This isn’t a very concrete comment, I’ll just point out some connections I’m seeing with a few dual-process theories of mind. For instance, a la Robin Hanson, the actions that we take / signals that we give in near mode are especially telling to those around us, and his theory of identity is that we want to give off a set of reliable signals (so as to be trustworthy), and so it makes sense that there are various coherent personalities that we can run. Also, Joshua Greene makes the case for a dual-system theory of ethical decision making, that our inflexible yet highly efficient System 1 comes up with intuitions that let us run our every day lives, and our considered, yet highly inefficient System 2 comes up with our reflective, utilitarian judgements, and can allow us to overrule our intuitions sometimes. Your identity/role, in near mode, seems to tell your System 1 what to be thinking, and your System 2 can change what identity/role you’re running at a given time.
I used to love Rock Band. One day when playing a particularly difficult guitar solo on expert I nailed 100%… except “I” didn’t do it at all. My eyes saw the notes, my hands executed them, and no where was I involved in the process. It was both exhilarating and creepy, and I basically dropped the game soon after.
One man’s modus ponens...
See, I used to notice this in my guitar playing.
Now I’m a classically-trained concert musician.
I find it quite inteesting to watch my fingers do things that I don’t feel I’m controlling. It’s interesting if I notice I’m making a mistake, I can even shift my hand position to allow a better reach, without making a conscious decision to do so.
I also had that same experience on the higher levels of Rock Band. I am not talented with any real-life musical instruments, but you say you feel that with guitar; for you personally, is that an episodic thing, or does that consistently happen when playing serious guitar? Is that something that most musicians know about, because it was exquisitely bizarre—is that the secret allure of musicians? Or does one build up a tolerance that drives one toward excellence in the hopes of catching the “high of accomplishment”?
Generally, it slips under your radar; it’s not really relevant, it doesn’t change anything. I think noticing it is just as a result of a) being very reflective and b) being in a music school where every practice room has a mirror in. Your encouraged to observe yourself play, to see it from other angles. It’s just like realising you’re walking somewhere without really exerting any conscious effort, except you’re doing something more specialised. No, I don’t think it’s generally why people become musicians. That’s more to do with the music itself, normally. And I didn’t quite understand your last sentence.
I was kind of going off on a speculative tangent on that last sentence. I was wondering if that feeling was somehow reward-system related, and would fuel a musician’s drive to excel. Like they try to play better and better to achieve that euphoria which only comes on when they do better than they ever have, with diminishing (dopamine?) returns, but, as a side-effect, increasing their practical talent to ever higher levels. So the musical prodigy over time becomes motivated more by the tangible rewards (fame, increased income), which will never compare to the feelings that made him choose that path in the first place. It would apply to many careers if it was a valid theory.
Oh no. I didn’t mean to imply anything that… Romanticised. Certainly for me, the returns from being able to play the guitar have increased as I’ve been able to play better.
Recently I started to notice this kind of third-person perception of situations where I explain things that I understand well enough. The perception is more vivid when the topic is unusual, things I might’ve thought about a lot but only rarely discussed in similar contexts. I’m guessing explanation of a familiar topic can run mostly on System 1, freeing System 2 to observe the performance, and unfamiliar circumstances make the performance more interesting, hence perception of it more vivid.
This isn’t a very concrete comment, I’ll just point out some connections I’m seeing with a few dual-process theories of mind. For instance, a la Robin Hanson, the actions that we take / signals that we give in near mode are especially telling to those around us, and his theory of identity is that we want to give off a set of reliable signals (so as to be trustworthy), and so it makes sense that there are various coherent personalities that we can run. Also, Joshua Greene makes the case for a dual-system theory of ethical decision making, that our inflexible yet highly efficient System 1 comes up with intuitions that let us run our every day lives, and our considered, yet highly inefficient System 2 comes up with our reflective, utilitarian judgements, and can allow us to overrule our intuitions sometimes. Your identity/role, in near mode, seems to tell your System 1 what to be thinking, and your System 2 can change what identity/role you’re running at a given time.
One man’s modus ponens...
See, I used to notice this in my guitar playing.
Now I’m a classically-trained concert musician.
I find it quite inteesting to watch my fingers do things that I don’t feel I’m controlling. It’s interesting if I notice I’m making a mistake, I can even shift my hand position to allow a better reach, without making a conscious decision to do so.
One man’s “creepy” is another man’s “self-improvement”. :D
Works for rationality, transhumanism, pickup arts, and even guitar playing.
And here we see that one person’s “self-improvement” is another person’s “creepy”...
I also had that same experience on the higher levels of Rock Band. I am not talented with any real-life musical instruments, but you say you feel that with guitar; for you personally, is that an episodic thing, or does that consistently happen when playing serious guitar? Is that something that most musicians know about, because it was exquisitely bizarre—is that the secret allure of musicians? Or does one build up a tolerance that drives one toward excellence in the hopes of catching the “high of accomplishment”?
Generally, it slips under your radar; it’s not really relevant, it doesn’t change anything. I think noticing it is just as a result of a) being very reflective and b) being in a music school where every practice room has a mirror in. Your encouraged to observe yourself play, to see it from other angles. It’s just like realising you’re walking somewhere without really exerting any conscious effort, except you’re doing something more specialised. No, I don’t think it’s generally why people become musicians. That’s more to do with the music itself, normally. And I didn’t quite understand your last sentence.
I was kind of going off on a speculative tangent on that last sentence. I was wondering if that feeling was somehow reward-system related, and would fuel a musician’s drive to excel. Like they try to play better and better to achieve that euphoria which only comes on when they do better than they ever have, with diminishing (dopamine?) returns, but, as a side-effect, increasing their practical talent to ever higher levels. So the musical prodigy over time becomes motivated more by the tangible rewards (fame, increased income), which will never compare to the feelings that made him choose that path in the first place. It would apply to many careers if it was a valid theory.
Oh no. I didn’t mean to imply anything that… Romanticised. Certainly for me, the returns from being able to play the guitar have increased as I’ve been able to play better.
Recently I started to notice this kind of third-person perception of situations where I explain things that I understand well enough. The perception is more vivid when the topic is unusual, things I might’ve thought about a lot but only rarely discussed in similar contexts. I’m guessing explanation of a familiar topic can run mostly on System 1, freeing System 2 to observe the performance, and unfamiliar circumstances make the performance more interesting, hence perception of it more vivid.