Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

effectiviology.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 121 posts

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#51

Post by fma »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #8

This is really a powerful and understudied phenom that's very well exemplified in a very simple form of advice I once read concerning making decisions, self assessment: Instead of thinking "what should I do in the situation?", consider "what advice would I give myself in this situation?" It's almost a trivial differentiation, and yet, if one applies this concept immediately for any reason big or small, one will be as…

Often times when faced with a tough decision, I pretend I have a friend in the exact same situation and I think about what advice I without give them. It would actually take the form of a conversation and is quite productive.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#52

Post by rotrux »

This platitude paints a very shallow picture of human decisionmaking. Tecnically, eating oranges "can help you make better decisions" because getting scurvy is distressing.

Looking at yourself like an alien is not a catchall which will lead you to make 'better decisions.'

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#53

Post by lame88 »

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently.

However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you might be eyeing stuff like Scala and Clojure with dreams of a more fulfilling line of work. Perhaps the distanced rational self would say no, you are well invested in this Java skillset, and these new things could die out, or any new venture like this might not work out, so stick with what you know. But perhaps you take the more emotional route and say no, even if things pan out badly for me, i want a more fulfilling day to day rather than writing so much repetitive code or whatever (no offense to anyone happy with Java). And perhaps you land in a spot where you’re much happier. Or hell, perhaps you really wanted to pursue music, art, etc.

It’s my conjecture, but perhaps it’s most concisely put as: the more you distance yoursef, the less risk you tolerate, and you will take the safe path, precluding the wild possibilities that are the spice of life.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#55

Post by B-Con »

lame88 wrote: post #53

Wow. This is something I’ll probably remember for quite some time. It’s intuitive and immediately applicable, and also a dose of awareness I’ve needed recently. However, there’s a catch to this. By distancing yourself like this, it seems like you may act quite rationally - but perhaps too locally rational. You may be a long time Java programmer and just feel incredibly unfulfilled about your day to day work, and you…

This is me. I have a track record of making good, rational decisions that I end up regretting because it wasn't what I actually wanted. recently I've been trying to do a better job of checking in on my feelings to ensure present me don't make logical decisions future me will be aggrevated to follow up on.

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#56

Post by teddyh »

manigandham wrote: post #20

This is called "detachment" in many areas of leadership like the military. I'm sure everyone has personally experienced this, for example when giving advice to others. It's usually very rational and practical because you're not personally and emotionally invested in the events of their life.

“We’re all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse. All war depends upon it.”

— Speirs, Band of Brothers (2001)

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#57

Post by teddyh »

dominotw wrote: post #10

> self who is analyzing the event is considered to be distinct from the self who experienced it I have hard time following this, how can there be two selfs in a single mind. Is the observer more nobler entity with higher self restraint than the entity being observed who is more emotional and lower self control?

> how can there be two selfs in a single mind.

Oh wow, do I have a YouTube video for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8

(You Are Two, by CGP Grey)

Re: Self-distancing can help you make better decisions

#60

Post by derefr »

mbrock wrote: post #43
derefr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about a separate thing. The "speaking agent", or the analyzing agent, is also the predictive agent, and the goal-biasing agent. These are all one "thing." That "thing" is the subsystem of the brain that gets woken up by activity on dopamine receptors, and attempts to model the world (with a bias toward predicting world-states it would like to see, and can make real by predicting a future that requires…

No Buddhist would say that, so clearly there's some misunderstanding. There is no Buddhist claim that the true self is an inert observer. Fixating on any aspect of your experience as true or authentic is the problem, not the solution. Enlightened people in Buddhist traditions are functional, happy, active; they don't just sit and stare blankly.

Okay, maybe I didn’t use the right term. I wasn’t referring to spiritual enlightenment (bodhi), but rather spiritual emancipation (moksha).

Let me rephrase more clearly: a person in a state of (permanent) delirium has achieved Nirodha—that is, reached nirvana and thereby escaped dukkha and the cycle of samsara by no longer possessing any earthly desires, and so no desirous soul to reincarnate.

Delirium seems to be precisely the state that the Gautama Buddha was suggesting people attempt to achieve to escape human suffering: one where their soul has been erased while they still yet live. This isn’t the same thing as the state he was suggesting people achieve to become better human beings while yet they lived as one—the state of being a Buddha, essentially—but rather, was the state he advised people in the depths of suffering seek, to find release from their suffering.

Of course, the concepts are not so distant; spiritual enlightenment (bodhi) is simply the freedom and clarity that comes from the knowledge that one has ultimate control over the fate of one’s own soul—the knowledge that one is effectively free from samsara already, because one can be free from it (through nirodha) at any point in the future as one so chooses. Certainly, these people are happy and functional. But in nirvana they ain’t.

Post reply on HN