I’mma cherry pick in what I wanna respond to here...
I haven’t clicked. I don’t have a connection. Lol. To what? Critical thinking?
It sounded like what you did from the whole “system 3” story, with the idea that … given that there is no real evidence shown, you must have personally experienced this?
If only one of you saw the light who have contributed to this community, you will have an enormous impact, if I told you that it would bring “friendly singularity” in 10 years. What do you have to lose? 5 minutes of your time?
This is a version of Pascal’s Mugging—give me 5 minutes and I’ll give you a chance at your greatest goals.
… Except that if you buy into this, you’d have to spend those 5 minutes on every shaky claim. This can add up. So I set a point of credibility where I think “this sounds plausible and worth the effort” before I’ll do it.
So I had a bit of a proper read through those 4 steps and to be honest… this is lacking in “how”. There’s a lot of talk and not a lot of instruction. I’m also worried about the assertion that “logic” is the best core value—valuing truth above all else is NOT a good idea—a basic level of survival comes first. That’s why I’ll leave certain arguments unresolved or certain bugs alone in my programming—the argument happened once, it’s not an issue right now, if it becomes an issue I’ll pick it up later again. The bug occurred once, only when doing a ton of things at the same time, fixing it is not a priority, nor is finding the cause a priority, I got better things to do.
Maybe that’s a strawman position, but I’m trying to say that it’s not always worth it to hold “let things make sense” or “find out the truth” be your top goal. It’s an important instrumental goal. But it doesn’t help you function in society. Truthseeking doesn’t help deciding what career path to follow. It can help in getting more information, but you need an actual GOAL to use this information for.
If your most important value isn’t logic/rationality, you might have something to live for.
...
Thinking that through for a bit, I can see how the “most important value” might not be the “most practiced value”. Consider a mother whose most important value is the wellbeing of her child—perhaps she will work long and hard every day, so that her child may always eat. In that case, she’s not practicing the wellbeing of her child all day long as you’d think of in a more direct scenario like homeschooling and homecooking and just being around the child all day. She’s doing a ton of other things to indirectly help her child.
And like that too you might say “well you shouldn’t do logic all day, you should work hard / smart so that you can a rationalist” (I admit here it kinda falls apart, it’s not like you need a ton of cash to be a rationalist) … but that is not what I’m reading in your words. It’s not what I’m reading in that wikipage. I’m reading a bunch of “analyse your life and get rid of anything that doesn’t combine properly with the rest”—which in and of itself is great, but why, why would I do that? Things seem to be going fine for me right now.
It sounded like what you did from the whole “system 3” story, with the idea that … given that there is no real evidence shown, you must have personally experienced this?
I have only had certain insights but not the click. Connecting the dots and seeing the transformations made (the anecdotes, the observational evidence).
This is a version of Pascal’s Mugging—give me 5 minutes and I’ll give you a chance at your greatest goals.
… Except that if you buy into this, you’d have to spend those 5 minutes on every shaky claim. This can add up. So I set a point of credibility where I think “this sounds plausible and worth the effort” before I’ll do it.
It’s most likely +EV because being rational, logical isn’t far away from what many strive to be here ‘less wrong’. The anecdotes and, the other ‘benefits’ speak for themselves along my first point.
So I had a bit of a proper read through those 4 steps and to be honest… this is lacking in “how”. There’s a lot of talk and not a lot of instruction.
The 4 steps are the instructions, and it has worked! 40 or so have clicked. You simply do it, trust in logic, love logic. Find what emotionally drives you (you don’t do anything here rationally) be present, load it with a negative emotion. Your inner child will then drop the teddy bear which is whatever value you have and automatically cling to logic. And.. bliss. Euphoria. No more duality. Oh, my GOD… LOGIC! :D Also add in “I AM LOGIC.. I AM BECOMING AWARE OF MYSELF” I’m kinda playing a little bit.
I’m also worried about the assertion that “logic” is the best core value—valuing truth above all else is NOT a good idea—a basic level of survival comes first. That’s why I’ll leave certain arguments unresolved or certain bugs alone in my programming—the argument happened once, it’s not an issue right now, if it becomes an issue I’ll pick it up later again. The bug occurred once, only when doing a ton of things at the same time, fixing it is not a priority, nor is finding the cause a priority, I got better things to do.
Logic isn’t about truth since we know with our current understanding of quantum mechanics that everything is inherently probabilities. Logic is just in line with what we are. Basic survival is obviously logical else we wouldn’t be able to progress. But you won’t be needing to patch things up with logic as you will change from within because all of our problems stem from our core. Now someone might nitpick this and talk about neuroscience how we’re all neurons, yeah. But that doesn’t destroy this argument.
Maybe that’s a strawman position, but I’m trying to say that it’s not always worth it to hold “let things make sense” or “find out the truth” be your top goal. It’s an important instrumental goal. But it doesn’t help you function in society.
Well. You do things which make sense. Things that makes sense will be very beneficial for society. Finding out the truth has nothing to do with this. If everyone did things which make sense, with enough knowledge, the world would be a utopia.
