Thanks for such a thorough response! I have enjoyed reading your stuff over the years, from all the spirituality-positive people I find your approach especially lucid and reasonable, up there with David Chapman’s.
I also agree with many of the object-level claims that you say spiritual practices helped you reach, like the multi-agent model of mind, cognitive fusion, etc. But, since I seem to be able to make sense of them without having to meditate myself, it has always left me bemused as to whether meditation really is the “royal road” to these kinds of insight, and if whatever extra it might offer is worth the effort. Like, for example, I already rate my life satisfaction at around 7, and this seems adequate given my objective circumstances.
So, I guess, my real question for the therapy and spirituality-positive people is why they think that their evidence for believing what they believe is stronger than that of other people in that field who have different models/practices/approaches but about the same amount of evidence for its effectiveness. Granted that RCTs aren’t always, or even often, easy, but it seems to me that the default response to lack of strong evidence of that sort, or particularly reliable models of reality like those that justify trusting parachutes even in the absence of RCTs, is to be less sure that you have grasped the real thing. I have no reason to doubt that plenty of therapists/coaches etc. have good evidence that something that they do works, but having a good, complete explanation of what exactly works or why is orders of magnitude harder, and I don’t think that anybody in the world could reasonably claim to have the complete picture, or anything close to it.
I have enjoyed reading your stuff over the years, from all the spirituality-positive people I find your approach especially lucid and reasonable, up there with David Chapman.
Thank you! That’s high praise. :)
But, since I seem to be able to make sense of them without having to meditate myself, it always left me bemused as to whether meditation really is the “royal road” to these kinds of insight, and if whatever extra it might offer is worth the effort.
Heh, I remember that at one point, a major point of criticism about people talking about meditation on LW was that they were saying something like “you can’t understand the benefits of meditation without actually meditating so I’m not going to try, it’s too ineffable”. Now that I’ve tried explained things, people wonder what the point of meditating might be if they can understand the explanation without meditating themselves. :) (I’m not annoyed or anything, just amused. And I realize that you’re not one of the people who was making this criticism before.)
Anyway, I’d say it’s one thing to understand an explanation of the general mechanism of how insights are gotten, and another to actually experience the insights from the inside in a way that shifts your unconscious predictions.
That being said, is it worth the effort for you? I don’t know, we kinda concluded in our dialogue that it might not be for everyone. And there are risks too. Maybe give some of it a try if you haven’t already, see if you feel motivated to continue doing it for the immediate benefits, and then just stick to reading about it out of curiosity if not?
So, I guess, my real question for the therapy and spirituality-positive people is why they think that their evidence for believing what they believe is stronger than that of other people in that field who have different models/practices/approaches but about the same amount of evidence for its effectiveness.
Good question. One thing that I’m particularly confused about is why me and Scott Alexander seem to have such differing views on the effectiveness of the “weird therapies”. My current position is just something like… “people seem to inhabit genuinely different worlds for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, so they will just have different experiences and priors leading to different beliefs, and often you just have to go with your own beliefs even if other smart people disagree because just substituting the beliefs of others for your own doesn’t seem like a good either”. And then hopefully if we continue discussing our reasons for our beliefs for long enough, at some point someone will figure out something.
My current epistemic position is also like… it would be interesting to understand the reason, and I don’t have a great model of where the disagreement comes from. And I’m happy to discuss it with people who might disagree. But it also doesn’t feel like a huge priority, given that I do feel convinced enough that these things work on a level that’s sufficient for me.
I have no reason to doubt that plenty of therapists/coaches etc. have good evidence that something that they do works, but believing that they have a good and complete explanation of what exactly works or why is orders of magnitude harder, and I don’t think that anybody in the world could reasonably claim to have the complete picture, or anything close to it.
and another to actually experience the insights from the inside in a way that shifts your unconscious predictions.
Right, so my experience around this is that I’m probably one of the lucky ones in that I’ve never really had those sorts of internal conflicts that make people claim that they suffer from akrasia, or excessive shame/guilt/regret. I’ve always been at peace with myself in this sense, and so reading people trying to explain their therapy/spirituality insights usually makes me go “Huh, so apparently this stuff doesn’t come naturally to most people, shame that they have to bend themselves backwards to get to where I have always been. Cool that they have developed all these neat theoretical constructions meanwhile though.”
