You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

RichardKennaway comments on Stupid Questions, 2nd half of December - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: Bound_up 23 December 2015 05:31AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (186)

Comments (186)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 01 January 2016 01:31:50PM 0 points [-]

BMR won't affect this.

I'm not sure I follow your line of thinking on this.

I am arguing that the presence of biological control systems radically affects how things behave, in ways that may seem impossible to someone who is unaware of these concepts.

And so again, how is this different than anything in life? If I want to excel at math, I would need to devote X% more time, effort, resource than other people who are fortunate in this area. It would require great mental and physical effort for me. Same if I want to excel at long distance running. Or chess. Or ventriloquism. I'd be predisposed to success in some pursuits and at a deficit in others.

For some of those, you may not be able to succeed at them at all, regardless of how much effort you put in. The equations have no solution for X. The word "enough" is not a magic spell: sometimes there is no such thing as "enough to succeed".

Comment author: Brillyant 01 January 2016 10:17:18PM 0 points [-]

For some of those, you may not be able to succeed at them at all, regardless of how much effort you put in. The equations have no solution for X. The word "enough" is not a magic spell: sometimes there is no such thing as "enough to succeed".

I agree.

I think individual differences in BMR are a big part of why certain individuals have a more difficult time controlling their weight.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit