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All of zemaj's Comments + Replies

NEW TIME: Sydney Less Wrong meetup, 23/4, 3PM
zemaj00

Sure. Just post here what you decide. I'll check this page before turning up.

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0meta_ark
We're now meeting at 3:00. See you tomorrow!
NEW TIME: Sydney Less Wrong meetup, 23/4, 3PM
zemaj10

Calendared. I plan to be there!

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0meta_ark
Would you be able to make it if we moved to a slightly later time, so Oklord and Erratio could come after work?
Existential Risk and Public Relations
zemaj120

"Ethical Artificial Intelligence" sounds great and makes sense without having to know the background of the technological singularity as "Friendly Artificial Intelligence" does. Every time I try to mention FAI to someone without any background on the topic I always have to take two steps back in the conversation and it becomes quickly confusing. I think I could mention Ethical AI and then continue on with whatever point I was making without any kind of background and it would still make the right connections.

I also expect it would appea... (read more)

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Blue- and Yellow-Tinted Choices
zemaj90

Maybe u shld write a post that describes the same effect but wihout the pics, citaations or grammar.

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Attention Lurkers: Please say hi
zemaj80

Hi

Been reading Less Wrong religiously for about 6 months, but still definitely in the consume, not contribute phase.

It feels like Less Wrong has pretty dramatically changed my life. I'm doing pretty well with overcoming Akrasia (or at least identifying it where I haven't yet overcome it). I'm also significantly happier all round, understanding decisions I make and most importantly exercising my ability to control these decisions. I'm doing a lot of things I would have avoided before just because I realise that my reasons for avoiding them were not rational... (read more)

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City of Lights
zemaj10

I agree. I worry that anthropomorphising these conflicting thoughts just strengthens the divide.

I like your comment "All this has very little to do with actual agency or the workings of akrasia, though, and tends to interfere with the process of a person owning up to the goals that they want to dissociate from. By pretending it's another agency that wants to surf the net, you get to maintain moral superiority... and still hang onto your problem. The goal of virtually any therapy that involves multiple agencies, is to integrate them, but the typical person on getting hold of the metaphor uses is to maintain the separation."

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Lights, Camera, Action!
zemaj20

Hmmm.... thinking feels to me like poking leaves floating down a river.

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1wnoise
I really have no idea how to interpret that.
Lights, Camera, Action!
zemaj10

"How does thinking, in general, feel to you?" Do you mean this metaphorically? Can you give some examples of how thinking feels to you?