Truthseeking doesn’t help deciding what career path to follow. It can help in getting more information, but you need an actual GOAL to use this information for.
I’m not talking about truth seeking. I’m going to refute an argument you didn’t make. Logic as a tool is inherently flawed because of the tool-bearer being flawed. Logic is used to rationalize and protect the emotions. That’s the hypothesis. If you end the duality between the tool and the tool bearer, you just become logical. That’s all.
If your most important value isn’t logic/rationality, you might have something to live for.
Well. The reason you even live in the first place is because of our understanding of logic. Health care, food, the shelter (roof above us) we would be cavemen without it. We are here for a reason, that is to move forward, evolution, evolutionary biology and so forth. Of course, you don’t have to. But you can, and feel good about it. It depends on what your inner child has attached its reward center with. Be it logic or something else. (thus feel good about logical actions). How does that sound?
Thinking that through for a bit, I can see how the “most important value” might not be the “most practiced value”.
Consider a mother whose most important value is the wellbeing of her child—perhaps she will work long and hard every day, so that her child may always eat. In that case, she’s not practicing the wellbeing of her child all day long as you’d think of in a more direct scenario like homeschooling and homecooking and just being around the child all day. She’s doing a ton of other things to indirectly help her child.
Well. You misunderstood it previously as well. Most important value is the sum of a lot of smaller values. Or it can just be seen as in of itself, to include a lot of different things. Wellbeing of one’s child includes working long and hard, so the child may eat. Indirect actions are direct in this regard. So you’d imagine how much of a better mother someone would be if logic was their core value. It would be a massive difference. (a father has vouched on this with testimony, catholic too)
And like that too you might say “well you shouldn’t do logic all day, you should work hard / smart so that you can a rationalist” (I admit here it kinda falls apart, it’s not like you need a ton of cash to be a rationalist) …
Everything satisfies the core value (the result of a calculation of current brain state). If logic is your core value and it’s most logical to work right now, in this present moment, you feel good.
but that is not what I’m reading in your words. It’s not what I’m reading in that wikipage. I’m reading a bunch of “analyse your life and get rid of anything that doesn’t combine properly with the rest”—which in and of itself is great, but why, why would I do that? Things seem to be going fine for me right now.
Sure, that’s the problem. Some core values are very comfortable especially if one has fixed everything for oneself. “Be aware that the extent to which you are comfortable or satisfied with your current core value will determine whether you have an easier or harder time following through step 3.”https://logicnation.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you read below for what will happen after the click, even if some of these were true, you might reconsider. It’s also important to realize that we aren’t here on probation, we are here for a reason. Billions of years of evolution. You will feel as good as you do now, but even better with that other core value as you are in line with what you are. Or let me make the example, as good as you feel doing what you do now, you will for logical tasks. But it’s very hard. (btw core values are made up, but it’s a tool to quantify brain state).
It also important to note intersubjective reality. When clicking becomes a part of that, you might become more interested. Give it a try? What type of help do you need? More info?
Will probably reply to the rest later, if it matters, but… “you simply do it” is like telling me to wiggle my left ear: I have somehow figured out how to wiggle my right ear (and I have amused myself with this in a bored moment from time to time), but no matter how I try in those same bored moments, I cannot get my left ear to wiggle. Only by making my eyebrows move at the same time.
Point is… when you say “You simply do it, trust in logic, love logic.” it feels like you’re telling me to move a muscle I don’t know how to move. “You can do it, just twitch your left ear.” “Trust in your left ear.” “Concentrate on your left ear and feel it move.” … Sorry. Still can’t move it without also moving my eyebrows.
As for my emotional drive, that’s missing at the moment in my life. I don’t have a real goal. I’m constantly holding off on actually choosing a goal, instead opting to build more and more tools and acquire more and more resources so that I may spend them when the day comes that I finally want something.
I have experienced wants, but those were either unachievable within reasonable timespan (of the “I’d want to see other human-intelligence level races” kind—and not even as a burning passion, just a curiosity), or perhaps marketing inspired (I wanna play that new game when it comes out, but it’s still another 6 months before release) or easily resolved (I wish this problem was gone—a $5 - $25 item fixes the issue, or an hour of effort fixes it—think running out of space and getting a shelf, or learning how to configure a program on my computer to do something automatically for me).
It’s important to recognize that your emotions are driving your actions whether you are conscious/aware of them or not. After you’ve found beauty in logic, figuring out what is driving your actions is the next step.
If you cannot trust or love logic, imagine something which you do love then. Then recognize why logic has allowed that which you love to even exist in the first place. Whether it be someone, a video-game, food or whatever. It’s a connection you can make. There are quite some documentaries and videos you can watch about fractals in nature, mathematics, fibonacci sequence in nature and so forth. Cosmos is also a good show, in the last episodes there is some talking about questioning authority, thinking for yourself etc. Which not many (99.9%) do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dasQ7HnDoI
Fake-spucking is common, suppressing our emotions and this part can be quite scary. But you are emotional inherently, subconsciously. Regardless if you have a goal or not (hint: they’re worthless) everything is happening now. Always now. It’s always going to be happening in an ever changing now, simultaneously.
