= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Ach! I'm getting downvoted... is it because I emphasize everything? It can't be because of lack of structure, and it's definitely informative, and the paragraphs are even... The sentences are too long?
In response to
Learn A New Language!
I can scarcely imagine myself being fired up enough about something to use that much emphasis, so it seems unlikely your "get super motivated!!!" strategy will be very useful for me.
I like the paper, but am wondering how (or whether) it applies to TDT and acausal trading. Doesn't the trading imply a form of convergence theorem among very powerful TDT agents (they should converge on an average utility function constructed across all powerful TDT agents in logical space)?
Or have I missed something here? (I've been looking around on Less Wrong for a good post on acausal trading, and am finding bits and pieces, but no overall account.)
It does indeed imply a form of convergence. I would assume Stuart thinks of the convergence as an artifact of the game environment the agents are in. Not a convergence in goals, just behavior. Albeit the results are basically the same.
Who would win in a fight, Harry Potter-Evans-Verres, or the Harry Potter from Wizard People, Dear Reader?
I can drug myself into a state where I enjoy working on difficult projects all day, and I even enjoy it
Excellent. Which ones do you use? This is valuable anecdotal information.
Adderall XR, currently 40 mg per day.
I'm not actually as unhappy as the way I wrote that post might be read to indicate.
I'm not actually treading as softly as I would if I thought you were. ;) Try not to read me as speaking softly as if to a sad child, but as someone who's sharing evidence that might be useful.
I'm not sure I believe in actual values, except as revealed by actual actions. I do think of apathy as a mood, but it generally feels like moods are all that's... there.
This is pretty close what I meant by "the absolute absurdity of all goals"; if you hold no "actual", terminal values, than goals are silly. I identify more with myself-while-energetic than with myself-while-apathetic, even when I'm apathetic, and so I feel like I have some stable, difficult goals even when I don't feel like a care about them.
Exercise makes me tired.
Me too - but can you detect any effects about 6 hours later? Try and gauge it a few times. (At this point, I'm tempted to say "keep a diary of everything you do, and randomly sample your mood!" But I know quite well that only works when you've got enough baseline pathy to do it steadily.)
Socialization elevates my mood while i'm socializing, but afterwards there's a feeling of revulsion, an intellectual emptiness (even after socializing with smart people) and a mental itchiness as I shed the sociable personality I chameleoned into.
I'm definitely made tired by socializing with other people, but usually happier - a lot like how most people describe being tired but feeling good right after exercise. What you describe sounds like needing to work hard to spent time with people you don't actually like, which is tiring and unpleasant in the short-term and long-term.
This is pretty close what I meant by "the absolute absurdity of all goals"; if you hold no "actual", terminal values, than goals are silly. I identify more with myself-while-energetic than with myself-while-apathetic, even when I'm apathetic, and so I feel like I have some stable, difficult goals even when I don't feel like a care about them.
I think I'm the reverse, I identify more with myself-while-apathetic even while energetic. I can drug myself into a state where I enjoy working on difficult projects all day, and I even enjoy it, but it still doesn't feel like I have stable goals. Maybe that will change with time.
Then again, in this new brain-state I can bring myself to care about almost anything that's put in front of me. Instead of caring about nothing, regardless of how important, I care about everything, regardless of how trivial. If nothing else presents itself as a task, I can easily spend the better part of an hour rewording a paragraph in hundreds of different permutations until I find the one that's best (regardless of what that paragraph is about).
I don't feel like my apathy is abnormal in and of itself, but combined with being more aware of the big picture, and thinking more about the future, it seems more troubling. Most people have nothing but the life in front of their noses, working at a grocery store or whatever, and so their listlessness is entirely natural. I'm different. Like you, and like many people on this site, I have vision, I can see that the world is at a crossroads and that I have the potential to change its course. And yet, I still feel nothing, while it seems like the rest of you are enthusiastic.
I'm definitely made tired by socializing with other people, but usually happier - a lot like how most people describe being tired but feeling good right after exercise. What you describe sounds like needing to work hard to spent time with people you don't actually like, which is tiring and unpleasant in the short-term and long-term.
I do genuinely enjoy it while I'm doing it, there's just an unpleasant aftereffect. But maybe you're right, and I don't actually like any of these people. If that's the case, I'm not sure what to do, though. If I don't actually like anyone I've met, what does that mean? That I have a personality disorder? That everyone else sucks?
