Just that learning to halt subvocal speech even for a couple of seconds seems to be a much harder task than learning keeping an untrained hand still. There seems to be active resistance, a compulsion to internally vocalize, even (/especially) when detrimental. Unlearning it seems possible but no easy task, requiring a large amount of hours and determination in my experience.
Is there a good way to notice you're doing subvocal speech?
Making note of the absence of it is easier, in my experience (also, for me, the outside world needs to be silent as well). It is a really interesting state to be in.
Young people are experimental and open to novelty. Old people are conservative and prefer the status quo. The combination selects for a robust society. That's an evo-bio trope
Is because of memory. Old people remember how things were and want those memories to be continuously valuable. If everything changes they have nothing over the younger competition.
Feynman tells an intriguingly similar story from another angle. When he moved from Cornell to Caltech, he had a sort of Buridan's Ass situation where each one would beat the other's offer and leave him with no way to make a decision. Even the weather wouldn't cooperate, with the snow driving him out of Cornell and smog driving him out of Caltech. He eventually landed at Caltech, basically arbitrarily, and realized th…
Young people are experimental and open to novelty. Old people are conservative and prefer the status quo. The combination selects for a robust society. That's an evo-bio trope
This was a hugely helpful insight for me. First, because I found it much easier to accept "deliberating has a cost, factor that in" than a generalized claim of "stop thinking so much". Second, because thinking more really does help sometimes. "Go with your gut" doesn't sit well with me; every once so often I think about a decision and notice that I've made some major oversight in my first assessment. Aiming for the '…
I've never really understood "Go with your gut", because my gut is still my brain.. I would be curious if individuals have a process for thinking. A kind of structured thinking, instead of all abstract. I've noticed that it's really important giving my abstract thoughts a solid form, either by writing them down or speaking in a conversation (even to myself). Helps a lot in refining them, and figuring out what exactly…
> my gut is still my brain..
I think they mean deciding on the basis of preverbal emotional reactions, rather than on explicit values. That decision could be in reaction to outcomes you've already put a lot of thought into predicting, though.
Young people are experimental and open to novelty. Old people are conservative and prefer the status quo. The combination selects for a robust society. That's an evo-bio trope
Explore/exploit tradeoff in a nutshell.
Read somewhere (attributed to Mark Twain);
"The Old know too much to not take any risks; the Young do not know enough to not take any risks; and what amazes me is how they achieve it time after time."
Paradoxically, I think that the "Dunning–Kruger effect" (within limits) is actually necessary for us to evolve. Think about it; if you don't jump into the unknown with confidence, you won't learn/do anything. It is important to assess risk but also know when to stop obsessing over risk.
This is in no way an endorsement of doing without thinking, which will catch up with you and result in you being forced to skip options. At least I hope it isn't. There's a clear spectrum between recklessness on one end, indecision and inaction on the other and doing right things right in the middle, spontaneously or in a planned way. Relevancy is key, nobody remembers things that are irrelevant by definition as a re…
I don't think everybody has the capacity to be reckless. I think we are bounded by our temperament (nature + nurture). Some of us have exact perfectionist tendencies, and some of us have creative tendencies, and more. This is very much an oversimplification, but you can think of a Scientist as trying to get to the exact truth (in the realm of theory) and science as a field that aims for perfection. Engineers on the o…
Science is also there to "get things done". You set out with a goal or stumble upon one.
You have only limited time to go stumbling and digging too deep is only sometimes productive.
But when it is, the results are profound if not immediately used or understandable. Like the one about decision or chance exchangeability.
Regardless, mathematics is partially the art of building high order abstractions that explain the world, at the core. (And of course applied mathematics is the practice.) It is not a coincidence that it was mostly developed by people with many brain cycles to spare. There are many outdated (usually superseded, limited or outright meaningless, sometimes finished) branches of it too, which may not be apparent.
Thinking should be a time boxed activity, with time proportional to the priority of the thing at hand. As a classic overthinker I've realized my overthinking is a weird amalgamation of perfectionism and procrastination. That took me a long time to accept, since I've always rationalized my overthinking as ultimately a good thing. If you assume that action (instead of thinking) is the primary unit in the world, then yo…
Just accept that very little things in life are set in stone. Take a decision and then adapt, when the need arises.
This sounds interesting, I wish I knew enough to critically analyze it.
I believe we lack enough fundamental knowledge to critically analyse it with any sort of certainty, most of what is known comes from theory combined with individual experiences. This book is often recommended: https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...
I would love this book if only I could get my hands on LSD in my country without going to prison
I believe we lack enough fundamental knowledge to critically analyse it with any sort of certainty, most of what is known comes from theory combined with individual experiences. This book is often recommended: https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeut...
I would love this book if only I could get my hands on LSD in my country without going to prison
Psilocybin is a fine alternative, you should be able to find that.