All of Grotace's Comments + Replies

I think one reason doctors want such highly credible evidence is that they're defending themself against attacks by snake oil salesmen. Historically, there have been many attempts to sell "treatments" that have absolutely no benefit at all, and for an individual doctor, it is very hard to tell whether they're being sold something that actually works or not. 

Another related reason for wanting highly credible evidence is that doctors tend to be conservative, out of a desire to not prescribe things that might harm their patient (they don't necessarily be... (read more)

This its very similar to another result: at the beginning, before seeing any draws, you believe that at the end of $n$ draws, every possible number of  green draws is equally likely, i.e, $\int_0^1 \binom{n}{k}x^{n-k}(1-x)^{k} dx = \frac{1}{n+1}$. The proof: if you draw $n+1$ IID uniform $[0,1]$ random variables, on the one hand, the first one its equally likely to have any particular rank, so the probability it has rank $k+1$ is $\frac{1}{n+1}$. On the other hand, the probability it has rank $k+1$ is exactly the probability that $k$ of the remaining $n$ uniform random variables take a value greater than it, and $n-k$ of the remaining $n$ take a value lesser than it, which equals the integral.

EDIT: Thanks again for the discussion. It has been very helpful, because I think I can now articulate clearly a fundamental fear I have about meditation: it might lead to a loss of the desire to become better.

This makes sense.

Of course. You are, at the very least, technically right.

However, I think that obtaining enlightenment only makes it harder for you to change your values, because you're much more likely to be fine with who you are. For example, the man who went through stream entry you linked to seems to have spent several years doing nothing, and didn't feel particularly bad for it. Is that not scary? Is that likely to be a result of pursuing physical exercise?

On the other hand, if you spent time thinking clearly about your values, the likelihood of them changing for the better is higher, because you still have a desire (craving?) to be a better person.

Thank you for this comment. Even if you don't remember exactly what happened, at the very least, your story of what happened is likely to be based on the theoretical positions you subscribe to, and it's helpful to explain these theoretical positions in a concrete example.

I guess what I don't like about what you're saying is that it's entirely amoral. You don't say how actions can be good. Even if a sense of good were to exist, it would be somehow abstract, entirely third-personal, and have no necessary connection to actual act... (read more)

"I started out skeptical of many claims, dismissing them as pre-scientific folk-psychological speculation, before gradually coming to believe in them - sometimes as a result of meditation which hadn’t even been aimed at investigating those claims in particular, but where I thought I was doing something completely different."

Did you come to believe in rebirth and remembering past lives?

Yes, I understand this.

You say that "I wasn't sure of how long this was going to be healthy...". Was this experienced as a negative valence? If so, why did you do what this valence suggested? I thought you were saying we shouldn't necessarily make decisions based on negative valences. (From what you've been saying, I guess you did not experience the "thought of a cold shower being unhealthy" as a negative valence.)

If it wasn't experienced as a negative valence, why did you leave the shower? Doesn't leaving the shower indicate that yo... (read more)

Thank you for your reply, which is helpful. I understand it takes time and energy to compose these responses, so please don't feel too pressured to keep responding.

1. You say that positive/negative valence are not things that the system intrinsically has to pursue/avoid. Then when the system says it values something, why does it say this? A direct question: there exists at least a single case in which the why is not answered by positive/negative valence (or perhaps it is not answered at all). What is this case, and what is the answer to the why?

2. Oft... (read more)

Typically, when we reason about what actions we should or should not perform, at the base of that reasoning is something of the form "X is intrinsically bad." Now, I'd always associated "X is intrinsically bad" with some sort of statement like "X induces a mental state that feels wrong." Do I have access to this line of reasoning as a meditator?

Concretely, if someone asked me why I would go to a dentist if my teeth were rotting, I would have to reply that I do so because I care about my health or maybe because unhealthin... (read more)

Thank you for your reply, and it does clarify some things for me. If I may summarise in short, I think you are saying:

1. Craving is a bad sort of motivation because it makes you react badly to obstacles, but other sorts of motivation can be fine.
2. Self-conscious/ craving-filled states of mind can be unproductive when trying to act on these other sorts of motivations.

I still have some questions though.

You say you may pursue pleasure because you value it for its own sake. But what is the self (or subsystem?) that is doing this valuing? It feels like the valuer i... (read more)

I am a bit confused by the lines:

"...pursuing pleasure and happiness even if that sacrifices your ability to impact the world. Reducing the influence of the craving makes your motivations less driven by wireheading-like impulses, and more able to see the world clearly even if it is painful."

Once we have deemed that wanting to pursue pleasure and happiness are wireheading-like impulses, why stop ourselves from saying that wanting to impact the world is a wireheading-like impulse?

You also talk about meditators ignoring pain, and how the desire to ... (read more)