The three fundamental questions feel like a useful set of prompts to pop into your head at the right moments. This post didn’t get as much discussion, either positive or negative, as I wanted. I use the frame pretty regularly, but that’s sort of a ‘free’ test in a way; I only wrote this up because I’d been using it regularly for years. A better test is if other people report it’s helping them.
The followup work feels a bit fuzzy. Do lots of people use it, do they report it helps, do they actually perform better than people who don’t use it? But this doesn’t turn itself into quite an obvious objective test.
I notice I keep thinking of the Best Of LessWrong review in comparative terms. If we can only get people to read so many posts, which ones are worth it? If you’re an eager reader looking to skim for only the cream, where do you start? From that perspective, section I probably pulls its weight in wordcount.
But this particular phrasing isn’t vital. It’s not like Bayes, where incremental improvements on the formula to make it easier to remember and more usable are worth putting a bunch of work into. I’d expect these kinds of questions to be more personal, some stuff will work for you that won’t work for me and vice versa. It is fundamental to this whole pursuit of truth business, but there’s many ways to express the idea.
Overall, I’d say this is a servicable entry for Best Of, but pretty plausibly replaceable.
I suspect it would be good for me to ask these questions of myself more, but I don’t. I’m not sure what the barrier is exactly—maybe a clearer sense of how exactly it would help, or of what exactly are some good triggers for asking the question (though the examples in the OP help), or of what identity/dashboard view I might sustain while regularly asking this. I, like the author, would be curious to hear from others about how often you ask this question, whether the post helped, and what barriers there are / what mileage you’ve gotten.
In response to my childhood and needing to escape bad defaults that just seemed like reality, I’ve grown up deeply asking these questions regularly but particularly earlier on with regular revisits as I learn, explore, and reprioritize. They are meta questions about the question and asking them while doing a thing can stop you from doing the thing. Doing this can open massive cans of worms that can trigger regress to first principles and undecidable value judgements. This can become recursive and lead to paralysis if used too much, without self compassion, or if paired with natural anxiety. Asking the question repeatedly about the same consideration and carefully redoing the work to get a good answer can get boring and wasteful over time so as your confidence in a path grows (assembly of paths, priorities, etc.) the value of asking reduces and so the scope about which you ask usually shifts. While you’re not asking value can shift but priorities and values are important given limited time and attention. Something not working or being as good as you believe is reasonable to expect for a small enough amount of energy to receive is a good trigger. If you aren’t asking then a meta trigger is important to consider what improvements could be made and in that same question what ladders you can extend to others for context improvement and isolation protection if not also altruism. I find a decision to be satisfied to be important such that improvements are a delightful bonus rather than an endless treadmill.
To be more specific about “regularly”, the most intense period of asking was when my consciousness, planning, and intentionality were really coming online. I had a big backlog of deeply unmet needs/desires, missing skills/habits, and my self analysis about the dysfunctionality of my embodied strategies was really coming online to point out my deficiencies. The evidence was ineffectiveness at accomplishing my goals and serving my needs. During that time I was obsessively asking at any time not otherwise distracted and deeply engaged. I’d estimate 40% of weekly waking hours with days approaching 80-90%. These were times of immense and sometimes unsettling growth. It would not have felt worth the cost if it had not been necessary, if my life and modus operandi had been working. Those early days were focused on more specific, concrete concerns, decisions, and operations (let’s bundle this as Q). As time has gone on the considerations shifted to assemblies of Qs, explorations and tests of how Qs interact, and on to structures of Q assemblies with far greater complexity and combinatoric considerations that include multi-agent game theory. Over time I would estimate that I’ve settled into a cadence of 5-10% of weekly waking hours with spikes around changes and developments in life. That said, I have tried to arrange to put profitable business behind raising that number but I have so far failed. It’s become at least a pleasurable past time that I enjoy sharing in partnership but that can be even more complex and hard to find partners for.
I suspect this built my intellect and competence which has largely made my life relatively wonderful (in broad comparison to the population but starkly so against the trajectory I had been on prior) and given me the empowerment to navigate life with an intentionality, consciousness, and skill that I do not observe often. I could recommend nothing more than getting very serious and exceedingly honest about such questions.
