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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

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Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#61
post #49

This is what the DOGE guys don’t understand: even if it seems you can easily replace something, you will find out that the devil is in the detail.

Removing something critical and seeing what happens is a methodology used by Musk in all his companies: remove LIDAR from self driving car, remove flame trench from spaceship launch pad, etc. Results may vary.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#62

> If you wish to not get stuck, seek to perceive what you have not yet perceived This may seem like impractical advice. How does one increase the scope of perception? Personally, I’ve found that a meditation practice leads to this.

Meditation has totally helped me widen my scope and soften my awareness. I've found these two exercises also help me get out of my default mode of perception.

Image Streaming[1] is a fun little exercise that has helped me expand my perception of things or problems. I try to do it in a very high dynamic range way -- where I zoom out of a scene describe it in detail and then zoom in a describe it in detail.

There is also a fun improv exercise where you walk around looking at objects and calling it the wrong name. It sort of gets you our of default mode and you start seeing things 'differently' (a touch more vivid). I think the exercise is described in Impro by Keith Johnstone.

[1]: https://winwenger.com/resources/cps-techniques/image-streami...

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#63

a.k.a "Humans are unsurprisingly such simpletons when forming their mental model of reality, and always oversimplify."

There's the reasonable amount of oversimplification necessary to just get through life, then there's actively trying to oversimplify because it makes life "easier". I judge people very harshly based on whether they accept reality as complex or rail against it. I am not proud that I do it, but it seems like it has value. I feel like strong yearnings for simplicity (and willingness to ignore messy reality) correlates w…

Reading Ian McGilchrist’s “Master and his Emissary” has been incredibly eye opening on this theme.

Oversimplification and getting upset with the world when it doesn’t fit your model of it is definitely a poor character trait —- which is nevertheless unfortunately trained and rewarded in our schools and much of our professional work.

The world is what it is and there are some helpful abstractions for navigating it, but don’t be upset when your model fails as it always will.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#64

> If you wish to not get stuck, seek to perceive what you have not yet perceived This may seem like impractical advice. How does one increase the scope of perception? Personally, I’ve found that a meditation practice leads to this.

Meditation has totally helped me widen my scope and soften my awareness. I've found these two exercises also help me get out of my default mode of perception. Image Streaming[1] is a fun little exercise that has helped me expand my perception of things or problems. I try to do it in a very high dynamic range way -- where I zoom out of a scene describe it in detail and then zoom in a describe it in detail. There is al…

Found a link to a description of the exercise.

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/01/23/impro-by-keith-johnsto...

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#65
post #56
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On reading the article before the comments, I literally was remembering Musk's initial descriptions of The Boring Company and how they were wildly forgetting or glossing over key details that would mean the difference between exciting leap forward to terrifying death trap. I find your comment to be the same idea, but on something folks have foisted upon them and are forced to experience.

Ignoring details has been very lucrative for Musk. Remember when he said self driving is coming next year… every year… since 2017

Indeed, Musk is the first and only man to ever do that.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#66
post #49

This is what the DOGE guys don’t understand: even if it seems you can easily replace something, you will find out that the devil is in the detail.

Can we please not DOGEify every comment thread? I know that it's on a lot of minds all the time, but we have a whole spot on the front page effectively reserved for DOGE 24/7, and I'd like to see literally anything else in the other 29 slots.

Agreed. People are unhealthily obsessed with DOGE here. And on top of that, basically every DOGE thread turns into a flame war. It's extremely deleterious for the site to have everything collapse into DOGE talk.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#67

> If you wish to not get stuck, seek to perceive what you have not yet perceived This may seem like impractical advice. How does one increase the scope of perception? Personally, I’ve found that a meditation practice leads to this.

Don’t ignore any question is the strategy I’ve found. The problem is that some questions fall just below the conscious threshold. Meditation seems to help dredge up the questions and take them seriously.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#69
post #61
post #49

This is what the DOGE guys don’t understand: even if it seems you can easily replace something, you will find out that the devil is in the detail.

Removing something critical and seeing what happens is a methodology used by Musk in all his companies: remove LIDAR from self driving car, remove flame trench from spaceship launch pad, etc. Results may vary.

"Results may vary" is not an acceptable methodology for the US Government, when millions of lives are potentially at stake.

Ed: among the ways millions of lives could be lost: losing control of our nuclear arsenal or nuclear materials due to haphazardly firing people responsible for maintaining them. Bungling the response to the next pandemic, due to haphazardly firing people, cutting science funding and deleting inconvenient data. Starvation and disease from ceasing aid around the world. There's also the wars likely to result from the collapse of trust in the US as a security partner, but I suppose it's not correct to blame that on DOGE per se, even if it's an extension of the same principle.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#70
post #49

This is what the DOGE guys don’t understand: even if it seems you can easily replace something, you will find out that the devil is in the detail.

Can we please not DOGEify every comment thread? I know that it's on a lot of minds all the time, but we have a whole spot on the front page effectively reserved for DOGE 24/7, and I'd like to see literally anything else in the other 29 slots.

It's timely, current, and surprisingly related. I see no issue here. See my sister comment as to why.
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