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You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#231

Post by madaxe_again »

daniel_reetz wrote: post #33
y04nn wrote: post #25

Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now. Since I realized this, I am…

Hmm. The experiences that changed and benefited me most were least predictable. As a result, I try to manage experiences less, and choose the unknown more. But in the spirit of what you've said, I try to avoid doing dumb, damaging, or boring things twice.

I just got into the habit of saying “yes” to pretty much anything. It has taken me on some wild rides indeed, and I am richer in spirit for it. It forged the bond between my wife and me - “shall we do a road trip across Eurasia?”, she idly asked, expecting at the very most a “maybe” - instead I grasped that nettle and applied for visas that day. Six weeks of utterly madcap adventure ensued. Since, I’ve found myself in an unending series of odd adventures of one variety of another, from fostering rare donkeys to… other stuff I’d be wise to not mention. Some episodes I would call ill-advised in the extreme, but all have been enriching.

There’s always a reason to say no, and it’s probably bullshit.

It also has the added benefit of uplifting others - it transforms their idle thought into something that actually happens.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#232

Post by Kbelicius »

d0mine wrote: post #93
nlitened wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving a knowledge of a language is a _huge_ external input, intertwined with culture and life experience of the language teacher. And the smaller the external input we give to this group of toddler, the more they will resemble a violent pack of chimps in the end. Unlikely to develop their own values and perspectives.

why "violent pack of chimps" instead of free-loving bonobos?

Off topic but it seems that bonobos are not that peaceful compared to the chimps.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426678-peaceful-male-b...

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#233

Post by TFYS »

somenameforme wrote: post #123
nikkwong wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you positing that you have free will but that those around you with less emotional control don’t? I don’t think your example is serving your argument; your brain is structured in such a way that you reason in a way that is unique to you, and others reason otherwise based on the structure of their brains. I don’t see how this grants you free will. You’re talking about feelings and reasoning as part of conscious ex…

No, I am stating that we can control and change how we behave, which is largely the definition of free will. This is why even identical twins growing up in a practically identical environment will not end up identical. To continue with claims of no free will you end up needing to start appealing to some sort of a butterfly effect of environment. And while that claim is not falsifiable and probably never will be, I th…

> To continue with claims of no free will you end up needing to start appealing to some sort of a butterfly effect of environment.

The differences between the lives of even identical twins in the same environment are a lot more than a flap of a butterfly's wings. They don't spend every second of their lives together, so their experiences will differ quite a bit.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#234

Post by seydor »

y04nn wrote: post #25

Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now. Since I realized this, I am…

It's as if life was tokenized and fed to an LLM

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#235

Post by latexr »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #84
NERD_ALERT wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free will hasn’t been proven. It’s up in the air how much is predetermined, and how to even define “free” in the context of free will. Even if we do have free will it’s still influenced to some degree by our biology.

My Diogenes answer would be to walk across the room and slap you: “if I didn’t chose to do it you cannot be angry at me.” That’s tongue and cheek sure, but the point I feel stands. Free will is certainly constrained, and our material and biological conditions do matter - there’s no amount I can will to make myself fly, but they are not necessarily as rigid of constraints as many would have you believe. We can overcom…

> walk across the room and slap you: “if I didn’t chose to do it you cannot be angry at me.”

Of course they could. Anger is a way for the body to react without choosing as a defense mechanism against the next slap. Either your biology would recognise the anger and step back, or the other person would punch you back, making you afraid to repeat what you did.

I’m not siding with or against free will, I just don’t think your example works to prove the point.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#236

Post by Cthulhu_ »

y04nn wrote: post #25

Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now. Since I realized this, I am…

There was a thread yesterday about closing public libraries, and this sentiment ties into that; open and free access to information is important, because a lack thereof causes people to become blinkered and close-minded, which in turn makes them more susceptible for populist talking points (that is, a populist politician or propaganda telling you there is a Problem; when people don't have factual information to the contrary, or even a mindset of curiosity ("is that actually true?") they are more likely to accept it).

Hence, book burnings, censorship, and suppression of free speech are problematic.

(That said, I also believe that free speech should be curtailed on platforms with large audiences)

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#237

Post by jajko »

y04nn wrote: post #25

Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now. Since I realized this, I am…

> I am more meticulous when choosing what I do and don't do, there is no going back

And whom you surround yourself with in both professional and personal life, whom you listen to as an authority on topic XYZ. Work has massive effect on our personality long term. There is no way to separate those 2, so its smart to anticipate things before you realize that decade(s) in some toxic place dragged you nanometer by nanometer into some dark pit.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#238

Post by kieckerjan »

7222aafdcf68cfe wrote: post #191
kieckerjan wrote: post #182

A corollary of this idea that also the bad stuff that you read leaves a trace, and not necessarily a good trace. To continue the food metaphor: like junk food there is junk reading and while it may satisfy some need it is all informational empty calories and transfats. Which brings up a subject I pondered many times: to go on an information diet. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

In this context, I often refer to the essay by Rolf Dobelli, titled Avoid News: Towards a Healthy News Diet. It can be found on the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20130117104220/http://dobelli.co...

Actually Dobelli was the one who got me thinking about this. I tend to agree with him, although eschewing all news is a bit too extreme to my taste. I tried scaling back my intake by switching from a daily paper to a weekly paper, but one has to have tremendous discipline to avoid the news of the day on the internet. Especially if the internet is your job, like it is for me.

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#239

Post by robertlagrant »

jampekka wrote: post #218
NERD_ALERT wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free will hasn’t been proven. It’s up in the air how much is predetermined, and how to even define “free” in the context of free will. Even if we do have free will it’s still influenced to some degree by our biology.

Free will is more ideological dogma than a factual claim. From materialist standpoint it's untenable. And empirically we see that environment dominates thinking and behavior. Free will is the foundation of most judeo-christian moral systems, which were inherited by liberalism. It's the justification for punishshing and rewading individuals. It seems to work relatively well, but I find it very cruel.

> I find it very cruel

What's a better and less cruel alternative?

Re: You are what you read, even if you don't always remember it

#240

Post by tyler33 »

y04nn wrote: post #25

Don't forget that you are the result of all the past sensory interactions that you experienced in your whole life, people you interacted with, books you read, advertisements, songs, news headlines, etc. Even if you think you don't remember them, at one point in your life it was processed by your brain and may have changed some posterior decisions you made, thus making you what you are now. Since I realized this, I am…

just like an artificial neural network in training mode :/
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