this reminds me of the end of Lawrence of Arabia
the entire film thus far about destiny, fate, making our own paths... and then to pinch a bit of flesh and understand what we are. magnificent and sorrowful, all at once
What You (Want to)* Want
141–150 of 189 posts
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#142The brain feels like a quantum alien that took over a biological shell to survive on this planet and is now trying to optimize its casing options. (Deliberately changing the terms for a concept can help us see it in a new light.)
- Some wants damage the casing but feel great to the brain (sugar).
- Some wants take over a portion of the brain's activity and tax it to eternity (addiction), so its best to never ever try them.
- Some wants are very very bad for other brains and casings, so carnivores draw the line making non-carnivorous varieties inferior and thus worth sacrificing (meat consumption).
- Some wants damage the connections and relationships between human brains and thus ability for all of humanity to survive collectively, so religion and laws have stepped in to set the rules of engagement.
- Some wants are psychological and financially a bad idea.
- Few wants are fundamental, and most wants are based on something we've seen others done that we want to try.
- Wanting not to want something is a tax and conflict with our own brain, and just like addiction it can be tackled if the want was caused by exposure to the activity, or exposure to the idea, or the subject/object of want and that exposure is reduced or removed from view.
- If you are the subject of the want (an attractive person, a VC, a Billionaire, a person of influence), all of a sudden your life incurs an overhead and a cost for deterring everyone else's wants towards you.
Psychology/Philosophy may have more insight into whether the origin of bad wants is curiosity, wrongful exposure, greed, or inborn instincts based on biological/genetically ingrained habits.
Economics + Business has the job of satisfying the wants of an increasing number of intelligent agents in the system by encouraging those who want more to make more and increase supply of the the most wanted kinds of objects of want. Government has the job of satisfying the needs of everyone in its jurisdiction, while entrepreneurship has the luxury of picking which wants and needs to serve that are most profitable and desirable to the entrepreneur.
Advertising has the job of involuntarily planting more wants in the brains of everyone.
Fun paths to explore. Thanks PG!
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can understand that. And I appreciate you sharing your opinion and thoughts on it. I'm not familiar with the Illusory truth effect but will get some reading into today (thanks for the link!) In speaking. I try to approach things as always mutable. If I put a disclaimer in front of everything I state (when I perceive the I talk about to always be some form of a hypothesis based on the data that I currently have), it…
Rarely do I get any agreement on these ideas, so many thanks for that. Unsurprisingly, I am interested in some clarification: > If I put a disclaimer in front of everything I state (when I perceive the I talk about to always be some form of a hypothesis based on the data that I currently have), it tends to slow down discourse and get very messy. The domain of science typically involves overwhelming (in a text convers…
> Rarely do I get any agreement on these ideas, so many thanks for that.
> Unsurprisingly, I am interested in some clarification:
>> If I put a disclaimer in front of everything I state (when I perceive the I talk about to always be some form of a hypothesis based on the data that I currently have), it tends to slow down discourse and get very messy.
> The domain of science typically involves overwhelming (in a text conversation scenario) amounts of complexity as well....but they realized the problem, found a way to manage it, and went on to produce amazing results. Unfortunately, science does not have mastery over all of reality (confident claims and perceptions to the contrary notwithstanding). Perhaps something similar could be done in other domains.
I think using science here was an exceptional example. It's good to note that the scientific process itself has evolved over time. I don't have all the answers, but I'm happy to re-analyze and adjust my processes given new data
> As it is, it seems to me that thinking on top of approximations of reality that are perceived as reality itself is sub-optimal, and dangerous. I think most people could appreciate this in the case of science, but in other domains it is very often considered absurd.
I can agree with that in part. Ideas must come from somewhere though. Sometimes that source is abstract and we don't understand all of the various linkages/connections; sometimes it's a known source and we understand in part all the things they are connected to. I think it's important to enable discourse and "thinking out loud" by labelling/tagging things as such.
>> In my mind, because I've already accepted the potential for bad data-- that's how I approach others works/papers.
>"In my mind" - watch out! :)
I'm comfortable with having my ideas challenged because I'm open to revising them. I should probably change this to 'my methodology is' or something more distinct. Merely attempting to convey here that I (try) to use a conscious approach when approaching others works. And I attempt to challenge myself regarding my own ideas on a regular basis.
> Disagree - if one has decent skills in set theory, abstraction/decomposition, and tautological framing of ideas, it is not difficult at all to achieve absolute (but vague/non-comprehensive) truth. That's not the finish line, but you can get WAY further down the track than someone who does not have such abilities.
I would argue that's not an absolute ;) But instead, I think both of our points, the important thing to identify is that it's not the finish line. It can be modified or adjusted or simply re-analyzed given new data.
