I like this question, because I should get better at this myself. Since this sort of thing does require some time and effort, I'll focus on low-hanging fruit - the traits I most want to improve. While we're waiting for someone who has more experience with this, here are two nice articles I found:

http://quantifiedself.com/2011/04/how-to-self-experiment/

http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/11/14/quantified-self-how-to-designing-self-experiments/

Just as you can describe the movement of the planets with a few simple equations

and

algorithmic analysis

Will you make top level comments for both of these, so that people can vote on them? (I can do it, but I figure you should get any karma from the upvotes)

I also agree with Ilya on the important algorithmic ideas, with one addition: algorithmic analysis. Just as you can describe the movement of the planets with a few simple equations, and that's beautiful, you can describe any sequence of steps to finish a task as an algorithm. And you can mathematically analyze the efficiency of that sequence: as the task gets larger, do the number of steps required to finish it grow linearly, quadratically, logarithmically (we hope)?

This is a broadly applicable and powerful idea, since pretty much everything (even learning) involves a sequence of steps or process.

I am currently enjoying Tim Roughgarden's course on algorithms: https://www.coursera.org/course/algo. Luay Nakhleh's course on Algorithmic Thinking is also excellent: https://www.coursera.org/course/algorithmicthink.

As Ilya recommended, a great choice for programming in general is the legendary Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (aka SICP, aka "the wizard book"). Here is an interactive version: https://xuanji.appspot.com/isicp/. (You can find solutions to the problems here, but of course use sparingly if at all: http://community.schemewiki.org/?sicp-solutions)

If you benefit from more instruction than a solo journey through SICP, I cannot recommend highly enough MIT's Introduction to Computer Programming course, which remains one of the best educational experiences I have ever had: https://www.edx.org/course/mitx/mitx-6-00-1x-introduction-computer-5626

If a field involves math, and you cannot do the math, you are not qualified to comment on that field.

+1 to this post.

The basic math of neural networks

Learn about first and second derivatives and finding a maximum of a function. Then think about how you might find a maximum if you can only make little hops at a time.

Learn a little linear algebra (what a matrix inverse, determinant, etc. is). Understand the relationship between solving a system of linear equations and matrix inverse. Then think about what you might want to do if you have more equations than unknowns (can't invert exactly but can find something that's "as close to an inverse as possible" in some sense). A huge chunk of stuff that falls under the heading of "statistics/machine learning/neural networks/etc" is basically variations of that idea.

Some common computer science algorithms

Read Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: one of the highest concept/page density for computer science books.

Important algorithmic ideas are, in my opinion: hashing, dynamic programming/memoization, divide and conquer by recursion, splitting up tasks to be done in parallel, and locality (things you want at a particular point are often close in space and time).

Locality is sort of like "a smoothness assumption on access." The reason your laptop is fast even though your hard disk is slow is due to locality being generally true.

"I will always link to my ingroup", says Scott. So it is with me: I always recommend learning about association vs causation. If you are into learning by doing, try to find some media articles that make claims of the form "scientists report that to [Y], do [X]," and look up the original study and think about if the media claim actually follows (it generally does not). This will also give you practice reading empirical papers, which is a good skill to have. Stuff the authors do in such papers isn't magic, after all: the set of statistical ideas that come up over and over again in them is fairly small.

he was also a literal child prodigy

Don't think like that. There are no wizards, just people doing sensible things.

I'm just turning 30. I spent my 20s in education (undergraduate and law school) and the Army. I'm now interested in technology and entrepreneurship. For several years, I was extremely frustrated that I didn't know any math or programming: my humanities background felt like a huge waste of time. In other words - I really feel your frustration at being "behind the curve."

However, even a third of the way through life isn't too late to change course - remember, you and I are only a decade past the normal college years, when most people learn their trade. It'll be challenging to catch up, but not impossible. I finished my legal job a few months ago, and now I'm living out of my home country in a cheaper location, taking MOOCs to learn to program.

(I couldn't agree more with your definition of failure, by the way: if people find meaning in joining a corporate giant and working their way up, great, it is actually quite impressive, but it would kill me.)

From reading your post, it sounds as though you more-or-less know what you would like (am I wrong?): to make some more money, hold a more-or-less prestigious position, get published more, and/or get into a good graduate program in journalism (?). But you struggle with the effects of your past, and you don't see a clear position forward, since you lack money and credentials. Those are real challenges.

I think posting your question on LW is a great first step. You, and your chosen path, are not "normal," and family and friends often just are not open to alternative career paths. Many people simply cannot imagine legitimate careers that stray from the beaten path. Getting a sanity check by finding like-minded people can be encouraging and strengthening. I don't know how many friends you have who are supportive of your desire not to work in a soul-crushing job for 30 years...excuse me, I mean, your desire not to "work responsibly"...but if you don't have many, then please keep reaching out. There are lots of people like you. (feel free to message me)

In fact, perhaps you should travel elsewhere, long-term. In a new place, with new people, a different schedule, things might look different. Scandinavia sounds nice...

