I imagine an algorithm gaining more and more subroutine calls (is_planning_fallacy()) and becoming noisier and noisier.
In practice these subroutines work by something like getting fed clock cycles. If you stop feeding them, they stop running. If you examine them while they’re running and sort of take them apart with spacious attention, they stop booting up when they would otherwise get fed.
The reason people end up with runaway internal arms races like you’re describing is that they’re trying to pit one bit of noise against another while feeding both. If you think “I should drop this into the Void and stop feeding this”, then that thought calls for more clock cycles to fight the is_planning_fallacy() thing, which calls for more clock cycles to fight back, etc.
That’s why you have to build familiarity with the actual Void first as a separate practice.
(Again acknowledging the info asymmetry here. I claim you can just see what I’m talking about if you look at it yourself, but steadying the inner eye takes a little while, so I imagine that right now this is landing as some kind of theoretical claim I’m simply asserting. I trust whatever you choose to do or not do with what I’m saying here. All in good time.)
You seem to argue that we need to instead be deliberate about the functions we implement in our own mind; to zoom out and start over with a clean slate; to strive towards a well-implemented, purposeful function which achieves one’s goals.
No, but that’s a pretty good initial description.
The concept of goals gets pretty slippery as you do this because being takes precedence over doing. Most minds I’ve had a chance to examine seem to be very, very highly tuned toward doing, often using the lack of permission to be as fuel to feed subroutines. It’s sort of a parasitic relationship between the human and the thought structures. I’m suggesting that epic levels of clarity requires dismantling that on the inside.
I think that at first emphasizing which functions one implements puts the focus backwards. Who or what is deciding what gets implemented? If that’s where you start, the chances are it’ll be a cluster of subroutines, often using internal words like “I” and “me” and “my”.
The starting point is more like (a) noticing that functions are currently running and (b) developing the skill of turning them off.
I didn’t really go into this in the article, but FWIW: After a while the mind will build new functions that more helpfully point to the Void. It’ll also try to build ones that distract from the Void by talking about “the Void”, but after a while it’ll get that this ultimately doesn’t work and mostly (but not entirely) give up.
Then you can start being deliberate about which functions you implement. In part because you’re a lot less confused about who it is that’s being deliberate.
And the whole way through you’ll hone a better and better sense of how much inner space you actually want and need for various tasks. I don’t know if “start over with a clean slate” is quite the thing… but knowing how to (a) close programs and (b) reboot your computer to clear programs that aren’t responding is pretty helpful.
Truth is not my (sole) terminal value, but a complementary ingredient. I want my terminal values to be truly reflected in the state of reality—for the world to be better and happier—but I also terminally care about those other values. It seems dishonest and untrue for me to pretend otherwise, internally.
Cool. Then two notes:
Devotion to truth might not be for you. That’s totally fine. It’s not for everyone.
Your last sentence here highlights to me how devotion to truth would require you to see how your other “terminal values” play a role. The way this would work is: What if something you “terminally” desire in the world isn’t a fit for reality? Would you rather discover that and grieve, or not look and keep trying? I don’t mean this stupidly; many people honestly would choose the second, and that’s fine. It’s their lives. I’m just observing from the vantage point of someone who is a devotee of truth: To me the choice is clear, because any “terminal value” I have that cannot fit into reality is keeping me deluded without helping me with that delusional value. So why would I treasure it more than truth? That way lies pointless (to me) suffering. I’d rather let the version of me that clings to that “terminal value” die.
Perhaps one answer is to reflect and consider whether these terminal values would be better served by my becoming the kind of person who does put truth cardinally first. If so, perhaps I could decide to be that kind of person thereafter. This is not a decision to be made lightly.
Exactly. It’s like choosing to get married to reality. I’m not using the word “devotion” flippantly here.
A minor point that’s maybe obvious to you: You’re describing the Gandhi murder pill from the “before pill” POV. From my vantage point, once you start putting truth first, eventually you’ll get confronted with your motivation: “Ah, I want happiness for all beings / lots of sex / a fluffy dog / etc., and this is why I’m devoting to truth.” What if you don’t get those? What if you only think you want those because you’re actually (say) seeking validation and trying to distract yourself from that truth via fervent activity? Ah, now the attempt to devote to truth gives you a choice: Sacrifice who you were on the altar, or go no further. If you proceed, maybe you still get lots of sex or whatever, but only if it survives the purification by Eternal Flame. You don’t get to know ahead of time. That’s the price.
Maybe that’s what you meant when you note that “This is not a decision to be made lightly.”
It’s also not a decision most people can make without standing in the Void. It’s like having wedding vows to stay with your beloved “in sickness and in health” without having a damn clue what sickness is. Maybe you keep the vow, but it’ll be pretty much accidental.
Really enjoyed this article! Your comment here was also helpful, but left me with a couple questions.
The concept of goals gets pretty slippery as you do this because being takes precedence over doing.
How do you see motivation working once you start abandoning the concept of goals?
What if something you “terminally” desire in the world isn’t a fit for reality? Would you rather discover that and grieve, or not look and keep trying?
Could you give a specific example of a terminal value failing to fit reality, and what abandoning it/changing it to fit reality would look like?
