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Our efforts, in part, define us

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Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#101

Post by gsf_emergency_2 »

ambicapter wrote: post #95
gsf_emergency_2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this related phenom which seems paradoxical to me but maybe you can help figure: Things that are built with money (& not by say, intrinsic motivation alone) seem to have a high ratio of (traction) to (resources invested). Not sure if marketing alone can explain that? Obvious exceptions come to mind , eg the Linux kernel, but even that was massively boosted by commercial interests. (One other class of exceptio…

So "traction", as in, many people using your creation, is the only form of worthwhile meaning? Sounds like you believe external validation is the only form of worthwhile meaning?

Edit: if I were to put myself in Archimedes' shoes, motivation comes from "this is nuts but it could work" and meaning comes from "it works!"

More like survival. I think of Archimedes' letters to the librarian of Alexandria, describing his secret technique of infinitessimals. It seems clear that he knew his work was meaningful but he wasnt going to die without telling anybody about it. He wasn't looking for validation, he didn't need it

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#102

Post by card_zero »

jebarker wrote: post #96
card_zero wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a real Popper quote, is it. The sentiment is nice, but it must be radically paraphrased, because he doesn't generate pithy quotes very often. > To conclude, I think that there is only one way to science—or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part—unless you should meet another and…

This feels right to me, but I wonder what he was thinking of when he said “problem”. For me life is most effortless when I’m working on math or cs problems/puzzles but I sometimes get this guilty feeling that I “should” be working on a problem that is useful to the rest of the world.

Yeah, there's problems, like puzzles and mysteries, and then there's difficulties, and there's no sharp dividing line but the difficulties are less fun. And are also called problems.

So far as moral duty goes, play to your strengths, you're at your best when having fun. This conveniently evaluates to "do what you like". It's not perfectly true, but you can get away with it, blamelessly. Nobody needs you miserable, usually. Then there's the wrinkle where the importance of something to humanity (or even the promise of a large cash reward) may make it fun ... if you happen to feel that way.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#103

Post by aeon_ai »

gsf_emergency_2 wrote: post #88
aeon_ai wrote: post #83

At some point -- sometimes early, often too late -- we realize we're going to die. Our time is finite. We have only so many days to do anything, let alone something that matters. Meaning is found in how and why we spend that time. When we're fooled into believing money matters more than time, we trade far too much of the latter for the former. Worse, we can mistake the monetary value of our time for its actual value,…

There's this related phenom which seems paradoxical to me but maybe you can help figure: Things that are built with money (& not by say, intrinsic motivation alone) seem to have a high ratio of (traction) to (resources invested). Not sure if marketing alone can explain that? Obvious exceptions come to mind , eg the Linux kernel, but even that was massively boosted by commercial interests. (One other class of exceptio…

This is, as I see it, the tension between wisdom and power.

Wealth, in the modern era, has been a vehicle to achieve power. It is certainly not the only path, but it is the most culturally universal path to influence the effort of others available today. When we set our ambitions towards lofty outcomes that require power to accomplish, we inevitably run into the capacity constraints involved with being a single person.

Money is a path to acquiring sufficient power to realize goals. Power itself is amoral, and the idealist with good intentions must inevitably conclude that power is a requirement to realize big dreams.

But, effort is also power. For our sanity, wisdom would have us focus on our efforts, with every moment we have, rather than whether or not we achieve the goal. I'll also add that AI is increasing the scope of what our efforts alone can accomplish, for good and bad.

To achieve large goals, pragmatism would require us to derive meaning and purpose from the effort put towards those ends, rather than the attainment of the goal. Think this is best described as an 'open purpose'.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#104

Post by gsf_emergency_2 »

aeon_ai wrote: post #103
gsf_emergency_2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this related phenom which seems paradoxical to me but maybe you can help figure: Things that are built with money (& not by say, intrinsic motivation alone) seem to have a high ratio of (traction) to (resources invested). Not sure if marketing alone can explain that? Obvious exceptions come to mind , eg the Linux kernel, but even that was massively boosted by commercial interests. (One other class of exceptio…

This is, as I see it, the tension between wisdom and power. Wealth, in the modern era, has been a vehicle to achieve power. It is certainly not the only path, but it is the most culturally universal path to influence the effort of others available today. When we set our ambitions towards lofty outcomes that require power to accomplish , we inevitably run into the capacity constraints involved with being a single pers…

Edit: if I were to put myself in Archimedes' shoes, motivation comes from "this is nuts but it could work" and meaning comes from "it works!"

>Money is a path to acquiring sufficient power

Power and money are almost interchangeable, and I'm taking a wild guess that better questions are hidden in that "almost" (as you say, "wisdom+effort", but I'd have to sleep on that for a few nights in order not to casually one-up that with "precience")

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#105

Post by repeekad »

habinero wrote: post #34
falcor84 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> never looked back Obviously there are very many Amish people who leave their communities to join the modern world - according to various sources this attrition seems to be between 15-25%. And even amongst those who stay, it's likely that a central reason is the fear of excommunication/shunning, rather than an inherent desire to reject modern technology.

