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What If You Could Do It All Over?

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Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#391

Post by derangedHorse »

0df8dkdf wrote: post #308
teekert wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't like about this quote is that it pretends you just have to choose between all these attractive and worthwhile goals and that the choosing is the difficult part. In reality though you may opt for a career, leave the family but fail. Or you may put your career on a lower pitch only to have your wife and you decide it won't really work out. In reality, it's more like you start to climb for a fat purple fig…

>What I don't like about this quote is that it pretends you just have to choose between all these attractive and worthwhile goals and that the choosing is the difficult part. For sure, however it is better to have tried and experienced than not have. I have tried and failed at picking many of those figs, and it is worth it, the good and bad. Don't stand there, give yourself a time, and then chose freely.

Not always, be too scattered and you’ll fail at everything where you might’ve succeeded trying persistently with one

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#393

Post by api »

runawaybottle wrote: post #54
phnofive wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it may be on the lower end for a number of reasons which lead back to the low barrier to entry - there’s no need to pay your dues with a decade of schooling, in hundreds of thousands in tuition, and to professional associations, state boards of licensure, or both. However, there are crappy doctors and architects - just like there are famous software engineers. Prestige - outside the ingroup - is a function of…

It’s fundamentally disrespected by people at a core level. I’ll prove my point with the one question they always ask us versus any other profession, ‘what is it that you actually do at the company?’. I swear, I’d never think to ask this of anyone, doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, cops, literally, I can’t think of one profession that gets asked this, I’ll try again, pilots, chemists, diplomats, translators, artists…

Any company where that is asked is a terrible software company and you should leave. They also almost certainly make shit software, and staying there is bad for your education and career.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#394

Post by derangedHorse »

rubicon33 wrote: post #258
jes wrote: post #252

I'm 61, male, and started in software back in the mid 70s. First computer that I could physically touch was a PDP-8/M with an ASR-33 teletype with paper tape reader and punch. In my mid-50s, I started listening to Alan Watts and learning about ancient Indian religions / philosophies. My world-view today is some kind of cross between Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. I'm a free will skeptic, as well. While I'm not par…

I share a lot with how you view the world, but could probably stand to learn a lot from you as well. I'm in my mid 30s, software developer, and generally open to spirituality but not in the conventional, western, judeo-christian sense. One of my foundations of belief is that life is entirely about probabilities and chance. It's a sort of guiding force that I follow. I view everything similarly to how you do, in that…

Being a skeptic of free will, do you believe your belief in determinism makes the knowledge of living in a deterministic world a moot point?

Even with things being predetermined, our conscience minds still desire to optimize our existences with what we ultimately see as choices and decisions.

I’m this case, free will can then be preserved as an ideological concept that emerges within a deterministic system that breeds consciousness.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#395

Post by eggsmediumrare »

war1025 wrote: post #139
Felony_Fred wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent break down of the concept by Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto ( 9:18 ); Jordan Peterson Pick Your Sacrifice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5--W9mhC4zA

Youtube has been recommending a lot of Jordan Peterson to me lately. I know there are people who hate on him for basically misinterpretations of things he has said regarding transgender issues. But then on top of that, there are right wing people that hate him equally much and think he's basically a nonsense-spouting sycophant. I guess listening to the things he has to say, I think they are on par with the more usefu…

Listen to his interview on Sam Harris' podcast. The whole thing is nonsense.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#396

Post by derangedHorse »

jes wrote: post #252

I'm 61, male, and started in software back in the mid 70s. First computer that I could physically touch was a PDP-8/M with an ASR-33 teletype with paper tape reader and punch. In my mid-50s, I started listening to Alan Watts and learning about ancient Indian religions / philosophies. My world-view today is some kind of cross between Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. I'm a free will skeptic, as well. While I'm not par…

It sounds like you are going through what the math community went through upon the discovery of Godels Incompleteness Theorems.

While it’s important to know logic systems have limitations (somewhat of an analogue to our understanding of the world), it’s important that we make use of that knowledge by trying to find different mental frameworks that are useful to us and help us move closer to our desires (whether it be a framework for the discovery of more math or a framework that guides us further along our pursuit of happiness)

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#397

Post by criveros »

There is nothing to do over, as I have not done anything. I am here through a series of events that have been out of my control.

As I currently lay on a bunkbed on a little cottage on a mountain somewhere in Europe, I could have never predicted or actively have made a choice to bring me here. If I believe I did, through consciously setting a goal, the series of events or choice to get me to that point would have been out of my control.

There is no control. Our decisions are influenced by all the previous decisions, decisions of others (our parents, our significant others, our bosses, etc), and external events outside of our control.

External events as insignificant as bus being late. Such an insignificant event but it could prevent someone from having meet their significant other, or to have lost a job, to have escaped a traffic accident, or to have heard an idea that completely changed their lives.

There is no free will. This is freeing and humbling. Freeing because you know you are doing the best you can, with the capabilities you have at this moment. Humbling because you know other people are too.

Sure my life would have been better had my parents stayed together, and my mom not immigrated but then I would have grown up in a third world country and would be confined to that normal life. Sure I went through a lot of trauma, but I have now the ability and freedom to travel the world.

All the trauma of my childhood and teenage years left me with intimacy issues, unable to sustain a long-term relationship. Do I wish that was not the case? I'm not too sure. I like my life, with the travelling and chaos. Had I not had emotional issues, I would probably have a family and kids by now, and be settle down. It's likely I would have enjoyed that, as I would be that guy who wants the family life, but I'm glad I'm this guy. It was not up to me anyway, who I will be in 10 years it's not up to me either.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#398

Post by croissants »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #382
croissants wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She married the poet Ted Hughes and moved around frequently during their short marriage. My understanding is that Ted Hughes' contribution to Plath's mental health went beyond "mov[ing] around frequently during their short marriage" [1]. > In 2017, previously unpublished letters written by Plath between 18 February 1960 and 4 February 1963 accuse Hughes of physically abusing her months before she miscarried their s…

My intention was to provide terse framing for the posted quote, rather then muse at length about the author's life, let alone that of her erstwhile husband, in their own regard.

Sure, my intention was to give more context, not suggest that you omitted it deliberately or maliciously.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#399

Post by Bellamy »

victorronin wrote: post #227

This is a fascinating subject. It looks like many people are commenting about alternative realities and that exploring them is a fool's game (BTW. I concur with that). The thing which bothers me is upbeat comments about living here and now and planting the seeds for future changes. It feels like current problems (and desire to wish them away via woulda/counda/shoulda) didn't happen entirely randomly. These problems a…

There are tools like Habinator to change your long term behavior. You just need to know what you want, which is the tricky part.

Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?

#400

Post by jeffe »

grenoire wrote: post #298
yason wrote: post #294

If you really could go back and choose differently the first thing that would happen is you would eventually become lazy. You wouldn't have to think too deeply or listen to your guts in making your choices because you could effectively just undo and retry. Your life would basically revert to depth-first search instead of carving out your own, unique path in life. This would also mean it would be much, much easier to…

I do agree to some extent, but depth-first search is not the correct allegory for the algorithm. You do follow a node to the end with depth-first. I think you meant breadth-first.

I think it would be most accurate to say its a backtracking algorithm, since you presumably would be exploring a certain path continually until it becomes unsatisfactory.
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