Society seems to tend to think of ideas as a binary when there are often various levels of maturity involved. What's important to me in this instance is that the product isn't labelled as final. Change is a constant, even if things don't change directly, our information about them and perception of them do, which requires re-evaluating things often. Science is great at doing this, people (in general) are not. I think that many people would benefit from approaching things in a more scientific and/or philosophical fashion.
> I understand your concerns around this (and at least from my current understanding of our social/political issues) and I agree. It is extremely dangerous and detrimental to hold beliefs like that.
> And as far as I can tell: this is the methodology of the vast majority (90%+++) of people....and some of these are The Literal Experts, or people who believe they know The Way humanity needs to go to solve climate change. What could go wrong!!??
Expert is a dangerous word. An expert to me is someone that can adapt a methodology/approach. Not dogmatic follow something. I'd argue that for someone to be an expert in their field, they need to be able to understand and account for incoming data. I'd agree with you on that point. Many experts spout dogma, sometimes we're just lucky/unlucky that they aren't spouting the dogma we agree with.
I appreciate the discourse!
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#144This is genius, I strive to reason this well.
I am endlessly fascinated by thinking about thinking, and thinking about thinking about thinking. I have observed my brain’s ability to think recursively about its own thoughts many times before and it’s such a cool phenomenon.
This strikes me as very similar, the regex expression is a useful way of explaining his point.
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#145Schopenhauer: "Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills." I've wrestled with this question from time to time and, to the extent I've found a solution, the key is duration: In the short term, choices are mutable (but determined by character), and character is fixed. In the long term, character is mutable, and determined by some inner nature plus the integral of experience, influence, and choice. Ther…
As someone with a lifetime of fighting with the executive dysfunction end of ADHD, I very much understand what Schopenhauer has saying. I can know what I need to do and have the willpower to do it, but the door to the cupboard where the willpower resides is locked, unlocks randomly, and nobody knows where the key is.
> I can know what I need to do and have the willpower to do it, but the door to the cupboard where the willpower resides is locked, unlocks randomly, and nobody knows where the key is.
Best description of this situation that I have ever seen, many thanks.
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people do not deny those religious experiences because there are experiments to trigger them and the experiences can be observed for instance using brain scans. But what scientists deny is that we see any prove that these experiences have any supernatural cause.
> I think people do not deny those religious experiences because there are experiments to trigger them and the experiences can be observed for instance using brain scans. Some people, sure....but many people deny the validity/genuineness of them, or the potential existence of the supernatural all the time - it's practically a sport on Reddit, not all that uncommon right here on HN, and something I have experienced ma…
I don't want to discount what you say as indeed I would have no way to disprove a metaphysical god. On the other hand given that no proof is provided the other way for the existence it seems wasteful to discuss.
Kind of like UFO sighting reports. Lots of people share their believe but no proof manifested and we don't have reason to believe any UFOs would evade detection if there were any. Same with a god.
Climate change on the other hand is undeniably affecting billions of people in ever increasing negative ways. Indeed a colossal waste that we destroy our planet just because we cannot unify our effort and invest in technologies which don't wreck our planet.
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#147I probably don't have much to contribute, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the concept of free will Paul seems to brush against. I found the concept of free will at odds with my opinion that the brain and physics are very deterministic. But one thing the "free will doesn't exist" people tend to forget, is that the brain rewires and changes itself. You are destined to do what your brain is wired to do, but doing…
> brain and physics are very deterministic Not to get too much into the 'quantum woo' territory, but my naive understanding is that the physics is only somewhat deterministic, b/c non-deterministic quantum events can have macroscopic effects? Say you decide for whether you'll eat a dinner, if a particle with half-time of 1 second will split within the next second. This you wouldn't be able to predict, even if you kne…
There are deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics.
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#148Am I the only one who never cared about free will? Either we have free will or we don't - we will never know - and it doesn't actually matter.
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do we know it is non-deterministic, or do we not have any proof it's one way or the other?
AFAIK hidden variable models have been ruled out in many quantum scenarios. It really does appear that the universe is not deterministic.
You don't need hidden variables to have deterministic quantum mechanics (many-worlds is deterministic without hidden variables, and we haven't ruled out global hidden variables or superdeterminism afaik)
Re: What You (Want to)* Want
#150I probably don't have much to contribute, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the concept of free will Paul seems to brush against. I found the concept of free will at odds with my opinion that the brain and physics are very deterministic. But one thing the "free will doesn't exist" people tend to forget, is that the brain rewires and changes itself. You are destined to do what your brain is wired to do, but doing…
I'm pretty sure the answer to "do we have free will" is "no", and the much more interesting question is "why do we feel that we have free will?" which I don't know the answer to.