Now, what is driving your action now? What is driving you to type what you type, what is driving you to do X? You have to keep asking yourself to start understanding why you do what you do. It’s important. It’s the actions now which we have to question ourselves why we do them. Which emotional drive are we feeding to make us feel good? Whether it be: comfort, validation, approval, money, self-esteem, not feeling worthwhile. It all boils down to safety and these values will never fulfill us.
so that I may spend them when the day comes that I finally want something.
It all comes down to our neural activity in this moment, and actions which we are not in control of. Such as advertising. Then we feed the core value and get our reward-center stimulated.
I have experienced wants, but those were either unachievable within reasonable timespan (of the “I’d want to see other human-intelligence level races” kind—and not even as a burning passion, just a curiosity)
Well. You have to ask yourself why you want to see other human-intelligence races. Why you have this curiosity. What is driving you to want these things? It’s very hard to pinpoint.
or perhaps marketing inspired (I wanna play that new game when it comes out, but it’s still another 6 months before release)
I understand. I am getting a feeling you have comfort as your core value, as many do. (for the nitpickers, no core values don’t exist, but it’s a quantification of current brain state and used as a means to an end to change said brain state)
or easily resolved (I wish this problem was gone—a $5 - $25 item fixes the issue, or an hour of effort fixes it—think running out of space and getting a shelf, or learning how to configure a program on my computer to do something automatically for me).
Well. That can simply be an action which you have to solve which is in the way for you to complete a task. It also boils down to your current intelligence to able to estimate on how to increase your efficiency and to what extent there comes limiting returns. So you have some drive to be logical, but it still stems from something else like comfort.
Well. You have to ask yourself why you want to see other human-intelligence races. Why you have this curiosity. What is driving you to want these things? It’s very hard to pinpoint.
The curiosity from seeing other human-intelligence races is because I like imagining “what-if”—in media such as writing and animation series I’m enthralled by worldbuilding. Combined, they create some interesting questions that serve as a mirror for our current society.
Now, what is driving your action now? What is driving you to type what you type, what is driving you to do X?
I’m bored at work. I feel socially compelled to respond to a question. You seemed make an argument that pattern matches for me to pascal’s mugging and I’m not sure you realized, so I commented on that.
...
Also, because I thought it sounded like easy points, because that’s the only other reason I can come up with. LessWrong has karma points, people will vote you up if you correctly identify a mistake in something (and the mistake is relevant, not just a typo), I like points because… … probably because of a certain measure of validation (LessWrong has “smart” people, points represent the “smart” people saying you’re right, so more points = more validation).
When explained like that, it’s really dumb. But I guess that’s why I reply to this sort of thing (at first, mind you, not to this comment!) - Because somebody is wrong on the internet (see xkcd) and because internet points.
As to why I reply to this comment; well, if you magically (woo, wishful thinking) do manage to point out a flaw in my thinking with regards to how I approach life, then that’s jackpot.
Regardless if you have a goal or not (hint: they’re worthless)
I dunno about that. Goals are input for planning. Without a plan, I end up doing things I feel regret about later (not in the sense of “dammit I went drinking again” but more like “blehhh I played a stupid browser game which turned out to not even be interesting and I’ll never get that time back, even although I know there’ll be a point in time later this week or maybe even tomorrow where I’ll have a great idea”. Examples are wasting time with stupid browser games only to find a good game or an interesting novel or interesting anime series… on a sunday evening. And work starts again on Monday, so I can only participate a little bit. Bleh.
That’s why I want to have a goal—even if I don’t always end up doing what I planned, setting goals prevents me from getting stuck in boredom. For instance, I’ll plan to check the new season line up in the weekend to see if there’s anything interesting. The result is that I can relax and have fun in the mornings for 10-13 weeks after that since I have a few series to watch before going to work.
On a greater scale… my current plan is “after I become financially independent, I can fully strive towards whatever goal I have set… and/or spend my time reading/playing/watching things.” … and there’s no goal there. I’m currently hoping I’ll get bored without work and roll into some open source projects where I work on interesting problems (or problems which are not interesting but useful to solve and I feel motivated to solve them).
The curiosity from seeing other human-intelligence races is because I like imagining “what-if”—in media such as writing and animation series I’m enthralled by worldbuilding. Combined, they create some interesting questions that serve as a mirror for our current society.
At some point, you can recognize how you were conditioned to believe those things. You might even think that this curiosity or belief is superior to others. In contrary to some random person in some town in Texas for example. It also becomes socially validated as it’s probably popular in the intersubjective reality of Lesswrong and other communities like Reddit.
