I’ve sort of internalized the idea that everything is, at least in principle, a solvable problem. And more importantly, that this corresponds without conflict to the normal way that I go around being good and human when not operating under the rationalist guise.
I’d say rationalism often takes this in-principle role in my thinking, providing a meta-level solution to extremely hard problems that my brain is already trying to solve by non-rationalist means. In the example set by the recent months in my life, I’ve had an extremely hard time reconciling my knowledge that I’m the one to blame for all of my problems, with the idea that I shouldn’t feel guilty for not being perfect at solving all of my problems. This is a very human question that’s filled to the brim with mental pitfalls, but I’ve been able to make a little progress by recognizing that, by definition and method, instrumental rationality is actually equivalent to making myself good and awesome, whether or not the on-paper rationalist method is the one my brain is using most of the time. I’m better capable of realizing that the human inability to be theoretically optimal is subsumed by human rationality, that the only optimal that exists is the kind that is actual, and that all that is left to do is take the infinite stream of possible self-improvements you can think of and start checking them off the list.
And so, when faced with something that seems next to impossible to solve (e.g. finding somebody to love ) there’s no reason to blame the world, myself, or my proclivity to blame the world or myself. There’s only the chance to do the most possible fun thing, which is to enjoy the journey of being myself, where myself is defined as someone who ceaselessly self-improves, even when that means putting less pressure on myself to improve on the object level.
For a while the “weirdness” of Less Wrong made me want to shy away from really engaging with the people here, but I’d love for that to change. If everything is a solvable problem, and we only want to solve things that are problems, then either Less Wrong is just fine (and I can improve my perception), or it is sort of actually weird but can be improved. And I wouldn’t mind contributing wherever this is possible.
I’ve sort of internalized the idea that everything is, at least in principle, a solvable problem. And more importantly, that this corresponds without conflict to the normal way that I go around being good and human when not operating under the rationalist guise.
I’d say rationalism often takes this in-principle role in my thinking, providing a meta-level solution to extremely hard problems that my brain is already trying to solve by non-rationalist means. In the example set by the recent months in my life, I’ve had an extremely hard time reconciling my knowledge that I’m the one to blame for all of my problems, with the idea that I shouldn’t feel guilty for not being perfect at solving all of my problems. This is a very human question that’s filled to the brim with mental pitfalls, but I’ve been able to make a little progress by recognizing that, by definition and method, instrumental rationality is actually equivalent to making myself good and awesome, whether or not the on-paper rationalist method is the one my brain is using most of the time. I’m better capable of realizing that the human inability to be theoretically optimal is subsumed by human rationality, that the only optimal that exists is the kind that is actual, and that all that is left to do is take the infinite stream of possible self-improvements you can think of and start checking them off the list.
And so, when faced with something that seems next to impossible to solve (e.g. finding somebody to love ) there’s no reason to blame the world, myself, or my proclivity to blame the world or myself. There’s only the chance to do the most possible fun thing, which is to enjoy the journey of being myself, where myself is defined as someone who ceaselessly self-improves, even when that means putting less pressure on myself to improve on the object level.
For a while the “weirdness” of Less Wrong made me want to shy away from really engaging with the people here, but I’d love for that to change. If everything is a solvable problem, and we only want to solve things that are problems, then either Less Wrong is just fine (and I can improve my perception), or it is sort of actually weird but can be improved. And I wouldn’t mind contributing wherever this is possible.