why did he post on fb lol
Probably cause he works there?
How Will I Measure My Life?
21–30 of 79 posts
Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#22Related: Paul Graham's “The Top of My Todo List” http://www.paulgraham.com/todo.html
“A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware made a list of the biggest regrets of the dying. […]
“I would like to avoid making these mistakes. But how do you avoid mistakes you make by default? Ideally you transform your life so it has other defaults. But it may not be possible to do that completely. As long as these mistakes happen by default, you probably have to be reminded not to make them. So I inverted the 5 regrets, yielding a list of 5 commands
“Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.”
Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#23"many of the things that make life worth living aren’t measurable at all, or if they are measurable then they aren’t comparable. How many dinners with family equal one random act of kindness?"
I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement. It may be difficult to reason about the value of family dinners or acts of kindness, and more difficult still to calculate or approximate some kind of dinners-per-kindness measurement, but that's a different thing entirely from claiming there is not and cannot be such a measurement.
For example, you could adopt the axes from the rest of the article, and ask questions like "how much of my money and/or free time would I give up for a family dinner?" "how much would I give up for a random act of kindness?" "is there a minimum amount of money and/or free time I need to be able to afford family dinners or acts of kindness?" "if I only had enough to afford one of the two, which would I choose?"
Saying "my values are complex and I don't know how to reason about them" is the start of a series of interesting questions that ultimately yields a better understanding of yourself. Saying "my values are so complex that they cannot be reasoned about" is anti-intellectualism dressed up as profundity; it's nothing more than an excuse to stop trying to understand.
Worse, the entire foundation of the premise is rotten. Oh, sure, rational thinking is great for measuring laser waves or whatever, but can you reason about the beauty of a sunset, the warmth of a lover's embrace, the blissful confusion of waking from a nap on a summer afternoon?
Yes you can. And the sooner you stop thinking that significance demands ignorance, the sooner you can start understanding and improving the things that are most important to you.
Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#24"many of the things that make life worth living aren’t measurable at all, or if they are measurable then they aren’t comparable. How many dinners with family equal one random act of kindness?" I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement. It may be difficult to reason about the value of family dinners or acts of kindness, and more difficult s…
You seem to have an axe to grind with mysticism, but rationality != measurement. Here you are totally constructing a straw man from whole cloth:
> "my values are complex and I don't know how to reason about them"
The article implies nothing of the sort.
Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#25"many of the things that make life worth living aren’t measurable at all, or if they are measurable then they aren’t comparable. How many dinners with family equal one random act of kindness?" I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement. It may be difficult to reason about the value of family dinners or acts of kindness, and more difficult s…
That would still be quantifying values against the tangible axes of time and/or money. There are still various other intangible factors such as happiness, goodwill etc which are immeasurable, yet contribute to the overall picture.
Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#26"many of the things that make life worth living aren’t measurable at all, or if they are measurable then they aren’t comparable. How many dinners with family equal one random act of kindness?" I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement. It may be difficult to reason about the value of family dinners or acts of kindness, and more difficult s…
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Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#27"many of the things that make life worth living aren’t measurable at all, or if they are measurable then they aren’t comparable. How many dinners with family equal one random act of kindness?" I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement. It may be difficult to reason about the value of family dinners or acts of kindness, and more difficult s…
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Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#28"many of the things that make life worth living aren’t measurable at all, or if they are measurable then they aren’t comparable. How many dinners with family equal one random act of kindness?" I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement. It may be difficult to reason about the value of family dinners or acts of kindness, and more difficult s…
>the beauty of a sunset, the warmth of a lover's embrace, the blissful confusion of waking from a nap on a summer afternoon?
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your point, but it seems like your only way of appreciating the value of such experiences is by determining a monetary opportunity cost?
Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#29This man is quantifying his life into two things, money and freetime, nothing about quantifying the quality of your time at work, nothing about happiness, and nothing about being an ethical person. What's the point of having all the money, and all the free time in the world if you're an unhappy jackass who hates his job?
How can you have a) all the free time in the world and b) a job you hate?
"All the free time in the world" is a figurative statement --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literal_and_figurative_languag....
Re: How Will I Measure My Life?
#30"many of the things that make life worth living aren’t measurable at all, or if they are measurable then they aren’t comparable. How many dinners with family equal one random act of kindness?" I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement. It may be difficult to reason about the value of family dinners or acts of kindness, and more difficult s…
>I think there is a dangerous mysticism in this idea of the immeasurable, incomparable, and unfalsifiable value judgement.
In what sense is it dangerous and in what sense is it mysticism?
It's actually kind of an interesting philosophical question, I linked to some background reading at the end of this post.
>Saying "my values are so complex that they cannot be reasoned about" is anti-intellectualism dressed up as profundity; it's nothing more than an excuse to stop trying to understand.
It's not anti-intellectual, it's a different intellectual viewpoint from yours.
>Oh, sure, rational thinking is great for measuring laser waves or whatever, but can you reason about the beauty of a sunset, the warmth of a lover's embrace, the blissful confusion of waking from a nap on a summer afternoon?
This isn't an anti-rational viewpoint.
[1] https://philpapers.org/archive/CHAIAI-2.pdf
[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-incommensurable/#Va...
[3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-theory/#Inc
[4] http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674447561