Hi Postal_Scale,
I've had pervasive apathy before, and it sucks. I'm sorry you're so bored and frustrated. If you want to be less apathetic, some books I would recommend reading are What Color is Your Parachute?, Flow, and The Renaissance Soul. Parachute can help you identify tasks that you would enjoy working on, Flow can help you identify ways of enjoying otherwise boring experiences that don't require you to play Carnegie-esque self-cheerleading games, and Renaissance Soul can help you figure out how to balance a shifting array of temporary, conflicting, weakly held recreational interests.
As far as practical techniques, I sometimes fight intense apathy by going for a 60-90 minute walk in no particular direction. I'm able to power it using "anywhere but here" contempt, so it doesn't necessarily require any positive energy...but I find that after an hour or so I am usually able to identify at least one thing that I care about, and it tends to improve my mood. On the off chance that you really are in a dissertation program right now, you might want to find something concrete and immediate that you can work on for a few hours a week, like Habitat for Humanity, or a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle. I have also been in graduate programs, and if I go for too long without accomplishing something tangible (however irrelevant in the cosmic scheme of things), I forget what accomplishment even feels like, and so I lose motivation to plunge ahead on abstract tasks with real but delayed payoffs.
Best wishes, Mass_Driver
Thanks for the tips. I actually used to do the "anywhere but here" walk in no particular direction thing myself, although in my case rather than a length of time I'd generally walk until i got lost.
It never really improved my mood though, it just killed time.
Once I walked for 11 hours and ended up at a venetian blind factory.
If I read you correctly, then I know this mental state well indeed.
If it feels like nothing has any terminal value -- or, at least, not enough terminal value to be worth working towards -- then this is probably a function of your mood rather than your actual values.
This is not, of course, what it feels like. From inside that state, blaming your mood for your apathy sounds like bullshit. That apathy is a possibly-sad, but reasonable, response to the frequent futility of action, or the sheer self-supporting shittiness of the world, or (at best) the absolute absurdity of all goals.
During a solid year of college, I actually started taking notes about what seemed to affect my moment-to-moment mood most strongly. The stablest, strongest factors were whether or not I had exercised, socialized, or achieved a new goal in the past two days. I've since structured my mornings and evenings around doing these things regularly, and have been vastly happier.
Now, I've seen these specific activities recommended by other people to improve mood, but among dozens of others. They're pretty good places to start, but I actually suggest finding what works for you. I do strongly suggest trying this, though: working towards ends I deeply care about is far more satisfying for me than practically anything else, but I don't actually care about those ends unless I'm in a good enough mood. I suspect most people are the same way.
I'm not sure I believe in actual values, except as revealed by actual actions. I do think of apathy as a mood, but it generally feels like moods are all that's... there.
I'm not actually as unhappy as the way I wrote that post might be read to indicate. The swearing was meant in the tone of carelessness, not anger, though admittedly when I see other people swear in text I tend to read it as anger as well.
Exercise makes me tired. Socialization elevates my mood while i'm socializing, but afterwards there's a feeling of revulsion, an intellectual emptiness (even after socializing with smart people) and a mental itchiness as I shed the sociable personality I chameleoned into. Achieving a new goal feels like water tastes.
My mood improves when I find or think of something funny or interesting, but as a jaded internet addict this is a fairly high bar, and it doesn't really motivate me to do anything other than search more of the space that had the funny and interesting thing in it, which is procrastination most of the time.
Recently i've found my productivity and mood are both significantly enhanced by amphetamines, though I cannot attest to the long-term effectiveness of this strategy.
In response to
My Algorithm for Beating Procrastination
None of this kind of shit ever works for me, because it seems to assume I'm a bright-eyed go-getter at heart, blundering about and playing video games when I know I should be writing my dissertation, and oh, if only there were an equation made of words that would show me the problem with my motivation pathways. (And if only the post title would change three times so it shows up thrice in my RSS feeds!)
Instead, it's more of an all-pervasive apathy that seems to go all the way to my terminal goals. I think "what do I really want to be doing right now? where do I want to be at the end of the day, or the end of the year?" and there's just nothing there.
HEY, I HAVE AN IDEA! LET'S SEE HOW MANY STAMPS WE CAN LICK IN AN HOUR, AND THEN TRY AND BEAT THAT RECORD!!1
This. I'm skeptical of almost every numerical probability estimate I hear unless the steps are outlined to me.
No joke intended, but how much more skeptical are you, percentage-wise, of numerical probability estimates than vague, natural language probability estimates? Please disguise your intuitive sense of your feelings as a form of math.
Ideally, deliver your answer in a C-3PO voice.
View more: Next
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
One thing is for sure: whether in a good way or a bad way, cryonics is your ticket to adventuretown! Books and movies agree.