Jonathan_Graehl comments on Urges vs. Goals: The analogy to anticipation and belief - LessWrong

80 Post author: AnnaSalamon 24 January 2012 11:57PM

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Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 24 January 2012 11:16:02PM 3 points [-]

And much the same way that a lot of craziness stems, not so much from "having a wrong model of the world", as "not bothering to have a model of the world", a lot of personal effectiveness isn't so much about "having the right goals" as "bothering to have goals at all" - where unpacking this somewhat Vassarian statement would lead us to ideas like "bothering to have something that I check my actions' consequences against, never mind whether or not it's the right thing" or "bothering to have some communication-related urge that animates my writing when I write, instead of just sitting down to log a certain number of writing hours during which I feel rewarded from rearranging shiny words".

Simple, useful preaching.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 26 January 2012 10:24:27AM 1 point [-]

I'd say it's useful, but that is not a simple explanation.

Comment author: Jonathan_Graehl 26 January 2012 08:32:01PM 3 points [-]

Perhaps I really meant "persuasive", not "simple".

Simple would be: Try to have a model of the world. Try to have goals. Don't worry yet about mistakes. By trying at all, you'll probably do better than most people.