Maybe give some of it a try if you haven’t already, see if you feel motivated to continue doing it for the immediate benefits, and then just stick to reading about it out of curiosity if not?
Trying to dismiss the content of my thoughts does seem to help me fall asleep faster (sometimes), so there’s that at least :)
Thanks for such a thorough response! I have enjoyed reading your stuff over the years, from all the spirituality-positive people I find your approach especially lucid and reasonable, up there with David Chapman’s.
I also agree with many of the object-level claims that you say spiritual practices helped you reach, like the multi-agent model of mind, cognitive fusion, etc. But, since I seem to be able to make sense of them without having to meditate myself, it has always left me bemused as to whether meditation really is the “royal road” to these kinds of insight, and if whatever extra it might offer is worth the effort. Like, for example, I already rate my life satisfaction at around 7, and this seems adequate given my objective circumstances.
So, I guess, my real question for the therapy and spirituality-positive people is why they think that their evidence for believing what they believe is stronger than that of other people in that field who have different models/practices/approaches but about the same amount of evidence for its effectiveness. Granted that RCTs aren’t always, or even often, easy, but it seems to me that the default response to lack of strong evidence of that sort, or particularly reliable models of reality like those that justify trusting parachutes even in the absence of RCTs, is to be less sure that you have grasped the real thing. I have no reason to doubt that plenty of therapists/coaches etc. have good evidence that something that they do works, but having a good, complete explanation of what exactly works or why is orders of magnitude harder, and I don’t think that anybody in the world could reasonably claim to have the complete picture, or anything close to it.
I think cognitive understanding is overrated and physical changes to the CNS are underrated, as explanations for positive change from practices.
Thank you! That’s high praise. :)
Heh, I remember that at one point, a major point of criticism about people talking about meditation on LW was that they were saying something like “you can’t understand the benefits of meditation without actually meditating so I’m not going to try, it’s too ineffable”. Now that I’ve tried explained things, people wonder what the point of meditating might be if they can understand the explanation without meditating themselves. :) (I’m not annoyed or anything, just amused. And I realize that you’re not one of the people who was making this criticism before.)
Anyway, I’d say it’s one thing to understand an explanation of the general mechanism of how insights are gotten, and another to actually experience the insights from the inside in a way that shifts your unconscious predictions.
That being said, is it worth the effort for you? I don’t know, we kinda concluded in our dialogue that it might not be for everyone. And there are risks too. Maybe give some of it a try if you haven’t already, see if you feel motivated to continue doing it for the immediate benefits, and then just stick to reading about it out of curiosity if not?
Good question. One thing that I’m particularly confused about is why me and Scott Alexander seem to have such differing views on the effectiveness of the “weird therapies”. My current position is just something like… “people seem to inhabit genuinely different worlds for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, so they will just have different experiences and priors leading to different beliefs, and often you just have to go with your own beliefs even if other smart people disagree because just substituting the beliefs of others for your own doesn’t seem like a good either”. And then hopefully if we continue discussing our reasons for our beliefs for long enough, at some point someone will figure out something.
My current epistemic position is also like… it would be interesting to understand the reason, and I don’t have a great model of where the disagreement comes from. And I’m happy to discuss it with people who might disagree. But it also doesn’t feel like a huge priority, given that I do feel convinced enough that these things work on a level that’s sufficient for me.
Yes I definitely agree with this.
Right, so my experience around this is that I’m probably one of the lucky ones in that I’ve never really had those sorts of internal conflicts that make people claim that they suffer from akrasia, or excessive shame/guilt/regret. I’ve always been at peace with myself in this sense, and so reading people trying to explain their therapy/spirituality insights usually makes me go “Huh, so apparently this stuff doesn’t come naturally to most people, shame that they have to bend themselves backwards to get to where I have always been. Cool that they have developed all these neat theoretical constructions meanwhile though.”
Trying to dismiss the content of my thoughts does seem to help me fall asleep faster (sometimes), so there’s that at least :)