Group Rationality Diary, July 16-31

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for July 16-31.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Immediate past diary: July 1-15

Next diary: August 1-15

Rationality Diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for July 16-31.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Immediate past diary: July 1-15

Next diary: August 1-15

Rationality Diaries archive

I'm trying to use neurofeedback to become one of the people who can actually create images in their minds which they see vividly. My neurofeedback provider is promoting the dominant frequency in my visual cortex. She has done it four times so far. I think I can sort of almost see mental images, but I'm not sure.

One of the unexpected side effects I had trying marijuana for the first time was significantly more vivid mental imagery. Probably not particularly useful to you, but I just thought I'd mention it.

4Qiaochu_Yuan13y

One thing that could be helpful here is some external test of the vividness of your mental imagery. Is, for example, drawing a scene from memory known to be such a test? (I guess you'd have to get good at drawing first, but that might help with the imagery stuff too.)