There is still no case for a positive impact of the activity.
(Taking the position of a random LW reader doing no independent research) I agree, but do you also think there is no
case for further investigation? My main purpose in writing these posts is to spark such investigation, with the aim of finding out if vipassana meditation is useful for rationalists. On reflection it doesn’t seem like I made this very clear though.
There is still no case for a positive impact of the activity.
The intended interpretation was, no case in your posts.
do you also think there is no case for further investigation?
Not that I can see. To argue for further investigation, you need to give weak arguments for both existence of benefits of obtaining a certain belief (in this case, that practicing meditation has a positive effect), and for availability of information that leads to attaining that belief. It would also be strange if you argue for further investigation but don’t describe the form it could take (like, read these papers that argue for a certain effect and check validity of their methods).
Also, your case needs to be strong enough to justify this further investigation. For example, if by further investigation you mean personal experience from practice, the time costs are too great for a weak argument for possible unknown consequences to overcome. Apart from that, given weak evidence for negative effect (assuming no similarly convincing counterarguments, correcting for risk aversion), it won’t be the right thing to do even at zero cost.
finding out if vipassana meditation is useful for rationalists.
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?”
(Taking the position of a random LW reader doing no independent research) I agree, but do you also think there is no case for further investigation? My main purpose in writing these posts is to spark such investigation, with the aim of finding out if vipassana meditation is useful for rationalists. On reflection it doesn’t seem like I made this very clear though.
The intended interpretation was, no case in your posts.
Not that I can see. To argue for further investigation, you need to give weak arguments for both existence of benefits of obtaining a certain belief (in this case, that practicing meditation has a positive effect), and for availability of information that leads to attaining that belief. It would also be strange if you argue for further investigation but don’t describe the form it could take (like, read these papers that argue for a certain effect and check validity of their methods).
Also, your case needs to be strong enough to justify this further investigation. For example, if by further investigation you mean personal experience from practice, the time costs are too great for a weak argument for possible unknown consequences to overcome. Apart from that, given weak evidence for negative effect (assuming no similarly convincing counterarguments, correcting for risk aversion), it won’t be the right thing to do even at zero cost.
What do you mean, “for rationalists”?
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.