ChristianKl comments on Trying to Try - Less Wrong

42 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 October 2008 08:58AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 15 August 2016 08:16:38PM *  0 points [-]

Mediation and trying to be hypnotized are the only examples I can think of, and even in mediation instructions, you are toled to focus on you breathing, or something, because doing nothing is too hard.

Being told to focus on breathing is indeed the version of meditation that's popular for teaching beginners because it's an easy entry. It isn't too hard. There are harder version to mediate that don't work via easy prompts.

The same goes for "Just be yourself" it's too hard to expect the other person to do it, so you give them another prompt. But generally good social advice is more targeted to the individual person.