Posts

post-rational distractions 2019-04-02T02:26:17.121Z
obvious epiphanies 2018-07-07T03:05:23.271Z
Canberra Rationality Exercises 2018-02-03T02:55:27.183Z
Johnathon Blow - Introspection techniques for dealing with lack of motivation, malaise, depression 2017-10-13T07:21:25.559Z

Comments

Comment by nBrown on [deleted post] 2018-09-08T03:41:02.088Z

Great talk!

I feel excitement at noticing the existence of models that I don't yet have. As many of your "one-liners" felt like whole threads of their own:

  • The legacy code of floppy disks in nuclear silos. And how one might place greater trust in older systems.
  • The somewhat "naivety" of American society toward fake news. And whether that's a feature of high trust societies.
  • That perhaps the replication crisis may be viewed as a strength of the field of psychology for noticing the problem.
  • That CPU production is only possible due to the very large economies of scale. Is cpu production economical at the scale of 50 million people?

I also felt fear that we may be inside the Roman Empire so to speak.

It's fascinating that we use very different thinking when looking at the history / future / present. And that theories are evaluated against different criteria because of how our psychology treats different timeframes.

I'm guessing there's an equivalent of the status quo bias' "reversal test" that can be deployed for this temporal bias. The perspective you're stuck in because you happen to be a resident of the 21st century. Pretending you're a greek slave or a christian monk or so on.

Comment by nBrown on Interpretive Labor · 2018-09-07T10:43:38.024Z · LW · GW

Thanks for the writeup. The very next day after, the phrase "interpretive labour" occured naturally in my internal monologue. It's as if I'd been carrying around the concept hole / shape for quite a while.

"ahh finally, I've a way to refer to that thing." I wonder what thinking looks like before you have a handy pointer. You have to move the felt sense around all the time? A word coining seems like the creation of a central Blegg/Rube node in the network.

Wonder if some folks find interpretive labour enjoyable. Currently, I enjoy stream of consciousness writing much more than writing blog posts.

For me talking to non ingroup folks can sometimes be tiring because of the need to do interpretive labour / translate out of my native brain-speak on the fly. Though some people I know don't get tired by this.

Comment by nBrown on How to Build a Lumenator · 2018-08-13T05:41:27.394Z · LW · GW

As well as his original: YOU NEED MORE LUMENS (Mon, 12/07/2015).

Comment by nBrown on obvious epiphanies · 2018-07-10T00:51:52.565Z · LW · GW

You've created a monster.

Comment by nBrown on RAISE is looking for full-time content developers · 2018-07-10T00:50:52.888Z · LW · GW

huh, neat. thanks.

Comment by nBrown on RAISE is looking for full-time content developers · 2018-07-10T00:44:38.794Z · LW · GW

erratum: I think you mean $10,000 instead of $10.000 in the second paragraph.

Comment by nBrown on [deleted post] 2018-07-07T03:15:36.829Z

It felt slightly dated eg: power poses, proposing social commitment instead of internal trust (idc).

If you wrote this, imo your writing has seriously improved. :).

It could be because your thoughts moved in an *agrees with me* direction though.

Comment by nBrown on [deleted post] 2018-07-07T02:00:02.901Z

When was this document written?

Comment by nBrown on Last Chance to Fund the Berkeley REACH · 2018-06-28T00:09:52.669Z · LW · GW

Might want to state what a $2260 monthly gap means in terms of a patreon target. Perhaps, having one clear number might motivate folks. eg 6k/month or something.

pledged $20. edit: reduced to $10 for personal finance reasons.

Comment by nBrown on Noticing the Taste of Lotus · 2018-04-28T04:33:53.835Z · LW · GW

I'd been watching an improv comedy show on YouTube for some time. A family member walked past, and feeling somewhat embarrassed, I switched to an entertaining maths video. Pretty much immediately a wave of tiredness hit me, so much so I had to rest my head on my arms.

The lotus nature of the videos meant I had been ignoring my need for sleep for at least an hour.

I think lotus eating requires a lack of awareness. You feel that quiet tension, as if something's a little off. But once you're in, game over.

Comment by nBrown on My attempt to explain Looking, insight meditation, and enlightenment in non-mysterious terms · 2018-03-08T08:46:02.328Z · LW · GW

Looking became far less mysterious. Thanks.

Comment by nBrown on The Intelligent Social Web · 2018-02-22T23:26:35.128Z · LW · GW

Yay!

Comment by nBrown on Are you the rider or the elephant? · 2018-02-22T09:42:42.257Z · LW · GW

Do you think this elephant to elephant communication is a similar thing to what Valentine was talking about in Kensho?

Comment by nBrown on Notification update and PM fixes · 2018-01-26T12:02:02.793Z · LW · GW

awesome.

Comment by nBrown on Notification update and PM fixes · 2018-01-25T12:14:24.066Z · LW · GW

How do I unsubscribe from someone?

When visiting someones profile who I'm already subscribed to the only avalible option is "Subscribe to this user's posts". Clicking this makes "Unsubscribe to this user's posts" appears then disappears with an error "GraphQL error: Cannot query field "subscribedItems" on type "User"."