Finally, I have often read that daily writing is the single best practice for a writer. So you could set yourself the project of figuring out motivation/self-modding to get yourself to do that. The writer's redemption: if you write something well, then who cares about the rest of your life?

As Dorikka ackowledges above, personal notes often use a hard-to-read shorthand (I know mine do). I have roughly translated this note to a form I can more easily understand, below.

"Mind-states are non-stable with respect to attributes valued by some agents." People change their minds and selves, in important ways.

"This is true not only with respect to death, etc but also biological/chemical changes that occur perpetually, causing behaviors in the presence of identical stimuli/provocations to differ substantially." People's minds change, not only when they die and hence cease to exist, but also when they just, you know, change their minds and behaviours, so they act differently at different times, even though everything else is the same.

"The English language (and many other human languages) seem to hide this by their use of "pronouns" and names (handles) for humans and other objects deemed sentient which do not change from the moment the human/animal/etc is born or otherwise appears to come into existence." If you change your mind, you are a little bit different than before. But we still call you by the same name. Something has been lost - some unique constellation of thought, some pattern of behaviour, personality attribute - but language "hides" the loss by pretending you are the same person.

"As a result of this, efforts to preserve mind-states are unsuccessful while they allow mind-states to change (replacing one state with another, without retaining the pre-change state). Even given life-extension technology such that biological death is prevented, this phenomenon would likely continue - technology to preserve all mind-states as they came into existence would likely be more difficult to engineer than such required to attain mere immortality." What we need is GitHub for minds! Version control would let us change who we are, without losing the old selves. (For those who don't know, Git (among other version control systems) allows you to save (and preserve) file changes as you go. You can easily see the difference between old and new code, merge two different codes, and other cool stuff I don't know about.) But making Git for minds will probably be much harder than immortality.

"Yet agents may also value the existence (and continued existance) of mind-states which have never existed, necessitating a division of resources between preserving existing mind-states and causing new ones to exist (perhaps variants of existing ones after they "have a (certain) experience")). Agents with such values face an engineering/(resource allocation) problem, not just a "value realization" problem." And if we did make GitBrains, we'd have to decide whether to forge new paths ahead, mentally speaking, or spend time and resources backing up our current/past minds. Tough choices.

"Also consider that humans do not appear to exist in a state of perpetual optimization/strategizing; they execute, and the balance between varying methods of search and execution does not appear to be the result of such a process..." As we know, we're not always very strategic about how we change ourselves. We just sort of act - or rather, we are acted on as we encounter behavioural cues which cause us to change. If your mind and behaviour are being changed by environmental cues in ways that don't further your values, you could get a lot of benefit by changing your environment.

"Behaviors (actions following, or in anticipation of, certain c/p) are often not the result of conscious strategy/optimization..." Finally, you don't always act in a strategic and well-planned manner. Even if you have such plans, your methods of searching and exploiting good opportunities for yourself may not take into account your irrational subconscious and emotions, which don't have such strategic plans. Bugger.

All of this adds up to: no good ways of preserving your self at any one time, and great difficulty in changing your self in ways you want to change yourself. So you can't easily go back to a better previous version of yourself, and you can't be sure you will successfully make a better future version of yourself. This formulation of the problem is clear, though not original - but I agree that version control for my self could come in handy. "Boy, am I irritating...I'm backdating to Self -2 years. Let me try that again."

As for the miracles, learning about how modern cults spread was very eye-opening. You can watch baby religions get born, and you can see the elements of human psychology that cause people to believe in miracles and to believe other people who believe in miracles. It's not just "oh, you can debunk some miracles" - it's that you can see precisely how miracles get born and their stories spread. If it happens this way now, it probably happened that way then. I found this to be empirical evidence against miracles. An argument in favor of miracles must not only establish a probabilistic argument about the universe, but it must also establish that observable tendencies of humans did not occur on this occasion.

Yep. I tried to articulate a similar point in an open thread not long ago. This became the lynchpin of my non-belief. It became unnecessary to debunk each individual claim, rather I came to better understand the psychology behind why people tend to believe in such claims, and religion writ large.

Joseph Campbell, Ernest Becker, Michael Shermer (and a bunch of the "New Atheist" gang) have all been helpful to me.

I now believe that pinpointing a gut-level bias, an irrational belief that conjures up truly plausible reasoning, and targeting that gut feeling instead of the reasoning, is an extraordinarily difficult and valuable skill. I have done it twice now (once with religion). I think few people have done this, rationalist or otherwise. I think you may need to do this. Focus on your emotional fears rather than the complex intellectual doubts, and with a bit of time you may find things look different.