Could you give a specific example of a terminal value failing to fit reality, and what abandoning it/changing it to fit reality would look like?
I can answer what I think is the spirit of this question. I’ve been playing along with the “terminal value” frame, but honestly I think it confuses things. Rather than trying to stick to the formal idea of a terminal value in humans, I’ll just point at what I’m talking about.
One example: deconversion. If you believe in God and love Him and this brings you tremendous meaning and orientation in your life, dare you take seriously the arguments that He doesn’t exist? Dare you even look? This isn’t just a matter of flipping a mental “god_exists” Boolean variable from “true” to “false”; for many people this can be on the level of losing God’s love and approval, and like the very force of gravity is no longer His will but is instead some kind of dead monstrosity. That’s something you risk if you’re more interested in truth than in being close to Him. What in you would need to shift so that your inner answer is “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, let me see the truth”?
Another example: breaking up with a friend. Maybe you’ve known someone since childhood… but some of this Drama Triangle stuff starts to click and you see that actually everything about your connection is based on (say) them Rescuing you and you playing Victim. When you try to talk to them about this, they brush it off, maybe even playing the Victim card themselves (“I just care about you! Don’t you appreciate all that I do for you?”). You could just keep playing along… or you could notice that you’re actually a “no” for playing this dynamic with anyone anymore, even your old friend. But maybe there’s nothing deeper than the Drama dynamic, and maybe they won’t be available for building something more. So what do you do? What resource in you do you call upon in order to choose to prefer truth even to this long-standing friendship? Are you willing to grieve, and have your old friend feel hurt at you (the shift to Persecutor), and practice standing your ground (i.e., deepening your devotion to truth)? Or do you cherish things as they are more than you want to recognize the deeper truth?
This stuff shows up in a thousand different ways, and my experience is that the more refined my “truth sight” becomes the more micro-level these little opportunities appear. Like, as I write this, is each keystroke devotional? Or am I focused more on making sure I answer your question than I am on whether it’s true for me to do so? What in me do I need to acknowledge and let go of in order to have each breath be married to reality?
How do you see motivation working once you start abandoning the concept of goals?
It’s not really that one abandons the concept of goals. It’s that doing serves being, so goals arise and fade within a larger context.
What’s your motivation for continuing to live? If presented with two buttons, one of which will let you leave the button situation & continue your life while the other one has you die right on the spot, I imagine you have little difficulty choosing the first one. You might be able to justify your choice afterwards as “survival instinct” or “net positive expected global utility from your remaining life” or whatever… but I’m guessing the clear knowing of the choice comes before all that. Your choice probably wouldn’t change whatsoever if you spent a while meditating and calming your reactions, for instance.
(Said differently: the clarity arises from the Void.)
The word “motivation” has a common linguistic root with “motor”. It’s that which causes movement. So the “motivation” of a stone rolling downhill is gravity. The motivation of a high school student attending college is (often) a whole social atmosphere that acts something like a gravitational field (what I’ve occasionally heard termed “an incentive landscape” in rationalist circles). There’s something very mechanical about the whole thing.
But when we talk about “being motivated” or epic feats like “shut up and do the impossible”, particularly when there’s any hint of “should” attached to them (like “I should shut up & do the impossible”), there’s usually an implication of free will. As though beyond all causes is some kind of power of choice. It’s obviously a bit batty when said that way, but we mostly agree not to pay attention to that.
…with the result that we have bizarre statements like “We should end racism.” What exactly is that as a choice? It’s not at all of the same type as “We should turn off the stove.” In practice it’s an application of a social force meant to shift the incentive landscape (usually via Drama Triangle dynamics, I’ll parenthetically add). But what’s causing that force to be applied? If you start tabooing the concept of free will, most statements about social movements and public policy start looking patently insane. If you finish tabooing it, they appear as they are: manifestations of a kind of collective mental software glitch that keeps human minds distant from reality. Stones rolling downhill.
Same for statements like “I should lose weight.” With what magical power? By the power of research and effort? If so, can you notice the element of magic being added wherein you somehow mysteriously can make yourself do the research and put in effort as though your choice is beyond all cause?
(The fact that the motivations often aren’t beyond experienced causes is part of why shame and inadequacy enter the picture. “I failed, and that means I suck” doesn’t make any more sense than “The stone rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill, and that means I suck.” Of course, the judgment isn’t causeless either.)
Intellectually solving the reductionist puzzle of free will is not at all the same as integrating the insight into your being and perception.
I’m pretty sure this is part of what the Void stuff is getting you into contact with.
The place from which you choose to move your fingers is void of experience. It’s a kind of empty. Once you make the choice, there’s a cascade of experience and the result is basically predetermined by the mechanisms of reality. But the choice itself feels on the inside like it’s causeless.
Goals are in the realm of causes. Within sensation. They’re part of the machinery of the world.
When you see this clearly and stop pretending that getting somewhere is what existence is about, then your “motivation” emerges from the causeless realm of emptiness. You just do what you want.
Of course, within physics this is still mechanical. The reductionist lens sees that “causeless choice” is basically just how we experience a type of ignorance.