I’m bored at work. I feel socially compelled to respond to a question. You seemed make an argument that pattern matches for me to pascal’s mugging and I’m not sure you realized, so I commented on that
I saw that, so it’s a flawed argument because of pascal mugging. I haven’t even googled yet what that means and to read some article here on lesswrong. But it’s cool to know about.
Also, because I thought it sounded like easy points, because that’s the only other reason I can come up with. LessWrong has karma points, people will vote you up if you correctly identify a mistake in something (and the mistake is relevant, not just a typo), I like points because… … probably because of a certain measure of validation (LessWrong has “smart” people, points represent the “smart” people saying you’re right, so more points = more validation).
Well. You have to figure out why you have this need for validation, as it was something which was conditioned to you through your experiences in life. For example, if you were rejected by a girl in school you closed in and stopped trusting yourself and the world. Validation usually stem from low self-esteem, feeling a need to prove yourself to our world that you matter. But in all actuality, these are fictions which drive our actions. We know this but we don’t know how to change it, until now.
Just so you know, you are not your emotional core. It can change. That’s what these 4 steps do and you radically go through a metamorphosis. So as you feel uncomfortable with being honest towards yourself and stopping the suppression of your emotions. You might realize you are aware of these things, you are that which experiences. But the sum of all is simply the practical I, or me or ‘you’ which we use to communicate to each other. But as dissonance increase. you have an easier time telling your inner child to let go of validation, comfort and so forth because of the negative emotions which you load into the memory. In the present moment. You can’t scream at your inner child to let go of the teddy bear which has comfort/validation. It will simply just hold it stronger. That’s why rationality doesn’t work as well.
You have to communicate emotionally, through the whole process and the inner child, which you will realize that it’s still who you are… It will let go of the teddy bear. Then you will automatically grab logic as that’s what given us, you, all of us… Everything.
When explained like that, it’s really dumb. But I guess that’s why I reply to this sort of thing (at first, mind you, not to this comment!) - Because somebody is wrong on the internet (see xkcd) and because internet points.
As to why I reply to this comment; well, if you magically (woo, wishful thinking) do manage to point out a flaw in my thinking with regards to how I approach life, then that’s jackpot.
Well, first of all, it doesn’t feel good to have these emotional attachments, they might bring you safety now but it won’t always be this way, logic is always going to be there for you. It’s going to allow you to finally think for yourself without the baggage which has been programmed to you. The bugs in the system which never came with an instruction manual. Until now. No one’s going to tell you these things because it’s radically new.
Why you write what you write, you have to ask yourself why on an emotional level. I am driven for typing this out of validation, what about when I go to work, do I not get my validation satisfied, but I am still driven to work so I can work towards validation in general. It doesn’t make sense that our real work is done at home. It is what drives us. One core value to rule them all. (again for the nitpickers, yes they’re created in the present moment by our current brain state, but it’s a means to an end, a way to quantify our current brain state)
I dunno about that. Goals are input for planning. Without a plan, I end up doing things I feel regret about later (not in the sense of “dammit I went drinking again” but more like “blehhh I played a stupid browser game which turned out to not even be interesting and I’ll never get that time back, even although I know there’ll be a point in time later this week or maybe even tomorrow where I’ll have a great idea”. Examples are wasting time with stupid browser games only to find a good game or an interesting novel or interesting anime series… on a sunday evening. And work starts again on Monday, so I can only participate a little bit. Bleh.
That’s why I want to have a goal—even if I don’t always end up doing what I planned, setting goals prevents me from getting stuck in boredom. For instance, I’ll plan to check the new season line up in the weekend to see if there’s anything interesting. The result is that I can relax and have fun in the mornings for 10-13 weeks after that since I have a few series to watch before going to work.
On a greater scale… my current plan is “after I become financially independent, I can fully strive towards whatever goal I have set… and/or spend my time reading/playing/watching things.” … and there’s no goal there. I’m currently hoping I’ll get bored without work and roll into some open source projects where I work on interesting problems (or problems which are not interesting but useful to solve and I feel motivated to solve them).
Well. The reason why you need to have these things is because you need to discipline your actions. After the click, you apparently won’t have to anymore. It’s important to recognize that this present moment is that all that exists, it’s always going to be the present moment. Time is an illusion from the subjective perspective. Each snapshot you have of this is now, you can see what is driving you. It’s always going to be the quantification of your brain state. Which probably is comfort or validation, that’s why logic gives you choiceless awareness. There won’t be any duality between rationality and whatever emotional value you have now. It’s just going to be rationality and it’s going to feel great. Every moment of the day, the most logical action. Each ‘snapshot’. No need to discipline your actions. As good as playing games or watching anime you feel doing, you will for rationality. It’s hard to explain the paradigm shift!
There won’t be any duality between rationality and whatever emotional value you have now. It’s just going to be rationality and it’s going to feel great. Every moment of the day, the most logical action. Each ‘snapshot’. No need to discipline your actions.
This sounds like taking drugs and turning into a logically optimal robot.
… That sounds like a worse life than what I have now.
