Hi!
Not sure if this idea will be helpful or not, but I teach languages, and so I review vocab a lot. I use mini whiteboards in class, and this means that everybody has to write down what they think the answer is, turn it around, and show it to me. I generally play this as a game, i.e. the whole team must have the same answer to get a point (or to get a move on whatever game you're playing), this encourages all students to participate which might help motivate that reluctant middle section. :)
I spent the better part of a year teaching Spanish as a long-term sub for teachers on maternity leave, and made extensive use of their mini whiteboards. I loved them. They forced everyone to engage, and gave me a clear picture of which misconceptions needed correction.
When it comes to mini whiteboards, though, I found that there's a sweet spot for the length and complexity of responses. Anything too short or simple doesn't justify the time it takes to wait for everyone to write it on their boards. Anything too long and it doesn't fit on the boards and/or can't be easily read by me.
Spanish, with what, to Americans, feels like backwards syntax and weirdly complex conjugation, routinely fell into that sweet spot, where a phrase or short sentence conveyed a great deal.
English hardly ever seems to hit that same spot. Occasionally, if we're covering conventions/grammar issues, perhaps, but not often enough, so here's what I've been doing more of for that type of lesson:
After going over each concept, we do multiple choice slides. Students select their answers with those same 4-colored cards they use during Anki time. I have them get their colors ready but not hold them up until I say so. This is very fast, easy to read at a glance, and still lets me identify areas that need clarification. The trick is to produce really good multiple choice options that will help tease out these problem spots.
If I were teaching foreign language right now I'm sure I would still be using the mini boards. I would also be trying very hard to get my students to use Duolingo, the gamified language-learning SRS that Spanish teachers and their students keep raving about to me.
How many of these people want to die today?
I really hate this form of argument but it seems common on less-wrong.
"If you don't want to do something right now you obviously don't want it ever or for it to ever be an option. "
If you apply the same form to anything else it becomes more obvious that it's not logical. Don't want to move away from your parents today? well then you must never want to. Don't want to eat that cake today? well then you must never want to.
Ditto for the fake "proof by induction" I once saw posted in one of these topics where someone claimed that if you want to live today and also will want to live tomorrow and the next etc then you must want to live forever.
It also implicitly assumes that everyone shares the same ethical system. Someone might be utterly against murder but would be quite happy if someone they really really hate gets hit by a train. That doesn't mean they want to kill that person today. Many people view suicide as wrong in it's own right, something to be avoided for the simple reason that they believe taking their own life to have some form of ethical injunction against it.
My assertion is that there's a difference between wanting to die and being apathetic about having death sneak up on you, and that most old people are actually in the latter category. I'm not comfortable calling these people "deathist", preferring instead to reserve the term for those who would oppose the idea that death should be optional.
I hold that the person who merely wouldn't mind not waking up tomorrow is usually just as content to keep living for one more day, and would likely be at least as content to wake up in a younger body.
The guy living in his mom's basement who says he would like to leave is less ambivalent. He would much rather wake up in a place of his own, provided he didn't have to make the continuous effort normally needed to enable this.
If dying took as much effort as getting and holding a job, I doubt it would be so popular.
I love these techniques and can't wait to try them out. Would you consider putting in an abstract with the 4 techniques? You could even throw in the one-sentence summaries from ScottL so that other readers can quickly get the gist before delving in further.
I'm glad you liked the article.
Can you point me to a post on LW that is laid out in the style that you propose? This could give me a better vision of it.
Also, don't you think my techniques might sound a little kooky without context? I worry that, as openers, they might be more off-putting than inviting.
How many of these people want to die today?
Precious few I expect. Their daily rituals must still carry some intrinsic satisfaction. Perhaps they no longer hold long-term goals because they don't feel like they have enough time left to achieve them and enjoy their fruits. This does not seem unreasonable, though it may seem self-defeating from the outside.
As I've recently commented, I don't like the idea of living each day as though it might be your last, but if I were 80 years old it might make a certain kind of sense. At the very least, this late-game logic creates a sizable hurdle to getting an elderly person interested in something to the point where they become less apathetic about eventually kicking the bucket -- which is all we're really talking about here.
I was trying to suggest that I don't expect a second chance mentality to fill an entire day. I agree that as contexts shift throughout the day, it makes sense shift the mentality.