I'm curious what other belief, besides religion, you targeted?

This is well stated, by the way. I've found it hard to articulate around here (and other places). Indoctrination seems to plant a seed that is (almost) immune to purely rational debunking. As long as God, hell, etc. are non-zero probabilities, there is a deep emotional, fear-filled urge to cling to the "what if?" of one's childhood religious upbringing.

You have to find a way to examine the indoctrination itself, not it's manifestations...since there will always be theological gymnastics ready to thwart rational and logical arguments. God is mysterious. God requires faith. God knows your thoughts and motives. You need to look into the "why" God must exhibit these characteristics in order that the religion meme survives. A sufficiently evolved God meme will always survive rational attack—those gods who didn't are no longer feared or worshiped.

This isn't just idle curiosity. I am currently a Christian (or maybe an agnostic terrified of ending up on the wrong side of Pascal's Wager), and when you actually take religion seriously, it can be a HUGE drain on quality of life. I find myself being frightened of hell, feeling guilty when I do things that don't hurt anyone but are still considered sins, and feeling guilty when I try to plan out my life, wondering if I should just put my plans in God's hands. To make matters worse, I grew up in a dysfunctional, very Christian family, and my emotions seem to be convinced that being a true Christian means acting like my parents (who were terrible role models; emulating them means losing at life).

As a former Evangelical Christian, I wonder if this isn't the crux of it all.

Of course it's possible real faith healings and resurrections have taken, and are taking, place somewhere on the globe. It's possible that these miracles are happening due to the power of a supernatural entity. And it's possible this supernatural dude is best described by the Christian Bible.

It's going to be difficult for you to dismiss these possibilities no matter how small because you've (presumably) been indoctrinated to believe in things like eternal conscious torment in hell, let alone the guilt/shame/fear associated with all sorts of "secular" worldviews and rational thinking. Indoctrination is very powerful, and it can wreak havoc with your emotions long after your rational mind has (all but) dismissed religion's claims as fairy tales.

The rest of LW has provided, and will provide, plenty of reasons to seriously doubt miracle claims. But religious memes have evolved to survive such skepticism—they are clever enough to avoid being pinned down...they escape and get passed on. They are hard to dismiss and tempting to believe in.

The reality is, there is some non-zero probability that the power of Jesus Christ through prayer raised someone, somewhere, from the grave. And this would provide some evidence of the veracity of Christianity...and this would make hell into a bit more realistic threat...and hell (at least in many Fundamentalist churches) is beyond the worst conceivable punishment...

So, for those who were indoctrinated, Pascal's Wager is a pretty good bet according to the simple math. Believe! Do anything you must do to avoid an infinitely bad eternity in hell! No matter how slight the probability, it makes sense to at least try to believe and "live according to God's plan." It's a mathematically sound wager. (Most Christians I talk to end up revealing Pascal's Wager as the basis for their belief if you dig a little bit. Most start off with flowery sounding stuff about "God's love", etc... but if you push beyond that, they paraphrase the Wager, even if they've never heard of Blaise Pascal.)

For those who don't "take religion seriously", it's pretty easy to make this bet. They just go with the flow and reap the social and psychological benefits of church and faith. If the church gets too demanding, they leave and find a church/denomination that is more accommodating to their lifestyle.

For those who can actually wrap their heads around the implications (hell, etc.) of a Universe ruled by the God of the Bible—for those who take that religion seriously—it's quite a difficult dissonance to resolve when rational thought collides with some of the fantastical claims of faith.

You seem to have compiled a pretty good-sized list of rational reasons to doubt...but you'll never prove God doesn't exist. And there will always be sophisticated sounding theological gymnastics available to provide reasons for why you just need more faith even though things don't seem to make much sense (i.e. God doesn't cure Ebola because..., God never raises someone from the dead in a developed country with pristine medical records and lots of evidence because..., God doesn't heal amputees because...).

I went through something like what you are experiencing. It's very difficult—anxiety and fear galore. After this will come the existential void/sigh of relief phase. Then some anger. Then it gets better. Check out Marlene Winell and Valerie Tarico. Good luck!

Just a reminder that dental cavities are encouraged by increasing the length of time your teeth are exposed to sugar and that it takes about 20 minutes or so to really flush your mouth with saliva, so lots of small sugary snacks is significantly worse for your teeth than sitting down and just eating an entire bag each day.

With all due caution, you could also try using nicotine the same way you're currently using M&Ms (Gwern on the subject), perhaps occasionally dosing yourself in the second half of a pomodoro as someone else suggested. The downside of this is that nicotines addictive potential may make it harder to not take it when you're slacking off. Definitely do not use tobacco as your nicotine delivery system.