I think we should stop this thread. I’m not connecting with this idea of yours and I can’t think of anything you could say to convince me otherwise (hmmh TODO rethink that)… so when you try to convince me you’re just tripping flags instead.
For instance.
The curiosity from seeing other human-intelligence races is because I like imagining “what-if”—in media such as writing and animation series I’m enthralled by worldbuilding. Combined, they create some interesting questions that serve as a mirror for our current society.
...
At some point, you can recognize how you were conditioned to believe those things. You might even think that this curiosity or belief is superior to others. In contrary to some random person in some town in Texas for example. It also becomes socially validated as it’s probably popular in the intersubjective reality of Lesswrong and other communities like Reddit.
And you have a better set of beliefs? I actually enjoy such worldbuilding exercises. I enjoy seeing other worlds like that. There have been series that seemed boring at first, but then started to contain more worldbuilding and organizing—and I enjoy those from the comfort of my room. I don’t have a list somewhere that I show off to get validation. I don’t tell others that I’m reading such and such book—mostly because I think it wouldn’t interest them. I read them for my own enjoyment. I did this before coming to reddit and before coming to LessWrong. I think you’re wrong about this point.
Well. You have to figure out why you have this need for validation, as it was something which was conditioned to you through your experiences in life.
It’s on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Everyone needs some amount of validation. And I don’t need a whole lot of validation.
I’ve been diagnosed with Aspergers and ADHD—I don’t want to use them as a shield in these discussions, because that doesn’t help anyone—but perhaps it allows me to explain that I don’t seem to have a need for validation all that much. I don’t care as much what other people think of my clothing. I do refuse to wear things with stupid texts on them, but that’s because I’m not a billboard. I don’t care about the things society seems to be interested in like celebrities or fashion or cars or whatever kind of crap—it tends to not be socially acceptable to just sit in your room and play games all day, but I do it anyway because that’s what I think is fun. Going outside is boring and cold.
What I’m having issues with is not a lack of validation by others, but a lack of validation by myself. I see myself playing a ton of games and reading a lot and watching a lot and then I think to myself “is that what I’d want to do the rest of my life” and I think “no, because I want to contribute something myself too”.
And this manifests itself as doing things like making a mod for a game, or helping to fix a bug in an open source game, or creating a tool for others to support their gameplay or creation of their mods… I like doing that. And yes, you get some kind of validation from that.
…
I write this because I’m angry and disappointed (although those feelings aren’t all that appropriate for the situation). I don’t think it’s worth it to live a life where you take the most logical action all the time (and that’s probably because I’m using a different word for logic than you are). Maybe that inner child you’re talking about is having a temper tantrum. Even if that’s true, it seems to be pretty pissed off at the moment and doesn’t want to do all the things you said.
I don’t think living a life of just consumerism is all that great either. So I’m gonna keep looking for another path that doesn’t disturb my inner child, but doesn’t seem all that boring either. I have multiple aspects, and I gotta work with all of them. Forcing them to act differently takes a lot of energy, is not a pleasant experience, and can end up with unwanted results.
I’mma cherry pick in what I wanna respond to here...
It sounded like what you did from the whole “system 3” story, with the idea that … given that there is no real evidence shown, you must have personally experienced this?
This is a version of Pascal’s Mugging—give me 5 minutes and I’ll give you a chance at your greatest goals.
… Except that if you buy into this, you’d have to spend those 5 minutes on every shaky claim. This can add up. So I set a point of credibility where I think “this sounds plausible and worth the effort” before I’ll do it.
So I had a bit of a proper read through those 4 steps and to be honest… this is lacking in “how”. There’s a lot of talk and not a lot of instruction. I’m also worried about the assertion that “logic” is the best core value—valuing truth above all else is NOT a good idea—a basic level of survival comes first. That’s why I’ll leave certain arguments unresolved or certain bugs alone in my programming—the argument happened once, it’s not an issue right now, if it becomes an issue I’ll pick it up later again. The bug occurred once, only when doing a ton of things at the same time, fixing it is not a priority, nor is finding the cause a priority, I got better things to do.
Maybe that’s a strawman position, but I’m trying to say that it’s not always worth it to hold “let things make sense” or “find out the truth” be your top goal. It’s an important instrumental goal. But it doesn’t help you function in society. Truthseeking doesn’t help deciding what career path to follow. It can help in getting more information, but you need an actual GOAL to use this information for.
If your most important value isn’t logic/rationality, you might have something to live for.
...
Thinking that through for a bit, I can see how the “most important value” might not be the “most practiced value”. Consider a mother whose most important value is the wellbeing of her child—perhaps she will work long and hard every day, so that her child may always eat. In that case, she’s not practicing the wellbeing of her child all day long as you’d think of in a more direct scenario like homeschooling and homecooking and just being around the child all day. She’s doing a ton of other things to indirectly help her child.
