What subjects are unexpectedly high-utility?
post by FinalFormal2 · 2024-01-25T04:00:28.448Z · LW · GW · 6 commentsThis is a question post.
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Answers 4 SilverFlame 3 belkarx 2 ChristianKl None 6 comments
The very unexpectedly high utility subject for me was hypnosis. You have to learn and know very little in order to do some amazing things.
'If you want someone to like you just mirror their body language' is as easy to implement as it is to read, solves a common problem, and does it exceptionally well.
Are there other subjects which are similarly surprisingly powerful and implementable?
Answers
- Learning about the trigger conditions for serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, and cortisol, which allowed for more direct optimization away from cortisol activations
- Using method acting and other mimicry skills to more quickly learn from experts I was already trying to learn from
- Applying operating system architecture knowledge to my internal thinking patterns to allow more efficient multithreading and context switching
↑ comment by FinalFormal2 · 2024-01-26T17:37:50.614Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
These sound super interesting- could you expand on any of them or direct me to your favorite resources to help?
Replies from: SilverFlame↑ comment by SilverFlame · 2024-01-26T18:31:41.244Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
- Learning about the trigger conditions for serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, and cortisol, which allowed for more direct optimization away from cortisol activations
This idea started when I read this article I was pointed at by a coworker in 2020: The DOCS Happiness Model. I then did some naturalist studies with that framing in mind, and managed to reduce cortisol activations that I considered "unhelpful" by a significant degree. I consider this of high value to people who have enough control over their environment to meaningfully optimize against cortisol triggers.
- Using method acting and other mimicry skills to more quickly learn from experts I was already trying to learn from
This was mostly learned via self-experimentation.
This is a large part of what I call my "skill stealing" skill tree, which nowadays mainly focuses on training an IFS "voice" that possesses knowledge of the skill or skill set in question. The stronger forms of these techniques tend to eat a lot of processing cycles and make it hard to maintain other parts of a "self image" while you use them, so be wary of that pitfall.
If you do want to pursue it, remember to focus on aligning as many parts of your thought process in that field to the expert's thought process as seems appropriate instead of just becoming able to sound like them. There are a lot of layers and details to be mastered in this process, but even lesser forms can start showing value quickly.
- Applying operating system architecture knowledge to my internal thinking patterns to allow more efficient multithreading and context switching
This was mostly learned via self-experimentation.
This is performed by analyzing where there seems to be bottlenecks in my personal processing speed, and then doing some tests to see if I can nudge things towards a slightly different architecture to reduce the constraint. Which changes are needed and when seems to be pretty individual-specific, but here's some things I did:
- Practice switching between commonly-used headspaces to make such transitions more reflexive (and thus cheaper in both energy and time)
- Train a "scheduler" and figure out how to let it cut off trains of thought that aren't a priority at the moment (there are many pitfalls to doing this poorly, approach carefully)
- Start grouping my IFS "skillset voices" into semi-specialized "circles" I can switch between to partition which ones are "active" at different times, which saved processing resources during active calculations and reduced signal noise during queries; picture having different predefined parties to choose from in an RPG
In general, your guiding creed should be "know your constraints and know your capabilities".
The mimicry and OS architecture applications have borne a lot of fruit over the years, but they both can take time to yield their first fruit, even if they are a good fit for your setup. The mimicry tactics are probably useful to anyone who wants to benefit from cooperative experts, but the OS tactic doesn't seem as widely useful.
- the enneagram fears and motivations. Good compression of a lot of people.
- IMPROV
- better 3d sketching
- architecture (think burglar‘s guide to the city), urbex
- optics (lotsa good metaphors)
- signal processing
- abstract algebra
↑ comment by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2024-01-26T17:46:59.145Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
How is 3d sketching good? I don't understand. I guess it's like a whiteboard, but in 3d (I assume you are talking about the VR thing). Could you explain how you think this is useful? How have you used this in the past? What could you do using 3d sketching that you could not do before (or that got significantly easier to do).
Replies from: programcrafter, belkarx↑ comment by ProgramCrafter (programcrafter) · 2024-01-27T10:06:21.324Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I suppose 3d-whiteboard could be useful in allowing to connect more relevant subjects to each node (re: problem of four colours: countries on plane can be coloured in 4 different ways so that touching ones have different colour, and in space there's no such limit).
↑ comment by belkarx · 2024-02-01T10:31:16.855Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
This may be a me thing but I draw stuff out when I ideate (esp w hardware) and more dimensions -> better physical models -> better, faster iteration speed mental models
Replies from: johannes-c-mayer↑ comment by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2024-02-02T13:46:36.693Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
In principle, this seems quite plausible that it could be helpful. I am asking if you have actually used this and if you have observed benefits.
Replies from: belkarx↑ comment by FinalFormal2 · 2024-01-26T17:21:51.882Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Thanks for the response! Do you have any recommended resources for learning about 3d sketching, optics, signal processing or abstract algebra?
Replies from: belkarx↑ comment by belkarx · 2024-02-01T10:33:32.208Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Oh I totally forgot to mention control theory, add that.
