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Elo comments on Open Thread, Jul. 27 - Aug 02, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: MrMind 27 July 2015 07:16AM

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Comment author: Elo 31 July 2015 04:52:46AM *  4 points [-]

I travelled to a different city for a period of a few days and realised I should actively avoid trying to gather geographical information (above a rough sense) to free up my brain space for more important things. Then I realised I should do that near home as well.

Two part question:-

  1. What do you outsource that is common and uncommon among people that you know?
  2. What should you be avoiding keeping in your brain that you currently are? (some examples might be birthdays, what day of the week it is, city-map-location, schedules/calendars, task lists, shopping lists)

And while we are at it: What automated systems have you set up?

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 04 August 2015 12:45:44PM 4 points [-]

I was under the impression that "brain space" was unlimited for all practical intents and purposes, and that having more stuff in your brain might actually even make extra learning easier - e.g. I've often heard it said that a person loses fluid intelligence when they age, but this is compensated by them having more knowledge that they can connect new things with. Do you know of studies to the contrary?

Comment author: Lumifer 31 July 2015 02:46:47PM 3 points [-]

What do you outsource that is common and uncommon among people that you know?

A lot of little facts (of the kind that people on LW use Anki decks to memorize). I outsource them to Google.

I barely remember any phone numbers nowadays and that seems to be common.

What should you be avoiding keeping in your brain that you currently are?

Schedules / to-do lists. I really should outsource them to some GTD app, but can't bring myself to use one consistently.

Comment author: Romashka 03 August 2015 05:44:26PM 1 point [-]

Dunno about that; in my case information is either worth knowing (like 'what poplar tree marks the turn left to Epipactis palustris' - ideally outsourced to a map, but I would just get confused, or 'what kind of porridge to cook tonight given the kid rejected x, y and z' - ideally outsourced to a notebook, but there are too many details to bother with it) or worth losing.

When I am ill, though, I outsource my meds list to the fridge door. (Recipes and shopping lists, too, occasionally.)

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 02 August 2015 07:34:43PM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure whether it makes me a more satisfied/happy person if I out-source lots of things to devices. I agree that it is likely more efficient to delegate lots of memory work and planning habits to devices. But it also takes some of your autonomy away. It of course depends on the specific interaction and probably also on the person (some people may feel it quite natural to delegate tasks to (virtual) persons they trust). But as long as the out-sourced task affects you later in a non-adaptive way (and I judge this to be mostly the case) then this might not feel as natural as one might like.

See also my post about when augmentations feel/are natural.

Comment author: Elo 03 August 2015 03:41:15AM 0 points [-]

At some point you start outsourcing "enjoying things". Which is exactly what I would suggest not doing. maybe I wasn't clear - but don't outsource things that you don't want to. i.e. I like cooking so I will probably never outsource my food-making process because I like doing it myself. However I don't like shopping, so I could outsource that, and I could outsource cleaning up afterwards.