And like that too you might say “well you shouldn’t do logic all day, you should work hard / smart so that you can a rationalist” (I admit here it kinda falls apart, it’s not like you need a ton of cash to be a rationalist) … but that is not what I’m reading in your words. It’s not what I’m reading in that wikipage. I’m reading a bunch of “analyse your life and get rid of anything that doesn’t combine properly with the rest”—which in and of itself is great, but why, why would I do that? Things seem to be going fine for me right now.
I have only had certain insights but not the click. Connecting the dots and seeing the transformations made (the anecdotes, the observational evidence).
It’s most likely +EV because being rational, logical isn’t far away from what many strive to be here ‘less wrong’. The anecdotes and, the other ‘benefits’ speak for themselves along my first point.
The 4 steps are the instructions, and it has worked! 40 or so have clicked. You simply do it, trust in logic, love logic. Find what emotionally drives you (you don’t do anything here rationally) be present, load it with a negative emotion. Your inner child will then drop the teddy bear which is whatever value you have and automatically cling to logic. And.. bliss. Euphoria. No more duality. Oh, my GOD… LOGIC! :D Also add in “I AM LOGIC.. I AM BECOMING AWARE OF MYSELF” I’m kinda playing a little bit.
Logic isn’t about truth since we know with our current understanding of quantum mechanics that everything is inherently probabilities. Logic is just in line with what we are. Basic survival is obviously logical else we wouldn’t be able to progress. But you won’t be needing to patch things up with logic as you will change from within because all of our problems stem from our core. Now someone might nitpick this and talk about neuroscience how we’re all neurons, yeah. But that doesn’t destroy this argument.
Well. You do things which make sense. Things that makes sense will be very beneficial for society. Finding out the truth has nothing to do with this. If everyone did things which make sense, with enough knowledge, the world would be a utopia.
I’m not talking about truth seeking. I’m going to refute an argument you didn’t make. Logic as a tool is inherently flawed because of the tool-bearer being flawed. Logic is used to rationalize and protect the emotions. That’s the hypothesis. If you end the duality between the tool and the tool bearer, you just become logical. That’s all.
Well. The reason you even live in the first place is because of our understanding of logic. Health care, food, the shelter (roof above us) we would be cavemen without it. We are here for a reason, that is to move forward, evolution, evolutionary biology and so forth. Of course, you don’t have to. But you can, and feel good about it. It depends on what your inner child has attached its reward center with. Be it logic or something else. (thus feel good about logical actions). How does that sound?
Well. You misunderstood it previously as well. Most important value is the sum of a lot of smaller values. Or it can just be seen as in of itself, to include a lot of different things. Wellbeing of one’s child includes working long and hard, so the child may eat. Indirect actions are direct in this regard. So you’d imagine how much of a better mother someone would be if logic was their core value. It would be a massive difference. (a father has vouched on this with testimony, catholic too)
Everything satisfies the core value (the result of a calculation of current brain state). If logic is your core value and it’s most logical to work right now, in this present moment, you feel good.
Sure, that’s the problem. Some core values are very comfortable especially if one has fixed everything for oneself. “Be aware that the extent to which you are comfortable or satisfied with your current core value will determine whether you have an easier or harder time following through step 3.”https://logicnation.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you read below for what will happen after the click, even if some of these were true, you might reconsider. It’s also important to realize that we aren’t here on probation, we are here for a reason. Billions of years of evolution. You will feel as good as you do now, but even better with that other core value as you are in line with what you are. Or let me make the example, as good as you feel doing what you do now, you will for logical tasks. But it’s very hard. (btw core values are made up, but it’s a tool to quantify brain state).
It also important to note intersubjective reality. When clicking becomes a part of that, you might become more interested. Give it a try? What type of help do you need? More info?
Will probably reply to the rest later, if it matters, but… “you simply do it” is like telling me to wiggle my left ear: I have somehow figured out how to wiggle my right ear (and I have amused myself with this in a bored moment from time to time), but no matter how I try in those same bored moments, I cannot get my left ear to wiggle. Only by making my eyebrows move at the same time.
Point is… when you say “You simply do it, trust in logic, love logic.” it feels like you’re telling me to move a muscle I don’t know how to move. “You can do it, just twitch your left ear.” “Trust in your left ear.” “Concentrate on your left ear and feel it move.” … Sorry. Still can’t move it without also moving my eyebrows.
As for my emotional drive, that’s missing at the moment in my life. I don’t have a real goal. I’m constantly holding off on actually choosing a goal, instead opting to build more and more tools and acquire more and more resources so that I may spend them when the day comes that I finally want something.
I have experienced wants, but those were either unachievable within reasonable timespan (of the “I’d want to see other human-intelligence level races” kind—and not even as a burning passion, just a curiosity), or perhaps marketing inspired (I wanna play that new game when it comes out, but it’s still another 6 months before release) or easily resolved (I wish this problem was gone—a $5 - $25 item fixes the issue, or an hour of effort fixes it—think running out of space and getting a shelf, or learning how to configure a program on my computer to do something automatically for me).
It’s important to recognize that your emotions are driving your actions whether you are conscious/aware of them or not. After you’ve found beauty in logic, figuring out what is driving your actions is the next step.
