All of WhiskyJack's Comments + Replies

That's helpful input, thanks. After reading the link and searching the wiki I suspect that it is more likely an akrasia/urges v. goals sort of thing based upon my reaction to noticing the inconsistency. I felt a need to bring my actions in line with my professed beliefs.

Very interesting. I have transhumanist beliefs that I claim to hold. My actions imply that I believe that I believe, if I understand this properly.

A prime example would be how I tend to my health. There are simple rational steps I can take to increase my odds of living long enough to hit pay dirt. I take okay care of myself, but could do better. Much better.

Cryonics may be another example. More research is required on my part, but a non-zero last stab is arguably better than nothing. I am not enrolled. It feels a bit like Pascal’s Wager to me. Perhaps it... (read more)

1thomblake
Pretty much. Though it might just be a case of urges not lining up with goals. In both cases, you profess "I should floss every day" and do not actually floss every day. If it's belief in belief, you might not even acknowledge the incongruence. If it's merely akrasia, you almost certainly will.

This is a well supported article with real life applications. Even better it shines a spotlight on holes in my thinking. I appreciate it when I read something that makes me want to slap my forehead and yell, "well, of COURSE!"

Thank you for your time putting this together.

Thanks! I consider myself more self aware than most, largely because I have done work similar to what is proposed in the Luminosity sequence myself. Of course interesting arguments could be had about how subjective the experience is, what ‘self’ I am even trying to be aware of (would that just be semantic?), but the result was a positive net gain in my quality of life. I'm curious to try the work with different techniques, though.

It will be interesting to see if the concept I hold of myself as pretty self-aware survives around here. All part of the process, I suppose.

As far as the math... If I don't try I definitely won't learn it. It will be a struggle, though.

Howdy,

tl;dr This seems like a place that I can use to shore up some of my cognitive shortcomings, eliminate some bias and expand my worldview. Maybe I can help someone else along the way.

I have been reading the material here for the last several days and have decided that this is a community that I would like to be a part of and hopefully contribute to. My greatest interests are improving my map of the territory(how great is that analogy?), using my constantly improving map to be a better husband and father, and exploring transhumanist ideas and conceits... (read more)

0Vaniver
Welcome! My background is in physics and mathematical optimization techniques, and so it interests me a lot what perspective people without those skills have on the sorts of thinking and strategies we talk about on Less Wrong. Knowing what [inferential gaps] we missed is really useful to writers or educators. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Or, if it comes to it, to let sleeping theories lie. Lots of posters here don't finish all of the sequences, or avoid the more esoteric decision theory posts.
-1Larks
Did you burn any bridges while in the Marines?
4TimS
Welcome to LessWrong. One of the most interesting parts of LessWrong for me is noticing the cognitive bias in our thought process. For example, noticing that one dislikes another solely because the other is a member of a different group. (Psychology calls this the in-group bias). Noticing those sorts of mistakes doesn't necessarily require all that much mathematical ability. In short, the hope in this community is that clear thinking helps you achieve your stated goals (rather than some inaccurate approximation created by unclear thinking from the imperfect brain). In short, don't sweat the math, there's lots of practical stuff that can be achieved without it. If you are particularly interested in improving your self-awareness, might I recommend Alicorn's Luminosity sequence?