Suppose someone gave you a water-tight argument that all possible world are in fact real, and you have to make decisions based on which worlds you care more about. Would you really adopt the “wishful-thinking” prior and start putting all your money into lottery tickets or something similar, or would your behavior be more or less unaffected?
I think that there would be a question about what “I” would actually experience.
There have been times in my younger days when I tried a bit of wishful thinking—I think everyone has. Maybe, just maybe, if I wish hard enough for X, X will happen? Well what you actually experience after doing that is … failure. Wishing for something doesn’t make it happen—or if it does in some worlds, then I have evidence that I don’t inhabit those worlds.
So I suppose I am using my memory—which points to me having always been in a world that behaves exactly as the complexity prior would predict—as evidence that the thread of my subjective experience will always be in a world that behaves as the complexity prior would predict, which is sort of like saying that only one particular simple world is real.
You don’t believe in affirmations? The self-help books about the power of positive thinking don’t work for you? What do you make of the following quote?
“Personal optimism correlates strongly with self-esteem, with psychological well-being and with physical and mental health. Optimism has been shown to be correlated with better immune systems in healthy people who have been subjected to stress.”
When crafting ones wishes, one should have at least some minor element of realism.
Also, your wish should be something your subconscious can help you with. For example, instead of wishfully thinking about money appearing in your bank account, you could wishfully think about finding it on the sidewalk. Or, alternatively you could wishfully think about yourself as a money magnet.
If you previously did not bear such points in mind, you might want to consider revisiting the technique, to see if you can make something of it. Unless you figure you are already too optimistic, that is.
I think that there would be a question about what “I” would actually experience.
There have been times in my younger days when I tried a bit of wishful thinking—I think everyone has. Maybe, just maybe, if I wish hard enough for X, X will happen? Well what you actually experience after doing that is … failure. Wishing for something doesn’t make it happen—or if it does in some worlds, then I have evidence that I don’t inhabit those worlds.
So I suppose I am using my memory—which points to me having always been in a world that behaves exactly as the complexity prior would predict—as evidence that the thread of my subjective experience will always be in a world that behaves as the complexity prior would predict, which is sort of like saying that only one particular simple world is real.
You don’t believe in affirmations? The self-help books about the power of positive thinking don’t work for you? What do you make of the following quote?
“Personal optimism correlates strongly with self-esteem, with psychological well-being and with physical and mental health. Optimism has been shown to be correlated with better immune systems in healthy people who have been subjected to stress.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism
This is not the kind of wishful thinking I was talking about: I was talking about wishing for $1000 and it just appearing in your bank account.
When crafting ones wishes, one should have at least some minor element of realism.
Also, your wish should be something your subconscious can help you with. For example, instead of wishfully thinking about money appearing in your bank account, you could wishfully think about finding it on the sidewalk. Or, alternatively you could wishfully think about yourself as a money magnet.
If you previously did not bear such points in mind, you might want to consider revisiting the technique, to see if you can make something of it. Unless you figure you are already too optimistic, that is.