I’m driven by a passion for self-stimat and self-estime. My work explores motivation by weaving together information theory. I am a dyslexics Brazilian guy living in Argentina, writing in English for LessWrong feels like a paraplegic playing for the major leagues—ambitious, awkward, and, every now and then, a miracle of technology.
P. João
Karma: 139
0 Motivation Mapping through Information Theory
Thank you for the suggestion! Offering coaching is indeed a great way to test and refine the framework. If anyone is interested, I’d be happy to provide free coaching sessions based on this method.
We have an initial evaluation form that can serve as a starting point, and I can guide participants through it. I only ask for some patience as my dyslexia can sometimes slow communication slightly.
If you’re interested or know someone who might be, please feel free to contact me at sistemaestimat@gmail.com. Sharing your email would also help coordinate further.
Looking forward to exploring this opportunity!
Hi Matt Goldenberg,
I’m truly happy. In a world with so much information available, catching someone’s interest made me yell like a rooster.I see that having more tested evidence would be ideal. Since 2013, I’ve been looking for ways to battle-test ESTIMAT. That year, I had to leave the military firefighting corps in Brazil because I disagreed with their “ethics,” so to speak.
I decided to start a business, and at first, ESTIMAT was a way to distribute profits by merit in a company I started with a friend. We used an experience points (XP) system for this. Although I don’t have baseline metrics or a control group, I noticed that with this system, our dedication to the business increased. Later, we lost our supplier in China and couldn’t find competitive replacements.
That’s when I thought: Why not use a similar model to evaluate myself and improve my own experience (XP)?
To measure human skills, XP, and so on, I first pursued a postgraduate degree in neuroscience to explore how pleasure might form synapses in the brain. However, I lacked the mathematical background to make solid estimations.
I tried enrolling in a master’s program in biological mathematics but couldn’t find interested peers in my city. The groups I encountered were either focused on external mathematical problems or philosophy, but I couldn’t find one that connected both fields with human behavior.
I moved to Argentina and started studying math thinking to improve my mathematical skills. Since 2015, I’ve tested various versions of ESTIMAT. At one point, I evaluated myself every 25 minutes using the method. While this isn’t what I propose now, it helped me structure my values, identities, and virtues in a more sophisticated way. According to my personal improvement graphs, the results were incredible.
I have gigabytes of spreadsheets with data testing different ESTIMAT alternatives. Even my partner joined the process at one point. However, communicating these ideas was always challenging for me because I’m dyslexic. Now, with the help of AI and visual communication tools, I’ve been able to structure a text that seems more understandable to others.
I know these proofs are far from a randomized controlled study or a large-scale simulation, but they’re the best I could manage over these years.
Additionally, my main purpose in sharing ESTIMAT here is to understand what the rationalist community thinks about the theory. I want to identify potential major flaws before investing in a more expensive experiment or simulation.
Thanks! I’m working on the text!
Thanks for the feedback, abstractapplic. You’re right—adding real-world examples could make the dialogue feel more grounded, so I’ll focus on that in the revision.
The “Yolo” suggestion makes sense to capture the spirit of System 1 without unintended associations, so I’ll go with that.
Regarding Metaculus: it’s a good platform for practicing probabilistic thinking, but I think there might be value in a more structured self-evaluation to narrow down specific behaviors. Do you know of any frameworks that could help with that—maybe something inspired by Superforecasting?
As a non-native English speaker, I realize the phrasing might come across as a bit unusual. I’ve tried refining it with tools like Claude and GPT many times, but it can get complex and occasionally leads to “hallucinations.” Let me know if you have any tips for keeping it clearer. Which part of the text seems most confusing to you?
Haha, sorry and thank you! Maybe now:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WbQRxeCCmypgKrT7R/when-x-negotiatiates-with-y
Thank you so much for this insightful comment! Your words gave me just the encouragement I needed to go ahead with my post, and the references you mentioned were truly inspiring. Knowing about the tradition of using dialogues to explore complex ideas, from Gödel, Escher, Bach to Galileo’s Dialogue, helped me see the potential in this approach to reach different types of readers.
Thanks to your encouragement, I’ve now published my first post! I’d be thrilled to hear any feedback you have, as you so kindly offered. Here’s the link: When X Negotiates with Y. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you again for your support 😊.
I answered your email :)