heath comments on Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation - Less Wrong

174 Post author: kalla724 11 April 2012 12:48AM

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Comment author: heath 13 April 2012 04:46:55PM 6 points [-]

Can I focus my attention on my attention and get compounding results? :)

Comment author: kalla724 19 April 2012 08:54:18PM 1 point [-]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/blr/attention_control_is_critical_for/6agl

Comment author: epigeios 23 April 2012 08:55:27PM *  13 points [-]

That's called learning how to meditate. And yes, it works wonders with cognitive ability and control of cognitive ability. The standard efficient process of learning how to meditate is:

  • Focus attention somewhere for as long as possible.
  • Move focused attention around from subject to subject, including inside your own body.
  • Spread your attention outward from the focused point, making sure to maintain attention on the focused point.
  • Scan your body. Just become aware of everything you observe when scanning; don't try to change anything.
  • Scan again and again. Keep trying to become aware of more and more, deeper and deeper, each time; until your get tired, or can't seem to find anything new.
  • Try to maintain awareness of your body and your surroundings in the present during daily life, while doing other things.
  • Continue doing the previous step for your entire life.
  • You have now completed the prerequisite to learn Taoist meditation, which is about learning how to directly change the things which you are able to pay attention to.

If you do this up to step 7, you will exponentially improve your ability to do everything and learn everything. If you choose to go on through step 8, you will continue exponentially increasing your ability to do and learn everything.

You may have noticed that I never mentioned "Quiet the mind/stop thinking". That's because the only reason most people should try to do that is to be able to focus their attention better. There's not really any other reason to quiet the mind. At the beginning level of Taoist meditation, uncontrolled thoughts are just another layer to pay attention to and observe. At the medium level of Taoist meditation, uncontrolled thoughts point to deep habits and tendencies which cause all of the social problems and drama everyone has, which the individual will then fix/remove.

Comment author: johnlawrenceaspden 03 April 2014 03:53:28PM 1 point [-]

This was a year ago now. Anyone tried it? Did it seem to work? Any tangible benefits (I don't crash my motorbike so often...) rather than feelings of inner wisdom?

Comment author: Acheron 07 May 2014 06:36:22PM *  2 points [-]

I didn't try Taoist meditation, but the meditation I did do seems remarkably similar to the above, and that definitely did help in a number of ways. Mostly I use it to manage my emotions, steer my thoughts into more productive ways, tell when I'm being irrational, or boost my concentration when working. However, it took bloody ages for it to pay off and even now I'm not sure if it was worth all the effort that went into it (well, the same holds true for reading less wrong I guess).

Also, once you remove the mysticism all meditation basically seems to boil down to: Become aware of the things going on in your head and body, and you may eventually become able to regulate them. However, I think I would actually count that as evidence in favour of that one thing actually working.

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