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How Will I Measure My Life?

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Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#31

Post by mmirate »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #28
sgentle wrote: post #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 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?

That is probably because the only way of evaluating a noneducational experience is via opportunity costs.

(The adjective "monetary" is redundant when discussing evaluations and costs.)

Obviously, educational experiences can be evaluated as any other investment.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#32

Post by tjr »

welly wrote: post #17
terminalcommand wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it is good to love your job. Anything that you do professionally has a tendency to get boring after a time. If you're working for someone else, that also constitutes a blow to your happiness. I think finding a sustainable balance should be sought after when looking for a job. Does the job let you disconnect? Does the job feel satisfying to you? Do you like the office environment? How much does it pay?…

How about those in the arts as a profession? I don't think they'd have a successful career if they didn't love their job. I think they'd produce pretty abysmal art.

I've produced music for others (as a job, if you will), and I've produced music for my own enjoyment and satisfaction.

While I do get an amount of enjoyment out of producing music for others, it may or may not be music that I personally like. It has to meet certain criteria. It has to sound like this, use these instruments, or be that duration, or whatever.

A lot like programming, I think. I can program on my own time, making whatever I fancy, using whatever language I want, to my own maximum enjoyment. At a programming job, I will likely enjoy it to at least some degree, but I may or may not be doing everything in a way that I think best, because I'm doing the work for the satisfaction of someone else.

But then, producing something for someone else, be it software or music or whatever, results in a different kind of satisfaction on my end: the satisfaction of meeting someone else's need. They wanted X, and I made X for them, and they are happy with it. I may or may not like X myself, but I am pleased that they like it!

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#33

Post by TeMPOraL »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #30
sgentle wrote: post #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 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 pr…

> It's not anti-intellectual, it's a different intellectual viewpoint from yours.

It is anti-intellectual, in the sense that it posits a separate magisterium of things "too complex to reason about" (or sometimes, "too profound to dare and reason about") and asks to give up the attempt. That way lies supernatural.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#34

Post by TeMPOraL »

hyencomper wrote: post #25
sgentle wrote: post #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 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.

They are definitely measurable (by virtue of being a part of a physical process happening in the real world), we just haven't figured out a proper framework for them yet. Eventually, hopefully, we will.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#35

Post by nathan_f77 »

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned "financial independence" yet. Check out the subreddit: http://reddit.com/r/financialindependence, and the blog called Mr. Money Mustache: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

Many software engineers get paid a lot of money, so it's not too difficult to retire at 35 if you can keep your expenses down.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#36

Post by wu-ikkyu »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #33
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 pr…

> It's not anti-intellectual, it's a different intellectual viewpoint from yours. It is anti-intellectual, in the sense that it posits a separate magisterium of things "too complex to reason about" (or sometimes, "too profound to dare and reason about") and asks to give up the attempt. That way lies supernatural.

Do you think humans can gain omniscience using the scientific method?

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#37

Post by wu-ikkyu »

mmirate wrote: post #31
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

That is probably because the only way of evaluating a noneducational experience is via opportunity costs. (The adjective "monetary" is redundant when discussing evaluations and costs.) Obviously, educational experiences can be evaluated as any other investment.

>the only way of evaluating a noneducational experience is via opportunity costs.

What about human feelings (e.g. mental/physical health)? Are those important in evaluating experiences?

>(The adjective "monetary" is redundant when discussing evaluations and costs.)

The definition of opportunity cost does not mandate that the "cost" is monetary.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#38

Post by TeMPOraL »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #36
TeMPOraL wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not anti-intellectual, it's a different intellectual viewpoint from yours. It is anti-intellectual, in the sense that it posits a separate magisterium of things "too complex to reason about" (or sometimes, "too profound to dare and reason about") and asks to give up the attempt. That way lies supernatural.

Do you think humans can gain omniscience using the scientific method?

No. Though I am implying that we can get asymptotically close to omniscience (to the extent it's allowed by physics; full omniscience would probably have infinite energy requirements anywy) through the systems we build - which include mental frameworks, organizational structures and computing devices.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#39

Post by titzer »

When I look at the things that I am most grateful to have experienced in my life, none of the decisions that would have been motivated by optimization processes would have led to them coming about.

So what, then, is the point of optimization criteria, if they wouldn't actually enable any possible decision making that accomplishes the "goal"?

Sorry to be so down on this, Kent, but this line of reasoning is such a fail on so many levels. Once in a while--maybe often!--we should just turn off the optimizer and let life unfold.

Re: How Will I Measure My Life?

#40

Post by mmirate »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #37
mmirate wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is probably because the only way of evaluating a noneducational experience is via opportunity costs. (The adjective "monetary" is redundant when discussing evaluations and costs.) Obviously, educational experiences can be evaluated as any other investment.

>the only way of evaluating a noneducational experience is via opportunity costs. What about human feelings (e.g. mental/physical health)? Are those important in evaluating experiences? >(The adjective "monetary" is redundant when discussing evaluations and costs.) The definition of opportunity cost does not mandate that the "cost" is monetary.

> What about human feelings (e.g. mental/physical health)? Are those important in evaluating experiences?

If, and only if, they have a monetary effect.

For example a professional foot-racer becoming more healthy by X amount means the expected value of him/her running a race increases by some $Y amount (due to higher probability of winning a [higher] prize).

> The definition of opportunity cost does not mandate that the "cost" is monetary.

The cost in-question is important if and only if it is equivalent to some loss of (monetary) value.

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