That makes sense. What do you think about making it more granular? Where the mentality or frame of mind could be the top level, this would be “live today like you have already lived it”. The next level might be certain modes e.g. driving or gym mode. The last level is where you defer your thinking to an appropriate self, see simulate and defer to more rational selves. Perhaps micro boggles e.g. 20 seconds to a few minutes, would be useful as well. An example is if you are going to the gym, you might initiate gym mode just before you go. Then, when you are just about to do some squats you might think about your setup squat lifting self and you let them decide when to stop, how much weight to lift etc.
Another example is that you might boggle an hour, say, for writing. Then, you get into the writing mode and start writing. During this period you might switch between your writing and reviewing selves multiple times.
The general idea behind the mentalities, modes and other selves is that you enter a certain state of mind where you exclude unhelpful and include helpful thoughts. The lower the level the more specific the sets of thoughts are that you are allowing.
Fixed both, I think.
I can see that both are fixed. Thanks.
What we're really getting at now is the idea of roles, as explored in this LW post from last year. (The comments on that one are fantastic.)
Developing personas to play in different contexts -- and training to swap between them -- is, I think, incredibly valuable. The persona I developed for my day job as a teacher is actually quite different from my default personality, and has its own contingent sub-personas that I shift into as circumstances warrant.
"Time traveller", "clone", "fork" are, in this sense, useful meta-roles that may help give your other roles additional purpose and focus.
I really like your posts. Can you please let me know if the below summaries are accurate and what you think of the below questions.
Second Chances (live each day as if you’re doing it over)
This is about taking a perspective that helps develop a pervading attitude that there is a purpose to your day. If you are reliving a day, then it means that there is a reason for this. This means that you are going to be:
Questions
Split Selves(You only need to worry about what you can do now. Trust that tomorrow you will be able to take the same attitude and so the work will eventually get done)
Bobbling(Essentially, it means that you allocate a period of time and then consider that time spent. In that time period you focus entirely on one particular task and ensure that there are no interruptions)
Questions
The Past, Interrupted(Essentially, it means that you make a certain perspective or context vivid so that you are more likely to take actions appropriate for that context)
I think that you can also relate mental practice or physical practice to this. Although, it is a bit more about training yourself so that specific actions or habits occur in specific contexts. For example, if you are having trouble getting up in the morning you can practice hearing the alarm and getting up straight away. Then, when you are in the context of hearing the alarm you will be more likely to get up straight away.
Toward a More Excellent Future(Successful time travel is all about bringing our past, present, and future selves into a cooperative alignment. They need to trust each other. They need to communicate.)
Notes:
I like your summaries, and have a few clarifications along with answers to your questions.
On Second Chances, you asked:
Do you think it has to be a whole day? What if you thought about a whole chunk of time in which you will be in a particular situation and then approached it with a specific purpose? If you are at the beach with your family, maybe you can take on the appreciative frame of mind. If you are driving, maybe you can take on the mindful frame of mind.
No. In the paragraph about driving, I was trying to suggest that I don't expect a second chance mentality to fill an entire day. I agree that as contexts shift throughout the day, it makes sense shift the mentality. The Bill Murray character in Groundhog Day, for example figures out the best ways of approaching each segment of the day he has to continually relive.
More mindful which means being in the moment and in control (you don’t need to do that silly thing that caused an accident last time)....
Mindfulness probably isn't quite the right term for what I'm talking about, just because people use it in so many different ways. I use it to mean feeling present in the moment, with my attention on the things that, looking back, I would be glad (or wish) I had been paying attention to.
...Is there any kind of thought pattern or ritual that would make the perspective you take more impactful and vivid.
The hallmark of "time travelling" mindsets for me is that they take so little effort to slip into. Only my "bobbling" has much of a ritual to it. I will say, though, that reflecting on past situations where I was successful at heightening my asethetic appreciation and emotional presence helps prime me to do so again.
What do you think is the best amount of time to use? [bobbling]
I've not hit on a single optimum. It depends partly on how much uninterrupted time I think I can expect (or afford to take), and partly on the nature of the task. I've gone as long as 4 hours (with short breaks, Pomodoro style), but 90-120 minutes with only a short stretch break or two is more my preference. I tend to be something of a zombie if I'm walking around taking care of biology in the middle of a bobbling, as I don't want to release any of my goal-task thoughts from working memory. I cleared everything else out of it for a reason.