(apologies if this is not the right place for this type of question)

Comment by nBrown on Kenshō · 2018-01-21T11:03:17.517Z · LW · GW

This post really captured my attention. So much so I read it and most of the comments thrice.

Two of Valentine's claims:

A) Certan types of things are meta-cognitive blindspots (cfar jargon). For example, alcohol impairs your driving ability, it also impairs the ability to tell whether or not you're okay to drive. Given you've had N drinks, the feeling of "I'm okay to drive" is not to be trusted. Another example is recognising good outfits, If you're lacking in fashion sense you can't tell whether or not the clothes you are wearing look good, or even notice if your outfits are a problem.

It's a blindspot on the object level and the meta level. So how does your epsitemology deal with this? There's this new skill X however you need a certain ammount of X to realise X is a skill worth having.

B) There's this thing "Looking" that's hella beneficial. Really hard to tell you why.

I'm on board with A. So here's my take on "Looking":

My first time focusing, was a new kind of experience. In some sense I'd been doing it all along. But also it was totally new.

Looking at the phone screen is perhaps the talky part of my brain. You can't do focusing with only your verbal models. I've had a few experiences trying to teach focusing with similar responses to the ALEX dialogue above. You need to consult your gut. And feel your response to an issue physically and seek its name. This can't be done with only your verbal monalogue.

So I'm left in the positon, that there's some quality/flavour of experience I'm missing. It's seriously benficial. Or the process of updating your previous epistemology in this direction is benfical. I can see that these types of updates are very difficult to convey in words. Yet I don't have the qualia. alas. :)

Comment by nBrown on Kenshō · 2018-01-21T10:15:10.149Z · LW · GW

What kinds of things are good to Look at? My guesses:

your own thinking (as Val stated earlier), your close relationships, group dynamics, the world. Anything I've missed?

Comment by nBrown on TSR #9: Hard Rules · 2018-01-10T05:37:54.919Z · LW · GW

Reading endless fiction webcomics.

Comment by nBrown on [deleted post] 2017-12-25T10:17:45.312Z

Strong empathy with:

"anguished, torn, anxious, no-ground-beneath-my-feet feeling ... lose their grip on ... something ..."

I also described this feeling as "philosophies are sharp". I hadn't considered an oscillation model.

Updated more towards large unpleasant emotions can come from bad epistemics.

Comment by nBrown on [deleted post] 2017-10-21T08:36:17.912Z

Seriously grateful for all your posts so far. Very interesting novel content.
Somewhat saddened that we're coming to the end of the regular schedule. :)

Very curious about the particular character you use.
Though a no-comment response is totally legitimate act.

The whispering made me chuckle.

Comment by nBrown on [deleted post] 2017-10-20T01:16:29.940Z

Some group-rationality articles:

Quoting Sarah Constantin from The Craft is not the Community:

" “Company culture” is not, as I’ve learned, a list of slogans on a poster. Culture consists of the empirical patterns of what’s rewarded and punished within the company. Do people win promotions and praise by hitting sales targets? By coming up with ideas? By playing nice? These patterns reveal what the company actually values."

Also a segment from Melting Asphalt's wonderful Crony Beliefs.
What is the company culture of your mind?:

"By way of analogy, let's consider how beliefs in the brain are like employees at a company. This isn't a perfect analogy, but it'll get us 70% of the way there.

Employees are hired because they have a job to do, i.e., to help the company accomplish its goals. But employees don't come for free: they have to earn their keep by being useful. So if an employee does his job well, he'll be kept around, whereas if he does it poorly — or makes other kinds of trouble, like friction with his coworkers — he'll have to be let go."

Comment by nBrown on [deleted post] 2017-10-19T10:38:17.995Z

There is a technique called belief reporting developed by Leverage Research. My take is that it lets you check if you alief something. It involves intentions.

Intentions, briefly: Place a cup on the table. Hold the intention not to pick up the cup. Try to pick up the cup.
One of two things happens - you can't pick up the cup. Or you release the intention. If you can't pick up the cup you may feel a physical pressure. Straining against yourself.

Belief reporting is where you hold the intention to only say true things. I feel this as a firmness in my back. If I try to say "My hair is green" I won't be able to speak, and a kind of pressure develops in my chest. Perhaps this is a weak form of self-hypnosis.

I belief reported to all of the statements above. And found I was able to say more than five of the above while holding the intention to only speak the truth. Strange. my S2 does not endorse them at all. But I guess my S1 does.

Comment by nBrown on Beginners’ Meditation · 2017-10-15T00:57:59.789Z · LW · GW

Good signs you're playing on hard mode.
Though nature doesn't grade a curve.

I appreciate interlinking with other pseudo-cannon. SSC, Kaj, yourself etc.
Concepts are stronger in context.

Comment by nBrown on Making intentions concrete - Trigger-Action Planning · 2016-12-10T04:28:29.991Z · LW · GW

I often use this against the planning fallacy.

When: I'm quoting a time estimate: "I should be there at 2:15", "Hrmm we'll probably be done by 5" Then: Ah ha! How long did I take me to get there last time? or at least add 15 minutes.