I don’t really notice any discomfort, embarrassment, or insecurity about not being able to control my attention. I don’t think I did earlier in my life either. Maybe this is somewhat immature, but it’s actually always been something that I smile at and take take pride in.
Interesting! I think I made a wrong assumption of discomfort/embarrassment/insecurity in reaction to hearing a “something is wrong/suboptimal in a way that experimentation might improve” tone in your original post. If I had to justify this impression with a single source, I’d choose “there has never been anything wrong with me. There’s something wrong with The System.”. I read that as an explicit “something is wrong in a way that’s affecting me”.
I might be misunderstanding, of course, but it does sound like a “something is wrong enough that I’m tempted to try changing my cognition to get different outcomes” theme. If it’s not discomfort, embarrassment, or insecurity… what are you hoping you’d get less or more of?
Back to the theme of the post, I think what I’m actually noticing is an additional caveat to when experiments are useful: they’re best when you know ahead of time what to measure before, during, and after. Maybe you’ve picked out what to measure in a medication experiment and prefer to keep it private (totally understand if that’s the case), but if not, I think the question of what to track/measure is probably worth considering in the general case of experimentation as well as in this particular one.
Interesting! I think I made a wrong assumption of discomfort/embarrassment/insecurity in reaction to hearing a “something is wrong/suboptimal in a way that experimentation might improve” tone in your original post. If I had to justify this impression with a single source, I’d choose “there has never been anything wrong with me. There’s something wrong with The System.”. I read that as an explicit “something is wrong in a way that’s affecting me”.
Gotcha. That is reasonable.
I might be misunderstanding, of course, but it does sound like a “something is wrong enough that I’m tempted to try changing my cognition to get different outcomes” theme. If it’s not discomfort, embarrassment, or insecurity… what are you hoping you’d get less or more of?
It’s just that sort of “pulling a tooth” feeling. Like when I’m focused on some code I’m writing and have to stop what I’m doing and make dinner. Or when (like right now) there’s four things that I’m eager to work on, but I of course can only pursue one of them (the fact that I’m not pursuing the other three is pretty uncomfortable).
Back to the theme of the post, I think what I’m actually noticing is an additional caveat to when experiments are useful: they’re best when you know ahead of time what to measure before, during, and after. Maybe you’ve picked out what to measure in a medication experiment and prefer to keep it private (totally understand if that’s the case), but if not, I think the question of what to track/measure is probably worth considering in the general case of experimentation as well as in this particular one.
Hm, I’m not sure whether or not I agree here. I lean towards thinking that most of the time you can have a pretty vague idea of what it is you’re measuring.
For the ADHD medication here (I don’t have any preferences to keep it private) I was thinking of just trying to get a sense of how often the unpleasant “tooth pulling” feelings happen, how my cognitive/intellectual performance is, how happy I am, how others perceive me. Stuff like that. Seems good enough.
Ah. I gloss that one as “discomfort” when describing my own experiences, but I see how it’d also be fine to consider it entirely distinct.
Reminds me of a thing I’m personally encountering quite a bit lately. I’ll notice something about my experience in a way that seems unusual compared to what many others notice. Upon interrogating it, sometimes it turns out that the experiencing is due to my brain being weird, and other times it turns out that it’s a universal experience that brain quirks are causing me to notice or describe differently from how others would.
Stimulants won’t change the underlying fact that there are more excellent things to do in the world than time to do them in, but IMO they can help fine-tune how much of your attention is devoted to that fact while you’re also doing some other task. Sounds almost koanical—“if there are 3 other amazing things I could be doing right now, but I’m not worrying about them, are is it a problem?” =)
Hm, I’m not sure whether or not I agree here. I lean towards thinking that most of the time you can have a pretty vague idea of what it is you’re measuring.
English is kind of a problem for this, because we use the same word for rigorously testing a hypothesis or for changing stuff to see what happens. I attempt the gesture of applying the term “experiment” only to the former, but I ultimately don’t do so with the rigor it would take to make any significant difference in the world around me. I think “experimental” tends to imply the latter over the former, but that implication isn’t robust or global enough to make it ultimately worth caring much about.
Interesting! I think I made a wrong assumption of discomfort/embarrassment/insecurity in reaction to hearing a “something is wrong/suboptimal in a way that experimentation might improve” tone in your original post. If I had to justify this impression with a single source, I’d choose “there has never been anything wrong with me. There’s something wrong with The System.”. I read that as an explicit “something is wrong in a way that’s affecting me”.
I might be misunderstanding, of course, but it does sound like a “something is wrong enough that I’m tempted to try changing my cognition to get different outcomes” theme. If it’s not discomfort, embarrassment, or insecurity… what are you hoping you’d get less or more of?
Back to the theme of the post, I think what I’m actually noticing is an additional caveat to when experiments are useful: they’re best when you know ahead of time what to measure before, during, and after. Maybe you’ve picked out what to measure in a medication experiment and prefer to keep it private (totally understand if that’s the case), but if not, I think the question of what to track/measure is probably worth considering in the general case of experimentation as well as in this particular one.
Gotcha. That is reasonable.
It’s just that sort of “pulling a tooth” feeling. Like when I’m focused on some code I’m writing and have to stop what I’m doing and make dinner. Or when (like right now) there’s four things that I’m eager to work on, but I of course can only pursue one of them (the fact that I’m not pursuing the other three is pretty uncomfortable).
Hm, I’m not sure whether or not I agree here. I lean towards thinking that most of the time you can have a pretty vague idea of what it is you’re measuring.
For the ADHD medication here (I don’t have any preferences to keep it private) I was thinking of just trying to get a sense of how often the unpleasant “tooth pulling” feelings happen, how my cognitive/intellectual performance is, how happy I am, how others perceive me. Stuff like that. Seems good enough.
Thank you for explaining!
Ah. I gloss that one as “discomfort” when describing my own experiences, but I see how it’d also be fine to consider it entirely distinct.
Reminds me of a thing I’m personally encountering quite a bit lately. I’ll notice something about my experience in a way that seems unusual compared to what many others notice. Upon interrogating it, sometimes it turns out that the experiencing is due to my brain being weird, and other times it turns out that it’s a universal experience that brain quirks are causing me to notice or describe differently from how others would.
Stimulants won’t change the underlying fact that there are more excellent things to do in the world than time to do them in, but IMO they can help fine-tune how much of your attention is devoted to that fact while you’re also doing some other task. Sounds almost koanical—“if there are 3 other amazing things I could be doing right now, but I’m not worrying about them, are is it a problem?” =)
English is kind of a problem for this, because we use the same word for rigorously testing a hypothesis or for changing stuff to see what happens. I attempt the gesture of applying the term “experiment” only to the former, but I ultimately don’t do so with the rigor it would take to make any significant difference in the world around me. I think “experimental” tends to imply the latter over the former, but that implication isn’t robust or global enough to make it ultimately worth caring much about.