If you cannot trust or love logic, imagine something which you do love then. Then recognize why logic has allowed that which you love to even exist in the first place. Whether it be someone, a video-game, food or whatever. It’s a connection you can make. There are quite some documentaries and videos you can watch about fractals in nature, mathematics, fibonacci sequence in nature and so forth. Cosmos is also a good show, in the last episodes there is some talking about questioning authority, thinking for yourself etc. Which not many (99.9%) do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dasQ7HnDoI
Fake-spucking is common, suppressing our emotions and this part can be quite scary. But you are emotional inherently, subconsciously. Regardless if you have a goal or not (hint: they’re worthless) everything is happening now. Always now. It’s always going to be happening in an ever changing now, simultaneously.
Now, what is driving your action now? What is driving you to type what you type, what is driving you to do X? You have to keep asking yourself to start understanding why you do what you do. It’s important. It’s the actions now which we have to question ourselves why we do them. Which emotional drive are we feeding to make us feel good? Whether it be: comfort, validation, approval, money, self-esteem, not feeling worthwhile. It all boils down to safety and these values will never fulfill us.
It all comes down to our neural activity in this moment, and actions which we are not in control of. Such as advertising. Then we feed the core value and get our reward-center stimulated.
Well. You have to ask yourself why you want to see other human-intelligence races. Why you have this curiosity. What is driving you to want these things? It’s very hard to pinpoint.
I understand. I am getting a feeling you have comfort as your core value, as many do. (for the nitpickers, no core values don’t exist, but it’s a quantification of current brain state and used as a means to an end to change said brain state)
Well. That can simply be an action which you have to solve which is in the way for you to complete a task. It also boils down to your current intelligence to able to estimate on how to increase your efficiency and to what extent there comes limiting returns. So you have some drive to be logical, but it still stems from something else like comfort.
The curiosity from seeing other human-intelligence races is because I like imagining “what-if”—in media such as writing and animation series I’m enthralled by worldbuilding. Combined, they create some interesting questions that serve as a mirror for our current society.
I’m bored at work. I feel socially compelled to respond to a question. You seemed make an argument that pattern matches for me to pascal’s mugging and I’m not sure you realized, so I commented on that.
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Also, because I thought it sounded like easy points, because that’s the only other reason I can come up with. LessWrong has karma points, people will vote you up if you correctly identify a mistake in something (and the mistake is relevant, not just a typo), I like points because… … probably because of a certain measure of validation (LessWrong has “smart” people, points represent the “smart” people saying you’re right, so more points = more validation).
When explained like that, it’s really dumb. But I guess that’s why I reply to this sort of thing (at first, mind you, not to this comment!) - Because somebody is wrong on the internet (see xkcd) and because internet points.
As to why I reply to this comment; well, if you magically (woo, wishful thinking) do manage to point out a flaw in my thinking with regards to how I approach life, then that’s jackpot.
I dunno about that. Goals are input for planning. Without a plan, I end up doing things I feel regret about later (not in the sense of “dammit I went drinking again” but more like “blehhh I played a stupid browser game which turned out to not even be interesting and I’ll never get that time back, even although I know there’ll be a point in time later this week or maybe even tomorrow where I’ll have a great idea”. Examples are wasting time with stupid browser games only to find a good game or an interesting novel or interesting anime series… on a sunday evening. And work starts again on Monday, so I can only participate a little bit. Bleh.
That’s why I want to have a goal—even if I don’t always end up doing what I planned, setting goals prevents me from getting stuck in boredom. For instance, I’ll plan to check the new season line up in the weekend to see if there’s anything interesting. The result is that I can relax and have fun in the mornings for 10-13 weeks after that since I have a few series to watch before going to work.
On a greater scale… my current plan is “after I become financially independent, I can fully strive towards whatever goal I have set… and/or spend my time reading/playing/watching things.” … and there’s no goal there. I’m currently hoping I’ll get bored without work and roll into some open source projects where I work on interesting problems (or problems which are not interesting but useful to solve and I feel motivated to solve them).
Play this while reading for intense immersion: https://minddivided.bandcamp.com/album/tempest
At some point, you can recognize how you were conditioned to believe those things. You might even think that this curiosity or belief is superior to others. In contrary to some random person in some town in Texas for example. It also becomes socially validated as it’s probably popular in the intersubjective reality of Lesswrong and other communities like Reddit.
I saw that, so it’s a flawed argument because of pascal mugging. I haven’t even googled yet what that means and to read some article here on lesswrong. But it’s cool to know about.
Well. You have to figure out why you have this need for validation, as it was something which was conditioned to you through your experiences in life. For example, if you were rejected by a girl in school you closed in and stopped trusting yourself and the world. Validation usually stem from low self-esteem, feeling a need to prove yourself to our world that you matter. But in all actuality, these are fictions which drive our actions. We know this but we don’t know how to change it, until now.
