I’m curious if others have similar experiences or clarifying thoughts.
I have a similar experience. I’m not sure what to write, but here are some thoughts.
The healthy kid probably wouldn’t be excited by a back-flip robot arbitrarily instantiated in a hell. Its awesomeness is context-dependent.
What kinds of motivation do you have access to?
In fiction, the protagonists have motivation even when the world seems really bad. They want to change it. Most real humans instead keep the torture out of mind, but not you.
Separately, a theorist may devote so much energy to their object of study that it becomes intrinsically important to their mind. This is myopic in a way (it’s about the thing itself). But maybe it can be non-myopic if thinking about it is instrumental, so contextualizing doesn’t diminish it. Maybe passion and heroic motivation can then fuse together.
I have a similar experience. I’m not sure what to write, but here are some thoughts.
The healthy kid probably wouldn’t be excited by a back-flip robot arbitrarily instantiated in a hell. Its awesomeness is context-dependent.
What kinds of motivation do you have access to?
In fiction, the protagonists have motivation even when the world seems really bad. They want to change it. Most real humans instead keep the torture out of mind, but not you.
Separately, a theorist may devote so much energy to their object of study that it becomes intrinsically important to their mind. This is myopic in a way (it’s about the thing itself). But maybe it can be non-myopic if thinking about it is instrumental, so contextualizing doesn’t diminish it. Maybe passion and heroic motivation can then fuse together.