Do you ever extend the period of time. For example, if you are writing and you get a great idea do you just keep writing or do you take a break?
I usually had a very specific reason for choosing the length of time I bobbled. Unless these (often external) constraints have changed, I will probably not attempt to hold on to the timeless single-minded mentality, although I will often ride the momentum when I can, even if I can no longer give it 100% of my attention. The hardest part of many tasks is starting them.
It pays to know when to quit, though. I don't want to create memory associations where bobbling ends in fizzling or burnout. See Peak-End Rule.
The Past, Interrupted(Essentially, it means that you make a certain perspective or context vivid so that you are more likely to take actions appropriate for that context)
That's not quite how I meant it, although I think what you are suggesting can help. I was more talking about the ability to let go of what's on your mind right now so as to shift back to a prior mental context. This requires trusting that you are able to reclaim whatever is valuable in the context you are leaving, which is why I say that you might need to write things down so that you can feel good about releasing them from your working memory. This ability to trust your systems to store your concerns is practically the entire thesis of David Allen's Getting Things Done.
Your comment has me giving some thought to the idea of looking for ways to create emotionally vivid hooks for the working memory contents of the context I'm about to walk away from. I would love to be able to load back more of what was on my mind at the time, although there is also something to be said for getting a bit of a fresh perspective on a problem that had been giving you trouble.
"ug field" should be "ugh field" I made this mistake. You should have a summary break so that people don’t need to scroll through the whole article when they look for new main articles.
Fixed both, I think. Thanks for the feedback!
I hold this belief not because it is true, but because it is useful. That it also happens to be true -- we are all time travelers, swept along by the looping chrono-currents of reality that only seem to flow in one direction -- is largely beside the point.
In the literature of instrumental rationality, I am struck by a pattern in which tips I find useful often involve reframing an issue from a different temporal perspective. For instance, when questioning whether it is worth continuing an ongoing commitment, we are advised to ask ourselves "Knowing what I know now, if I could go back in time, would I make the same choice?"1 Also, when embarking on a new venture, we are advised to perform a "pre-mortem", imagining ourselves in a future where it didn't pan out and identifying what went wrong.2 This type of thinking has a long tradition. Whenever we use visualization as a tool for achieving goals, or for steeling ourselves against the worst case scenarios,3 we are, in a sense, stepping outside the present.
To the degree that intelligence is the ability to model the universe and "search out paths through probability to any desired future" we should not be surprised that mental time travel comes naturally to us. And to the degree that playing to this strength has already produced so many useful tips, I think it is worth experimenting with it in search of other tools and exploits.
Below are a few techniques I've been developing over the last two years that capitalize on how easy it is to mentally travel through time. I fully admit that they simply "re-skin" existing advice and techniques. But it's possible that you, my fellow traveller, may find, as I do, that these skins easier to slip into.
I'm curious about liability risks that may accrue to the very lonely trendsetters who try it.
In my imagination, there's a terrible accident that leaves someone other than the helmet-wearer paralyzed or dead, and investigators are surprised to see that one driver was wearing... a helmet?? It's almost like he knew he was going to get into an accident -- perhaps even intended to. Certainly, that's what people would think reading the articles about it. Perhaps a jury would, as well.
Even a weaker version of that argument could be damaging; anti-lock breaks are said to increase risky driving behavior, after all. The same has been said of seat belts, even. See risk compensation.
Is there any reason we should expect such catastrophe engines to exist?
Seconded. So many layers of specificity, one of which is "exotic physics" ... I have a hard time seeing why it's worth entertaining this idea over any of the other unlikely but less specific theories one could devise.
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Here's an article that has an abstract in the first paragraph (although it'd be nice if it were called out as such), and a table of contents.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/md2/the_brain_as_a_universal_learning_machine/
Hmm. I see your points. I'll try to structure future articles so that an above-the-fold abstract structure will work better, but I'm not convinced that my present post is long enough or self-evident enough to support it -- at least not without an extensive rewrite. What I think I'll do this weekend is add an Exercises section at the bottom with the techniques in concise form. Thanks!