All of Vertigo's Comments + Replies

I love this idea, so I've taken it to the next level: http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/405144_10151268024944598_356596037_n.jpg

Hanger, paper clips, dental floss, tupperware, pencil, ruler, and lamp. If we're trying to be concrete about this, no need to do it only part way.

Ooo! Seldom do I get to hear someone else voice my version of idealism. I still have a lot of thinking to do on this, but so far it seems to me perfectly legitimate. An idealism isomorphic to mechanical interactions dissolves the Hard Problem of consciousness by denying a premise. It also does so with more elegance than reductionism since it doesn't force us through that series of flaming hoops that orbits and (maybe) eventually collapses into dualism.

This seems more likely to me so far than all the alternatives, so I guess that means I believe it, b... (read more)

I do use Redshift, actually. Color change at sunset, computer off by 11. The first part's about melatonin, the second is about getting out of my head. Very interested in the results of your experiment.

Oh, I didn't mean I shut my laptop off for the duration of 9 to 11. I meant "I shut it off not after 11, and closer to 9 if possible". This actually ends up taking up about half an hour. It nets me lots of time, really, because it makes it easier for me to go to sleep, which makes it easier for me to get up at a regular time, which makes me far more productive while I'm awake. So less of the time in my day is wasted on being inefficient.

Yes, this is what I meant by "physiological manipulation". The dropping of body temperature as you cool down from a bath may also induce sleepiness. I try to make my rituals as efficient as possible.

Love this.

How do you feel about using rituals to reinforce habits and create momentum for new policies? It's basically outsourcing willpower to past selves.

For instance, I've always had a hard time regulating my sleep schedule. It's not always that I can't sleep, but that I seldom want to go to sleep and lack the willpower to not do whatever I want to do instead, no matter how sleepy I am. What finally worked was a ritual that served as both positive reinforcement and physiological manipulation. I love bubble baths, and they put me in a relaxed mindspa... (read more)

4Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)
Glad it works for you, but I don't have 2 hours a night that I can spend not doing anything. Then again, I don't have a huge amount of difficulty regulating my sleep schedule. It takes me a long time to fall asleep (I would say 45 minutes on average) but it always has and it doesn't stress me out–it's awfully comfy lying in bed. I tend to get tired fairly early–in fact, I'm often pretty tired all the time, because my schedule is insane, thus the lack of 2 hours a day for bedtime rituals. Every once in a while I'll pass my bedtime while engaged in a superstimulus, like reading a good book, but most of the time I look at when I have to wake up, count back eight to nine hours, and put myself to bed at that time. If not a ritual, this is definitely a strongly reinforced habit–it doesn't take much willpower to get myself off my laptop 10 minutes before bedtime, because I know full well how good being in bed will feel, and how I'll feel the next day if I don't go to bed on time.

Between 9 and 11PM, I shut off my laptop, don my robe, light scented candles, and draw a bath.

I'd point out that there's a plausible physiological mechanism here: aside from a nice hot bath being relaxing (no doubt there's research on this), avoiding electronics may also mean avoiding blue light which suppresses melatonin secretion.

There are so many comments here about what does and doesn't count as a "cult", and whether Lesswrong is cultish. People, it doesn't matter. The point is that that's not the point.

Why are we wary of cults? Because they're harmful in various ways. There are particular ways in which they're harmful, and particular things that cause them to be harmful in those ways.

Suppose that the inclusion criteria for "cult" had nothing to do with the harmful parts and consisted entirely of beneficial features. Suppose, for instance, that a cult is... (read more)

My position is that we need a plan. A long-term, comprehensive strategy to maximize the utility of our individual efforts toward making the world a more rational place. We need not only to study the best ways of teaching rationality on the level of personal interactions and small classes, but to plot a path from the current state of society to a world in which people are trained from childhood in the methods of rationality. I'm giving a talk on this very topic to my university's secular student alliance. My main message is simply that "we need a p... (read more)