Yeah, people romanticize them, but they're basically a cult.

Cults usually recruit new members and extract profits or push some motive, wanting to be left alone is hardly a cult

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#106

Post by anal_reactor »

aeon_ai wrote: post #83

At some point -- sometimes early, often too late -- we realize we're going to die. Our time is finite. We have only so many days to do anything, let alone something that matters. Meaning is found in how and why we spend that time. When we're fooled into believing money matters more than time, we trade far too much of the latter for the former. Worse, we can mistake the monetary value of our time for its actual value,…

I know that one day I'm going to die, but it's just incredibly difficult to find meaning in life. The more I try the more I fail and the more depressed I get. I can't find meaning in work because toxic corporate environment is what pays most. I can't find meaning in hobbies because the mind just gets bored of them at some point, whether it's productive hobbies or doomscrolling. I can't find meaning in other people because talking to 99% of them leaves me frustrated rather than fulfilled, and the other 1% has better shit to do than talking to me. I can't find meaning in meaninglessness because mind starts to wander.

By the power of sheer discipline I keep moving on. I have my daily routine which encompasses a variety of activities that theoretically should push me forward as a person. But I can't escape the profound sense of disappointment and dissatisfaction. It's terrifying for me to think that this is how I'll spend the rest of my life and then I'll die, but at the same time I'm completely clueless what I could potentially change while there's still time. And the worst part is, compared to most of humanity, I'm very privileged.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#107

Post by fellowniusmonk »

bsenftner wrote: post #9

Maybe this is a neurodivergent thing, but I have, as long as I can remember, always had the following progression in my mind: "What are you doing? No, that's this situation's name, what is this really?" and I'd continue a few times seeking the "larger problem, the more basic problem being solved" that whatever I was doing "really is". That "basic problem" was "communicating" far more frequently than I expected, and t…

Culture has created this odd myth that if something is semantic it doesn't matter. That communication is just another soft skill.

Humans make meaning, we are the only source of complex, long term, meaning generation we have ever observed.

We emit meaning the way a star emits photons.

Sure, a lot of natural processes would still exist if we weren't around.

But in this universe, perhaps the only one that exists, we are the ones making meaning. Sometimes tge meaning exists physically in our imaginations, sometimes it maps to external facts, but everything that rationally coheres, creates and explains comes from us.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#108

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I became a computer programmer because I want the computer to do things. I’m not a programmer because I wanted to program. Thus AI is incredibly exciting to me because it makes it easier to make computers do things.

I'm at the tail end of a lifetime career of software development, and the way I've come to understand it is that I largely enjoy it because it lets you conjure dreams into reality - really a kind of superpower given how abstract and arbitrary those dreams can be. I used to think that "We are the gods of the digital age" would be a cool business card logo, although I doubt it would go down too well!

The other part of the job/hobby that I've always found enjoyable is in striving for "perfectly" minimal/clean designs where the code reads more like functional requirements than messy implementation detail. You look at the code and it is obvious that nothing can be taken out, and no more minimal implementation is conceivable. A bit like an impressionist painting perhaps, where every brush stroke counts, and all you are left with is the essence of the thing being captured. I would proudly consider myself to be a hardcore geek, but there is no doubt an aesthetic/artistic component to software done right, a goal you know has been achieved when at the end of a project you re-read the code and gloat over how beautiful and minimal it is!

This part of the satisfaction of software development will sadly be disappearing as the role of coding is taken over by AI, but perhaps there will still be some satisfaction in minimal design, if not in minimal implementation.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#110

Post by card_zero »

skydhash wrote: post #50
latexr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I became a computer programmer because I was frustrated “the computer” (i.e. other people’s programs) didn’t do things exactly as I wanted them. That could mean current solutions didn’t do it efficiently, or correctly, or maybe it was just different from what I wanted. In other words, I did it for the same reason as you: to get the computer to do things. But I, on the other hand, do not find LLMs “incredibly exciting…

I started on computers because I wanted to do stuff (photo manipulation and 3d modelling) and then I was fascinated by how to get the computers to do stuff (games and scripts). But just like you, I want things to be done correctly and efficiently . Coding for me is more reading than typing, because any time I'm not exactly clear on the code I want to write, it's because there's some aspects of the problem or the tool…

Neither LLMs nor popular search engines return "I don't know" often enough. They will waste your time with bad approximations to an answer instead. But as you say, "the thing you're asking for might not exist" is useful information, and lets you make faster progress with your guessing, so this compulsion to always supply an answer just slows down the process of getting to a good one.
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