph: 2ā10. This mostly doesnāt seem relevant to what Iām trying to offer.
...
Itās interesting trying to watch various people try to repeat what Iām saying or respond to what Iām 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 Iām making. I have been saying it over and over again, so I donāt think itās on my end. Although the thing I am trying to point at is notoriously hard to point at, so thereās that.
...
Anyway the cruxy part is here, and so to pass my ITT youād have to include this:
āItās not a meta-process. Itās not metacognition. Itās not intelligence. Itās also not intuition or instinct. This wisdom doesnāt get better with more intelligence or more intuition. ā
āIām more guided by a wisdom that is not based in System 1 or System 2 or any āprocessā whatsoever. ā
āThe āone weird trickā 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.ā
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 donāt know that itās easy for me to describe how this feels in more phenomenological detail. Iād 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/ābehavior. 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 donāt understand is that I canāt tell what claim you are making about what exactly one is approaching. You keep saying all the things it isnāt without saying what it is. I am not sure if you mean āYou are born well and then have lots of bad habits and unhealthy practices added to youā or if you are saying āYou were not necessarily ever in the right state of mind, but approach it through careful practice, and then it will feel better/ānatural-er/āetcā. Also you keep saying that itās not āstate of mindā or anything other noun I might use to describe it, which isnāt helpful for saying what it is.
My current guess is that you donāt think itās any particular state, but that being a spiritually whole person is more about everything (both in the mind and in the mindās 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 doesnāt 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 Iām trying to.
I did use a metaphor. I am not using āpoetryā? When I say āDiscard Ignoranceā I mean that as literally as possible. I think itās somewhat incorrect to call what Iām 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 thatās more respectful, and itās 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 āSo whatās the answer? Whatās the path?ā feels more like answering a riddle than being asked āThe capital city of England is London. Please repeat back to me the capital city of England?ā.
Direct speech is clear and unambiguous. Direct speech is like āPlease can you close the door?ā and indirect speech is like āOh I guess itās chilly in hereā or āPerhaps we should get peopleās temperature preferencesā, which may be a sincere attempt to communicate that you want the door closed but isnāt direct. What you wrote was not especially unambiguous or non-metaphorical. I think itās a sincere attempt at communication but itās not direct. Being asked to just answer ācan anyone repeat back what Iām saying without adding or subtracting anything?ā 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 thatās like, āI should focus mostly on System 1ā or āI should focus mostly on System 2.ā But this isnāt 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 attemptā¦ but no it is not it.
What Iām talking about is not the skill to combine S1 and S2 fluidly as needed.