- ctrl theory: brian douglas on yt
- 3d sketching: just draw things from models you'll get better QUICK
- optics, signal processing: I learned from youtube, choice MIT lectures, implementing sims, etc but there are probably good textbooks
- abstract algebra: An Infinitely Large Napkin (I stan this book so hard)
'If you want someone to like you just mirror their body language' is as easy to implement as it is to read, solves a common problem, and does it exceptionally well.
You can easily creep people out if you approach it that way. To do that well, you need to be perceptive of the effect you have on other people and change your approach if it causes issues.
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comment by m_arj · 2024-01-25T10:06:09.710Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Where should a rationalist start learning about hypnosis? Preferably a book.
Replies from: nim, ChristianKl↑ comment by nim · 2024-01-26T18:30:30.971Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Choose some trivial, popular self-improvement thing you want. Something you wouldn't mind changing about your cognition if it was easy, but wouldn't be heartbroken not to change if it didn't happen. Find some free self-hypnosis audio for it online, and skim a transcript of the script to make sure it's content you're ok with lowering your defenses toward. Then pretend to be the kind of person who just plain thinks it's interesting and worth a try, and listen to it and relax into it.
If you've practiced self-awareness and self-reflection, you will probably have the experience where the parts of your mind you watch yourself with remain normal, while the parts they're watching get lightly hypnotized. If all of you gets hypnotized, that's cool too, you're back to normal at the end of the audio and you might accidentally get a personal change you don't hate.
It's tempting to categorize hypnosis as an intellectual pursuit if you haven't interacted with it much, but it's really got a lot more in common with physical practices than mental ones. As with many physical pursuits, the important bits happen in the parts of human experience that are the hardest to transfer between minds through language, so reading about it will convey much less useful understanding than just giving it a try.
at least, I'm assuming you want to understand it. Some stuff, trying to understand from language is about as effective as trying to "understand" a cuisine by reading a cookbook that calls for a bunch of spices you're unfamiliar with. Skim the cookbook to make sure you're not allergic to any of the known ingredients, maybe, then just go visit the restaurant down the street.
↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2024-01-26T12:01:21.449Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
If there's a good book I would be happy to see suggestions, but in my experience I would expect that a book will help you in a similar way to a book on other skills like learning to dance Salsa, do a martial art like Judo, swim or ride a bicycle.
For hypnosis knowledge to be useful, you need the skill and that requires actual practice and not just intellectual understanding.
comment by nim · 2024-01-25T15:26:28.785Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
In reflecting on which subjects have been surprisingly powerful and implementable for me, I notice a pattern: Catching up my knowledge of subjects that I bounced off of rather than assimilating on prior encounters with them has disproportionate return.
Your example of connecting body language mirroring to likeability highlights how contextual the condition of "learn and know very little" is: If someone had less experience reading others' body language and managing their own, mirroring might be an extremely difficult task. But since you happen to have already paid attention to reading and managing body language, "how to use mirroring" is a missing link to connect those existing skills into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Your question and example read to me as "based on FinalFormula2's current skillset, which subjects will they be surprised at the power and ease of, because they don't have that skill yet but they do have all the high-effort prerequisites already in place?"
The trouble with trying to give answers you'll find good is that you've offered very little information about where you're at right now. To turn it around, what subjects seem more difficult than they should be to you?
Replies from: FinalFormal2↑ comment by FinalFormal2 · 2024-01-26T17:30:45.558Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
That's an interesting idea! I think it's really cool when things come easily, but I know it's not going to generally be the case- I'm probably going to have to put some work in.
My priority is more on the 'high-utility' part than anything.
Something that seems like it should be easy but is actually difficult for me is executive functioning- getting myself to do things that I don't want to do. But that's more of a personal/mental health thing than anything.
Replies from: nim↑ comment by nim · 2024-01-26T18:19:17.450Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
One approach that's helped me in the executive functioning department is choosing to believe that connecting long-term wants to short-term wants is itself a skill.
I don't want to touch a hot stove, and yet I don't frame my "not touching a hot stove" behavior as an executive function problem because there's no time scale on which I want it. I don't want to have touched the stove; that'd just hurt and be of no benefit to anybody.
I don't particularly right-now-want to go do half an hour of exercise and make a small increment of progress on each of several ongoing projects today, but I do frame that as an executive function problem, because I long-term-want those things -- I want to have done them.
It's tempting to default to setting first-order metrics of success: I'll know I did well if I'm in shape and my ongoing projects are completed on time, for instance. But I find it much more actionable and helpful to look at second-order metrics of success: is this approach causing me better or worse progress on my concrete goals than other approaches?
For me, shifting the focus from the infrequent feedback of project completion to the constant feedback of process efficacy is helpful for not getting bored and giving up. Shifting from optimizing outputs to optimizing the process also helps me look for smaller and more concrete indicators that the process is working. I personally find that the most concrete and reliable "having my shit together" indicator is whether I'm keeping my home tidy, because that's always the first thing to go when I start dropping the ball on progress on my ongoing tasks in general. Yours may differ, but I suspect that addressing the alignment problem of coordinating your short-term wants with your long-term wants may be a more promising approach than trying to brute force through the wall of "don't wanna".