Good point! It could be that both kinds of mental exercise (excess stimulation and lack of stimulation) are important for building mental strength; modern society provides the former in abundance (and particularly so for LessWrong readers!), so the form of exercise we’re constrained on is the lack-of-stimulation kind (and that’s where meditation helps). How far-fetched does that sound?
Good point! It could be that both kinds of mental exercise (excess stimulation and lack of stimulation) are important for building mental strength; modern society provides the former in abundance (and particularly so for LessWrong readers!), so the form of exercise we’re constrained on is the lack-of-stimulation kind (and that’s where meditation helps). How far-fetched does that sound?