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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

#271

Post by jebarker »

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…

If there's "no going back" doesn't that imply you don't have free will and therefore you can't really choose what you do and don't do?

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

#272

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

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.

I applied the same thing to my media dieting - I have made a conscious effort to sort of curate and eliminate certain pages and news sources.

This orange site I have mixed feelings about though.

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

#273

Post by verisimi »

schneebyte wrote: post #214
verisimi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of answers about free will. My criticism is that they all seem to make the same error, in treating the existence of free will as some sort of binary decision. My view is that the more one's model is coherent with the underlying reality, the more options are available to the individual. The greater the selection, the more free will you have. Eg, if someone pulls a gun on you, you may think you have no free will.…

Maybe you have a different definition of free will. But to me those examples are just knowledge. Regardless of how many possible options, the process of making the choice would be free will, if it existed.

Feel free to give your definition of free will.

My one is that one is more free if one is aware of the full scope of one's options. This is not an ephemeral idea, it is not related to the 'what might have been' aka the 'opportunity cost' of choosing. One's present awareness (and potential expansion of that awareness) has an impact on how free one is.

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

#274

Post by FrustratedMonky »

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 don't think he is saying, don't be surprised, or have unique experiences. But don't sit and watch YouTube all day. You can curate your inputs to some degree, and limit just sitting and soaking in social media.

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

#275

Post by keiferski »

jasode wrote: post #221
keiferski wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty trite if you stop to think about it. “Everything in your life that you experience has an effect on your experience of life.” We all exist in the world, not apart from it, and no amount of exclusion or creation of “sterile spaces” will change that.

>We all exist in the world, not apart from it, and no amount of exclusion or creation of “sterile spaces” will change that. The surrounding reality in the world doesn't change but the gp was talking about deliberate curation of that reality. Maybe another example using advertising to help highlight the difference: - block ads during web surfing with PiHole and uBlock. "I am more meticulous when choosing what I do and…

I just don’t think it’s a good life strategy to obsess over every single piece of media that you may inadvertently consume. Use an ad blocker and avoid outright garbage, sure, but that wasn’t the vibe I got from the parent comment. Constructing this sort of sterile world always ends badly when you’re forced to deal with things from outside it.

As a general life strategy, I think it’s always better to “filter” rather than “block.”

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

#276

Post by FrustratedMonky »

b112 wrote: post #199
keiferski wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty trite if you stop to think about it. “Everything in your life that you experience has an effect on your experience of life.” We all exist in the world, not apart from it, and no amount of exclusion or creation of “sterile spaces” will change that.

Indeed. Although as with anything, moderation is key. Not too much, or too little. Listening to 4 hours a day of Tiktok or Youtube boneheads, probably isn't all that good for the average person. (I'm not referring to intellectual videos, but instead just "some random person" that has amassed 10M followers because they .. well I don't know what they do, except market themselves well. Then start blathering on about lit…

Having watched a lot of educational and scientific videos, I'm beginning to think there are diminishing returns, and they can be just as addictive and non-valuable.

Filling the day with any video's seems to have downsides.

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

#278

Post by FrustratedMonky »

VMG wrote: post #155
mrkstu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we don't what's the point of debating it?

To satisfy the predetermined desire to debate it.

Monkeys are determined to argue, so they will argue about free-will, and wonder if they could have chosen not to argue, and then argue about that also.

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

#279

Post by a_bonobo »

keiferski wrote: post #168
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…

This is pretty trite if you stop to think about it. “Everything in your life that you experience has an effect on your experience of life.” We all exist in the world, not apart from it, and no amount of exclusion or creation of “sterile spaces” will change that.

I don't think it is trite: you need to remind yourself that the information you ingest will have an effect on you. If you're deeply informed about an ongoing violent conflict it will have a negative effect on your mental health as you'll watch a lot of violence.

I've been practising information hygiene for a while - if I can't change anything about problem X and it does not affect me or my family, should I be deeply informed about it? - and it has done wonders for my mental health.

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

#280

Post by VoodooJuJu »

I think that Emerson quote is just one big cope.

The books you read make you as much as you want them to make you. You get out of them what you put into them. If you're consuming books but not able to recall much from them, then you're not putting enough into them.

I especially don't like the Emerson quote because of how consumerist it is in its sentiment. It's a self-soothing license to passively consume and relieve oneself from any obligations to work to derive deeper substance from what they consume.

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