Just so you know, you are not your emotional core. It can change. That’s what these 4 steps do and you radically go through a metamorphosis. So as you feel uncomfortable with being honest towards yourself and stopping the suppression of your emotions. You might realize you are aware of these things, you are that which experiences. But the sum of all is simply the practical I, or me or ‘you’ which we use to communicate to each other. But as dissonance increase. you have an easier time telling your inner child to let go of validation, comfort and so forth because of the negative emotions which you load into the memory. In the present moment. You can’t scream at your inner child to let go of the teddy bear which has comfort/validation. It will simply just hold it stronger. That’s why rationality doesn’t work as well.
You have to communicate emotionally, through the whole process and the inner child, which you will realize that it’s still who you are… It will let go of the teddy bear. Then you will automatically grab logic as that’s what given us, you, all of us… Everything.
Well, first of all, it doesn’t feel good to have these emotional attachments, they might bring you safety now but it won’t always be this way, logic is always going to be there for you. It’s going to allow you to finally think for yourself without the baggage which has been programmed to you. The bugs in the system which never came with an instruction manual. Until now. No one’s going to tell you these things because it’s radically new.
Why you write what you write, you have to ask yourself why on an emotional level. I am driven for typing this out of validation, what about when I go to work, do I not get my validation satisfied, but I am still driven to work so I can work towards validation in general. It doesn’t make sense that our real work is done at home. It is what drives us. One core value to rule them all. (again for the nitpickers, yes they’re created in the present moment by our current brain state, but it’s a means to an end, a way to quantify our current brain state)
Well. The reason why you need to have these things is because you need to discipline your actions. After the click, you apparently won’t have to anymore. It’s important to recognize that this present moment is that all that exists, it’s always going to be the present moment. Time is an illusion from the subjective perspective. Each snapshot you have of this is now, you can see what is driving you. It’s always going to be the quantification of your brain state. Which probably is comfort or validation, that’s why logic gives you choiceless awareness. There won’t be any duality between rationality and whatever emotional value you have now. It’s just going to be rationality and it’s going to feel great. Every moment of the day, the most logical action. Each ‘snapshot’. No need to discipline your actions. As good as playing games or watching anime you feel doing, you will for rationality. It’s hard to explain the paradigm shift!
This sounds like taking drugs and turning into a logically optimal robot.
… That sounds like a worse life than what I have now.
I think we should stop this thread. I’m not connecting with this idea of yours and I can’t think of anything you could say to convince me otherwise (hmmh TODO rethink that)… so when you try to convince me you’re just tripping flags instead.
For instance.
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And you have a better set of beliefs? I actually enjoy such worldbuilding exercises. I enjoy seeing other worlds like that. There have been series that seemed boring at first, but then started to contain more worldbuilding and organizing—and I enjoy those from the comfort of my room. I don’t have a list somewhere that I show off to get validation. I don’t tell others that I’m reading such and such book—mostly because I think it wouldn’t interest them. I read them for my own enjoyment. I did this before coming to reddit and before coming to LessWrong. I think you’re wrong about this point.
It’s on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Everyone needs some amount of validation. And I don’t need a whole lot of validation.
I’ve been diagnosed with Aspergers and ADHD—I don’t want to use them as a shield in these discussions, because that doesn’t help anyone—but perhaps it allows me to explain that I don’t seem to have a need for validation all that much. I don’t care as much what other people think of my clothing. I do refuse to wear things with stupid texts on them, but that’s because I’m not a billboard. I don’t care about the things society seems to be interested in like celebrities or fashion or cars or whatever kind of crap—it tends to not be socially acceptable to just sit in your room and play games all day, but I do it anyway because that’s what I think is fun. Going outside is boring and cold.
What I’m having issues with is not a lack of validation by others, but a lack of validation by myself. I see myself playing a ton of games and reading a lot and watching a lot and then I think to myself “is that what I’d want to do the rest of my life” and I think “no, because I want to contribute something myself too”.
And this manifests itself as doing things like making a mod for a game, or helping to fix a bug in an open source game, or creating a tool for others to support their gameplay or creation of their mods… I like doing that. And yes, you get some kind of validation from that.
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I write this because I’m angry and disappointed (although those feelings aren’t all that appropriate for the situation). I don’t think it’s worth it to live a life where you take the most logical action all the time (and that’s probably because I’m using a different word for logic than you are). Maybe that inner child you’re talking about is having a temper tantrum. Even if that’s true, it seems to be pretty pissed off at the moment and doesn’t want to do all the things you said.
I don’t think living a life of just consumerism is all that great either. So I’m gonna keep looking for another path that doesn’t disturb my inner child, but doesn’t seem all that boring either. I have multiple aspects, and I gotta work with all of them. Forcing them to act differently takes a lot of energy, is not a pleasant experience, and can end up with unwanted results.
What’s fake-spucking? Google gives me some weird hits (sexting over skype?)
I mean being a fake Spuck or a straw vulcan. You can search for straw vulcans on LW.
His name is Spock.