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MattG comments on Group Rationality Diary, May 1-15 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: therufs 01 May 2014 02:42AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 01 May 2014 03:45:19PM *  5 points [-]

Good habits:
+Not only maintained but improved upon my exercise routine. Body weight focus twice a week, cardio focus twice a week, mixed exercises at least once a week, yoga and stretching daily, stretching every half hour at work. I was already slim so no real visual rewards yet, but I certainly feel good.
+Returned to reading the sequences after a break in which my lack of formal math training made it seem pointless. Almost through the Quantum Physics and the rewards have been quite good. The concepts have reached a point where they feel intuitive, maybe not on a gut level but at least on a reflex level. I'm glad for this because it also makes them easier to change/reject/assimilate when I learn more and understand better. The concepts of Many-World and Timelessness feel less like a fire and more like wood to burn for a more lovely fire. As do all concepts that I understand on a gut level.
+Begun to meditate.
-But have not optimized my meditation habit. Still need to improve upon it. -Dropped attempting to learn piano or Spanish as well as attempting to utilize more open source software such as Linux. The reasons were many but the results are still a negative.

Bad habits:
-Still involved in a habit that is a time sink but which I have a great emotional attachment too. Am currently determining my best course and cost and benefits of trying to optimize it or cutting it.

New evidence:
This one was hard on me. I've recently had some kerfluffles regarding job opportunities. When an opportunity suddenly opened for a job in my very very isolated, very poor hometown, I did not want to take it. My family pressured me to do so. However, I realize that my decision not to take the job was ignorant. It is an opportunity for money and work that I can terminate when something better comes along. While I know that the reasons my family wants me working at the job (nearness to home, isolation from my peers) are things I want to avoid, this is no reason I cannot utilize the job to maximize my own position.

New beliefs:
I'm currently updating my beliefs about the LW community and the related sister communities. I still have the sensation of an outsider looking in, but I find myself relating to or agreeing with more of the socially strange beliefs of the community. Not because they come from the community but because, as I read about these beliefs, I find they make sense. And as long as they make sense, I have no real choice but to accept that they seem to make sense until I find reasons that show them not to make sense.

FOLLOW UP EDIT:
I imagined which world I would most need my time sink habit in. After all, my time sink habit isn't something like smoking or video gaming addiction. It isn't directly unhealthy nor does it demolish my social life. It is merely and inefficient use of time and unsatisfying in the long term. However, it does provide some, short-term emotional satisfaction, and I can imagine a world where that small benefit outweighs the price. Some circumstances demand a short-term emotional reward to accomplish long-term goals.
So, I tried to picture the world I would have to live in to justify spending time for the small emotional benefit of the habit. The world that match is the one I am now in; that is, the situations I am now living through, where the habit already seems inefficient and unsatisfying in the long-term, are BEST suited for keeping the habit. They provide the most payoff for the least price.
If this is the best world for using that particular past-time, then clearly the past-time is not worth using, as part of this world is my desire to rid myself of it. So, I did. Any change in my world now will lead either to the habit being less desired or less needed. This was the only place it could have been worth having and there is no room for it here. So there is no room for it at all.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 May 2014 05:49:45PM 0 points [-]

I'm currently updating my beliefs about the LW community and the related sister communities. I still have the sensation of an outsider looking in, but I find myself relating to or agreeing with more of the socially strange beliefs of the community. Not because they come from the community but because, as I read about these beliefs, I find they make sense. And as long as they make sense, I have no real choice but to accept that they seem to make sense until I find reasons that show them not to make sense.

This is all good. You also have to be aware of frequency bias and confirmation bias. If you see the same argument a lot, and you see a bunch of evidence for that belief (because the stuff you're reading a lot has mostly positive evidence) of course beliefs are going to sound better.

When I first came to lesswrong (I do this with any community I encounter that has certain signs of a cult), I first look for counter arguments against their core beliefs, which gives proper perspective.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 May 2014 05:57:56PM 0 points [-]

This is probably, more than anything, the main trait I've noticed in the sequences. Repetition of concepts. Every other articles acts as a collector of what's been explored before. So, it becomes important to look away from the repeated and cached ideas, to make sure that they still hold up outside of an echo chamber.

The ones that still hold start to feel suspiciously more real than competing ideas. Doesn't make them perfect maps. Just better ones.