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C&H also had the 'duplicator' storyline (about cleaning rooms and going to school, IIRC), which was the OP but much more so.
[LINK] Being No One (~50 min talk on the self-model in your brain)
Summary: This is a ~50 minute talk (plus some introductory ado) by Thomas Metzinger on the problem of the experiencing, subjective self (why it exists, what it even means, how it arises). Not to be too cliché, but he attacks the problem by dissolving the question, and the solution he arrives at sounds a lot like how an algorithm feels from inside.
Using several examples from neuroscience (particularly the many illuminating failure modes of the brain), he explains how the brain models the self and its place in the center of experiential space. He discusses the limitations of our access to our own cognitive systems, and how those limitations force us to be naive realists.
I hesitate to summarize further, because there is a lot of value in hearing the entire argument. (I will say that he gets a little cute at the end, but that doesn't detract from the excellent content.)
Link: Being No One on Youtube.
(Normally I think LWers dislike the talk format because it's inherently time-consuming, but I'd say this one is information dense and well worth your time.)
I read a lot of C&H growing up, and looking back at it, I'm surprised at how many interesting ideas it contains. I wonder how much of my present self was shaped by having these ideas implanted at age 8 or 9...
In response to
More intuitive explanations!
Steven Strogatz did a series of blog posts at NY Times going through a variety of math concepts from elementary school to higher levels. (They are presented in descending date order, so you may want to start at the end of page 2 and work your way backwards.) Much of the information will be old hat to LWers, but it is often presented in novel ways (to me, at least).
Specifically related to this post, the visual proof of the Pythagorean theorem appears in the post Square Dancing.
I would say that for instance I don't believe that most alt med stuff works but this is exactly the reason I care that others know this and how we know this. This attitude infuriates me.
The fact is that there are many battles worth fighting, and strong skeptics are fighting one (or perhaps a few) of them. (As I was disgusted to see recently, human sacrifice apparently still happens.) However, I also think it's ok to say that battle is not the one that interests you. You don't have the capacity to be a champion for all possible good causes, so it's good that there is diversity of interest among people trying to improve the human condition.
The amount of worry and anxiety some people have in regard to their problems (say, health or financial problems) might not be healthy at all, and might lead to depressive moods. And yet, avoiding those problems by avoiding to think about them would be really bad.
Rumination and worrying are a habitual, unmindful and irrational type of thinking. They are just replaying cached thoughts, and that shouldn't even be dignified by being called "thinking". It's not good for depressed people, for anxious people or for anyone else. I absolutely agree that one shouldn't dwell on such thoughts. I'm just saying that instead of automatically stopping your thoughts, or doing anything automatically, one should have at least one good look at those thoughts and think. And I mean think mindfully, rationally and critically. I'm not saying one should necessarily think about the "problem", but rather about the thoughts themselves. Are they rational? How would I think about that if I weren't depressed? And no, don't feel depressed about being depressed or worry that you will never stop worrying ;-). Once that's done, you can let that thought drop, but not before.
Thanks for the clarification, I see what you mean. The distinction between repetitive, droning thoughts and actively reasoning about the problem makes sense.
In response to
How to label thoughts nonverbally
I think there is a real danger of avoiding unpleasant thoughts/feelings. You mentioned meditation. When I find myself thinking of something during meditation, I try to reestablish my focus and in the process I just drop the thought. I think that's correct during formal meditation, but dropping an unpleasant thought after noting it in daily life is wrong, as it leads to avoidance.
See the emotinal acceptance article that eugman linked to on why avoiding bad feelings is bad. If you feel sad because your dog died, just not thinking about it might be acceptable. But if you feel anxious because there is a deadline coming, ignoring the situation only makes it worse. If not-thinking is an automatic habit you can't distinguish between those two situation.
So the first thing to do after noticing that you thought something that makes you feel bad should be to not flinch away. If it's an irrational thought, dealing with it rationally probably keeps that particular thought from arising again for a while. If it's a rational and valid concern you should probably do something about it! If you can't (say, you are at work, so you can't do your taxes) you might feel bad, but I think not training yourself to avoid the problem is worth feeling a little bad (otherwise you might not do you taxes even when you are home).
I think eugman is more referring to negative thoughts that cycle through a depressed person's head on a regular basis. They're messages that remind you that you're a failure, you let people down, you're not going anywhere, and they play through your brain almost all your waking hours.
The negative thoughts you described are the ones that healthy people encounter in real, negative situations that must be dealt with. In that case, rumination is appropriate and finding rational solutions is desirable. But when your brain is essentially buggy and constantly replaying cached, (often incorrect or completely out of proportion) negative beliefs, it might be entirely appropriate to forcibly jump to another track instead of dwelling on it.
Put another way, in a depressed brain, rumination and focus on the "problem" is the default mode of operation. Sometimes it eventually yields positive solutions, but frequently it's more of a death spiral. Short circuiting that kind of process seems entirely reasonable to me.
What percentage of educated Westerners would you guess are to the right (as operationalized below) of you on economic questions?
Sorry, I find this survey terrible. I don't know how to answer most of the questions. Questions like the above require me to have more knowledge than I personally have (about the internal state of billions of educated Westerners). You are supposed to do this work for us by asking 5 to 10 representative questions with which we can strongly agree/strongly disagree, etc, and then use that information to categorize responders.
The way this survey is written I don't even feel comfortable submitting my response, because the percentages are wild guesses. Further, I don't even know what it means to be "left" or "right" on race and gender issues. Also, the categories in the first part contain multiple, sometimes conflicting labels. It's really hard to know how to respond to those, as well.
I say all this as someone with concrete political beliefs! If you asked me specific questions, I would happily answer them. But I'm not comfortable speculating about the political beliefs of people occupying an entire hemisphere.
There's not point being annoyed at nature, but a precommitment to revenge is useful.
This is the subtext implied in the saying, "A Lannister always pays his debts," from A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Margin. It is frequently applied in the context of compensating someone for helping one of the Lannisters, but it also functions as a warning against misdeeds.
In response to
How rationality can make your life more awesome
This is a good summary, but a post like this is greatly strengthened by links to external resources to justify or expand upon the claims it makes. If I didn't know anything about the topic, some of the text would be unclear to me, and I would want the ability to click around and learn more. For example:
- What is the sunk cost fallacy? (Link to wikipedia/LWwiki)
- There is some recent evidence about rationality as a treatment for depression
Also, I think one of the first reactions a typical person will have is, "Rationality? Of course I'm rational." To start from square one on this topic, you have to explain to people that, surprisingly enough, they aren't. Politely, of course. Then you can start talking about why it's important to work on.
All that said, I think the examples given are great; they're salient problems for most people, and you can make a good case that rationality will improve one's outcomes for those problems.
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"UFO" has a colloquial sense that does, in fact, mean aliens (or trans-dimensional beings or what have you). I would posit that this is the sense of the word Eliezer used in the quoted text.