Self Review:
Well, I think it’s good.
The three fundamental questions feel like a useful set of prompts to pop into your head at the right moments. This post didn’t get as much discussion, either positive or negative, as I wanted. I use the frame pretty regularly, but that’s sort of a ‘free’ test in a way; I only wrote this up because I’d been using it regularly for years. A better test is if other people report it’s helping them.
The followup work feels a bit fuzzy. Do lots of people use it, do they report it helps, do they actually perform better than people who don’t use it? But this doesn’t turn itself into quite an obvious objective test.
I notice I keep thinking of the Best Of LessWrong review in comparative terms. If we can only get people to read so many posts, which ones are worth it? If you’re an eager reader looking to skim for only the cream, where do you start? From that perspective, section I probably pulls its weight in wordcount.
But this particular phrasing isn’t vital. It’s not like Bayes, where incremental improvements on the formula to make it easier to remember and more usable are worth putting a bunch of work into. I’d expect these kinds of questions to be more personal, some stuff will work for you that won’t work for me and vice versa. It is fundamental to this whole pursuit of truth business, but there’s many ways to express the idea.
Overall, I’d say this is a servicable entry for Best Of, but pretty plausibly replaceable.
I suspect it would be good for me to ask these questions of myself more, but I don’t. I’m not sure what the barrier is exactly—maybe a clearer sense of how exactly it would help, or of what exactly are some good triggers for asking the question (though the examples in the OP help), or of what identity/dashboard view I might sustain while regularly asking this. I, like the author, would be curious to hear from others about how often you ask this question, whether the post helped, and what barriers there are / what mileage you’ve gotten.
In response to my childhood and needing to escape bad defaults that just seemed like reality, I’ve grown up deeply asking these questions regularly but particularly earlier on with regular revisits as I learn, explore, and reprioritize. They are meta questions about the question and asking them while doing a thing can stop you from doing the thing. Doing this can open massive cans of worms that can trigger regress to first principles and undecidable value judgements. This can become recursive and lead to paralysis if used too much, without self compassion, or if paired with natural anxiety. Asking the question repeatedly about the same consideration and carefully redoing the work to get a good answer can get boring and wasteful over time so as your confidence in a path grows (assembly of paths, priorities, etc.) the value of asking reduces and so the scope about which you ask usually shifts. While you’re not asking value can shift but priorities and values are important given limited time and attention. Something not working or being as good as you believe is reasonable to expect for a small enough amount of energy to receive is a good trigger. If you aren’t asking then a meta trigger is important to consider what improvements could be made and in that same question what ladders you can extend to others for context improvement and isolation protection if not also altruism. I find a decision to be satisfied to be important such that improvements are a delightful bonus rather than an endless treadmill.
To be more specific about “regularly”, the most intense period of asking was when my consciousness, planning, and intentionality were really coming online. I had a big backlog of deeply unmet needs/desires, missing skills/habits, and my self analysis about the dysfunctionality of my embodied strategies was really coming online to point out my deficiencies. The evidence was ineffectiveness at accomplishing my goals and serving my needs. During that time I was obsessively asking at any time not otherwise distracted and deeply engaged. I’d estimate 40% of weekly waking hours with days approaching 80-90%. These were times of immense and sometimes unsettling growth. It would not have felt worth the cost if it had not been necessary, if my life and modus operandi had been working. Those early days were focused on more specific, concrete concerns, decisions, and operations (let’s bundle this as Q). As time has gone on the considerations shifted to assemblies of Qs, explorations and tests of how Qs interact, and on to structures of Q assemblies with far greater complexity and combinatoric considerations that include multi-agent game theory. Over time I would estimate that I’ve settled into a cadence of 5-10% of weekly waking hours with spikes around changes and developments in life. That said, I have tried to arrange to put profitable business behind raising that number but I have so far failed. It’s become at least a pleasurable past time that I enjoy sharing in partnership but that can be even more complex and hard to find partners for.
I suspect this built my intellect and competence which has largely made my life relatively wonderful (in broad comparison to the population but starkly so against the trajectory I had been on prior) and given me the empowerment to navigate life with an intentionality, consciousness, and skill that I do not observe often. I could recommend nothing more than getting very serious and exceedingly honest about such questions.