It seems like I was taking actions associated with a vague goal instead of thinking strategically. I didn’t clarify the goal I had in mind and what it would mean to achieve it (and then re-evaluate if it was still desirable, etc.).
What do you mean, “for rationalists”?
I meant to imply that the meditation might help with rationality problems that rationalists are concerned with, but which are not a common concern for non-rationalists.
I didn’t clarify the goal I had in mind and what it would mean to achieve it (and then re-evaluate if it was still desirable, etc.).
And what was that (even in a few words)?
I meant to imply that the meditation might help with rationality problems that rationalists are concerned with, but which are not a common concern for non-rationalists.
Given that even at conscious level, it’s not usually clear which way rationality, trying to modify your subconscious in an unclear fashion doesn’t seem to be a plausible way of obtaining an expected improvement, unless one produces a surprising empirical study.
The goal was simply sharing my knowledge and experience of meditation with a community that might benefit from it, and was interested in hearing about it. It seems like I’ve actually done this by writing these two posts and a bunch of comments. But if I’m now going to aim at actually realizing these possible benefits (and I don’t know if I should), I’ll have to think more clearly about what this would mean and how it would be done (as you’ve pointed out above).
(I think we agree, but it’s not absolutely clear from your comment.)
When you ask, “What am I doing X for?”, and get back “I want to achieve Y”, it often happens that X is far from being an adequate answer to “How can I best achieve Y?”, and so must be abandoned. Thus, even after figuring out Y, pursuing the question of “How to best use X for achieving Y?” is a strictly worse option than just “How can I best achieve Y?”
Upvoted for clear analysis.
It seems like I was taking actions associated with a vague goal instead of thinking strategically. I didn’t clarify the goal I had in mind and what it would mean to achieve it (and then re-evaluate if it was still desirable, etc.).
I meant to imply that the meditation might help with rationality problems that rationalists are concerned with, but which are not a common concern for non-rationalists.
And what was that (even in a few words)?
Given that even at conscious level, it’s not usually clear which way rationality, trying to modify your subconscious in an unclear fashion doesn’t seem to be a plausible way of obtaining an expected improvement, unless one produces a surprising empirical study.
The goal was simply sharing my knowledge and experience of meditation with a community that might benefit from it, and was interested in hearing about it. It seems like I’ve actually done this by writing these two posts and a bunch of comments. But if I’m now going to aim at actually realizing these possible benefits (and I don’t know if I should), I’ll have to think more clearly about what this would mean and how it would be done (as you’ve pointed out above).
(I think we agree, but it’s not absolutely clear from your comment.)
When you ask, “What am I doing X for?”, and get back “I want to achieve Y”, it often happens that X is far from being an adequate answer to “How can I best achieve Y?”, and so must be abandoned. Thus, even after figuring out Y, pursuing the question of “How to best use X for achieving Y?” is a strictly worse option than just “How can I best achieve Y?”
I completely agree.