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0VAuroch
I can't pin down what thinking feels like. There are a bunch of snippets of sensory experience flying around, some being compared to each other (colliding?), and most being present only briefly before they're sucked away. Analyzing this is extra difficult because I even 10 minutes later, I have almost zero recall of all but the most vivid experiences.
0kithpendragon
Thinking is like using (at least) one of my senses, but without actualizing the associated physical reality. Right now I can access memories that contain information in audio, visual, tactile and olfactory formats with little effort. I often experience multi-person conversations or music as part of a thought process, but have also known myself to mentally fly around a map, generate pseudocode, mix flavors, sketch an image, or even explore a texture as part of thinking. ...With a little reflection, I find that much of my internal process hinges on something like infographics with little sensory labels, primarily audio but often tactile or even olfactory, but hardly ever actual text. For a complex operation, I seem to zoom in and out on these objects to get the detail/context relationships and see how they interact.
1AndyCossyleon
Depends what I'm thinking about. Sometimes, thinking is talking to myself or to somementalbody else. Sometimes, thinking is floating about somewhere experiencing it mostly visually. Sometimes, thinking is just living the moment. Sometimes, thinking is having mental fun, like rotating cubes in my head. Sometimes, thinking is just self-awareness, 'about' nothing.
0za3k
My thinking style has changed twice in my lifetime; I'm going to ramble on about this for a while. I will do a better job of describing me now than when I was younger, because I have a bad memory and it's hard to remember how I used to think. When I was young (up until the age of 10-12) I just thought in thoughts. I was very quick back then; I could do mental arithmetic and problem solving much faster than I can now, for instance. Then for just a few years, I started thinking visually. I read all the time during this period; I probably read a ten times as many books in junior high and high school than I have since (I'm 4th year in college). When I remembered something I'd picture the page on the book where I had seen it. Now I think more verbally. I hear something like a "mental voice". It's very slow compared to either of the others. I think I'm starting to skip my mental dialogue a little lately. I go to lectures and don't read books, which I never would have done in high school. I also am a lot more social; I'm not sure if there's a connection. When I remember something it can be visual or verbal. I also remember things somewhat abstractly sometimes, especially ideas like math. It feels like they're part of me. I'm not sure how long the abstract thing has been going on, it may not be new.
1FrankAdamek
When reflecting on it just now, thinking feels like listening to myself speak, with the words but no sound. The more concrete thoughts are at a conversational pace, and some others are in a pace too fast to comfortably speak. This often seems "laid over" a background of an unrelated scene, with dreamlike images flitting about which mildly represent concepts.
4Rain
Thinking, to me, feels like a conversation. For hard problems, the conversation is between two entities, neither of whom is myself, but where one is generally close to myself and the other holds unknown truths. The objective is for the one who is similar to me to ask all the right questions to get the more knowledgeable entity to explain those truths. For easier problems, I talk to myself. When I do visual thinking, including dreams, it's in the style of a movie, often with drama or action, and sometimes more obvious movie effects. The saddest dream I ever had ended with scrolling credits.
0spriteless
Thinking is like taking a bunch of concepts and jamming them together as one might jam together legos until something fits. I usually do this systematically, as I can feel the first thing that fits is not always the best fit, so I want it organized enough to try everything.
1aleksiL
Interesting. I thought that my thinking would be mostly words, like inner monologue or talking to myself. Now that I pay attention it is more like images, emotions, concepts constantly flashing through my head, most gone before I even notice them. Introspectively it seems that my thinking has changed and I just haven't noticed until now. Or that my conscious mind has finally learned to shut up and pay attention.
0[anonymous]
Mostly not like any sensory modality, especially when thinking about relatively simple things. Sometimes talking to myself or to others, or manipulating visuospatialized mathematical structures.
2Vladimir_Nesov
Thinking feels like shaping clockworks out of clay and air, a couple of meters behind my head.
0[anonymous]
Sometimes talking to myself, sometimes manipulating visualizations (usually heavily mathematical), but mostly not like anything at all, or at least not like any normal sensory modality.
2Bongo
Watching very short films, arranging items in space, sometimes snatches of conversation intrude.
2reaver121
Most of the time it's like talking to myself. When I'm actively analyzing something it's like having a discussion with people who all are me but all taking different stances (and one of them is a joker who can't stop looking at it from a comedian viewpoint).
2zemaj
Hmmm.... thinking feels to me like poking leaves floating down a river.
0wnoise
Thinking feels to me like talking to myself.
0Alicorn
Thinking feels to me like reading.
Living Luminously
zemaj10

Brilliant idea for a series! I spend a lot of time thinking about this; trying to understand my thoughts and consequently hack them.

It's really interesting how much variation there is in people's ability to comprehend the origin of thoughts. Also it's surprising how little control, or desire for control, some people have over their decisions. Certainly seems like something that can be learnt and changed over time. I've seen some significant improvements myself over the past 12 months without many exterior environmental changes.

The main hurdle I hit up agai... (read more)

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DonGeddis110

introspection can't be scientific by definition

What you observe via introspection, is not accessible to third parties, yes.

But you use those observations to build models of yourself. Those models can be made explicit and communicated to others. And they make predictions about your future behavior, so they can be tested.

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Tips and Tricks for Answering Hard Questions
zemaj50

Nice points. I'd also add;

Spend time thinking about it. It's something that seems obvious, but I know I pass over it more than I should. Since answers seem to come unconsciously it's tempting to just wait for a solution to arise and to go think about other things. Unless you keep the problem in your head during down-time, before going to bed, in the shower, taking a walk etc... then you won't be processing for an answer. It's tricky to coax subconscious thoughts to answer the questions you want, but continual conscious thought on the topic is the most straight forward approach in my experience. If you're thinking about other things, you won't get an answer.

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4CSmith
Agreed. I tend to have moments of insight not immediately after starting to think about something, but a few hours later as I continue to mull over it throughout my day to day affairs. You never know when something is just going to click, but you do know when it's not going to click - when you're not thinking about it. I would also stress the importance of actually listening to what other people have to say and considering it with an open mind. I think people tend to get stuck on a certain train of thought - many mind games and puzzles take advantage of this by presenting a problem that seems impossible given the assumptions that most people make to begin with. Solving the problem requires finding the false assumption, but this is often hard to do. If you happen to go down a dead end when answering a hard question, genuinely considering other people's arguments might help you to identify you error and put you on the right track.