Luke_Grecki comments on Vipassana Meditation: Developing Meta-Feeling Skills - Less Wrong

23 [deleted] 18 October 2010 04:55PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 18 October 2010 10:05:04PM 0 points [-]

But it doesn't suggest that any given change is an improvement.

I didn't claim this.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 18 October 2010 10:49:03PM *  1 point [-]

What was the purpose of your argument?

Comment author: [deleted] 18 October 2010 11:30:01PM 1 point [-]

It was just meant to point out the possibility of supplanting useful mental pressures (that could be disturbed my meditation) by more effective mental processes. I didn't mean to make any claim about whether we can reasonably expect to do this; I was just aiming to stimulate thought about the possibility.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 18 October 2010 11:35:43PM *  6 points [-]

I was just aiming to stimulate thought about the possibility.

(On a side note, this phrase is an anti-epistemic cliché, usually used to make a privileged hypothesis more salient.)

You don't need to "stimulate thought" about this, everyone already agrees. The reason that caused you to use this argument seems to be that meditation is on the side it argues for, but there is no merit to the argument itself, since it states the obvious and doesn't improve meditation's (or anything else's) case. Do you still endorse that argument as worth making?

More charitably, the original confusion probably started from interpreting wedrifid's comment as arguing for status quo, followed by an argument against status quo that would be correct given that assumption.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 October 2010 11:57:51PM 4 points [-]

Do you still endorse that argument as worth making, after this hypothesis about motive behind using it and its vacuousness was pointed out?

No. Thanks for being patient and clearing that up for me.

To sum up, it seems that due to (perhaps unconscious) motivated cognition I failed in at least two ways:

  • I didn't initially examine the purpose of my comment closely.
  • I didn't spot the vacuousness of my comment upon reflection before posting.
Comment author: [deleted] 19 October 2010 12:02:32AM *  2 points [-]

More charitably, the original confusion probably started from interpreting wedrifid's comment as arguing for status quo, followed by an argument against status quo that would be correct given that assumption.

FWIW I think that is how I understood wedrifid's comment, though I failed to articulate this when you asked me about my purpose.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 19 October 2010 12:06:50AM 2 points [-]

Then, it's incorrect that in context your argument was vacuous, since if one says that 2+2=5, it's still worth arguing that 2+2=4, however obvious that is. On the other hand, motivated cognition was still probably the cause of interpreting wedrifid's comment that way.