But at least the machinery stops being confused in practice about what the “free will” function is actually doing. And our narratives about ourselves and others stop trying to rely on these magical forces that don’t actually exist.
…though that’s still described from the outside.
On the inside, it feels silent.
I do because I want to.
“Where does the desire come from?” becomes a koan. The act of looking for the answer points back to the silence.
Which means that the carnival of sensation is much, much less able to control what I choose to do.
Does this answer your question?
(I’ll answer your second question in a separate reply since the topics are different. I don’t see this done often here… but I think it makes more sense given the nature of upvoting/downvoting, so I’ll try it and see what happens.)
This definitely helps clarify, thank you very much. I suspect it will take me some time to fully understand your ideas, but my current best stab at a (probably overcompressed) summary would be:
Our usual state of mind consists of experiencing a profusion of thoughts and inner sensations. These thoughts interact with each other, and generate further thoughts. We may experience a causal connection between thoughts, leading to the experience of “trains of thought”. This experience of causal connection may or may not accurately reflect the causal process giving rise to the thoughts. Individual thoughts or trains of thought compete for attention. It is this welter of activity that is Noise.
The absence of Noise is experienced as an inner silence, the Void. This differs from what we experience after suppressing Noise: it’s the difference between throwing a blanket over a loud radio, and switching the radio off. Being (as contrasted with doing) ultimately resides in the Void.
Thoughts may arise from the Void. These will be experienced as without cause. For example, choices or desires arising from the Void feel uncaused, resulting in the experience of free will. This contrasts with goals, which are experienced as both caused by thoughts, and causing thoughts: they are an integral part of Noise.
By starting from the Void, we decrease the extent to which our thoughts arise from spurious interactions due to Noise, and instead flow directly from our being. This allows our thoughts and our doing to serve our being. Goals then cease to define or control us, and instead are tools to be dropped once they cease to be useful.
Hopefully I’m not totally misunderstanding you here.
In practice these subroutines work by something like getting fed clock cycles. If you stop feeding them, they stop running. If you examine them while they’re running and sort of take them apart with spacious attention, they stop booting up when they would otherwise get fed.
The reason people end up with runaway internal arms races like you’re describing is that they’re trying to pit one bit of noise against another while feeding both. If you think “I should drop this into the Void and stop feeding this”, then that thought calls for more clock cycles to fight the is_planning_fallacy() thing, which calls for more clock cycles to fight back, etc.
That’s why you have to build familiarity with the actual Void first as a separate practice.
(Again acknowledging the info asymmetry here. I claim you can just see what I’m talking about if you look at it yourself, but steadying the inner eye takes a little while, so I imagine that right now this is landing as some kind of theoretical claim I’m simply asserting. I trust whatever you choose to do or not do with what I’m saying here. All in good time.)
No, but that’s a pretty good initial description.
The concept of goals gets pretty slippery as you do this because being takes precedence over doing. Most minds I’ve had a chance to examine seem to be very, very highly tuned toward doing, often using the lack of permission to be as fuel to feed subroutines. It’s sort of a parasitic relationship between the human and the thought structures. I’m suggesting that epic levels of clarity requires dismantling that on the inside.
I think that at first emphasizing which functions one implements puts the focus backwards. Who or what is deciding what gets implemented? If that’s where you start, the chances are it’ll be a cluster of subroutines, often using internal words like “I” and “me” and “my”.
The starting point is more like (a) noticing that functions are currently running and (b) developing the skill of turning them off.
I didn’t really go into this in the article, but FWIW: After a while the mind will build new functions that more helpfully point to the Void. It’ll also try to build ones that distract from the Void by talking about “the Void”, but after a while it’ll get that this ultimately doesn’t work and mostly (but not entirely) give up.
Then you can start being deliberate about which functions you implement. In part because you’re a lot less confused about who it is that’s being deliberate.
And the whole way through you’ll hone a better and better sense of how much inner space you actually want and need for various tasks. I don’t know if “start over with a clean slate” is quite the thing… but knowing how to (a) close programs and (b) reboot your computer to clear programs that aren’t responding is pretty helpful.
Cool. Then two notes:
Devotion to truth might not be for you. That’s totally fine. It’s not for everyone.
Your last sentence here highlights to me how devotion to truth would require you to see how your other “terminal values” play a role. The way this would work is: What if something you “terminally” desire in the world isn’t a fit for reality? Would you rather discover that and grieve, or not look and keep trying? I don’t mean this stupidly; many people honestly would choose the second, and that’s fine. It’s their lives. I’m just observing from the vantage point of someone who is a devotee of truth: To me the choice is clear, because any “terminal value” I have that cannot fit into reality is keeping me deluded without helping me with that delusional value. So why would I treasure it more than truth? That way lies pointless (to me) suffering. I’d rather let the version of me that clings to that “terminal value” die.
Exactly. It’s like choosing to get married to reality. I’m not using the word “devotion” flippantly here.
A minor point that’s maybe obvious to you: You’re describing the Gandhi murder pill from the “before pill” POV. From my vantage point, once you start putting truth first, eventually you’ll get confronted with your motivation: “Ah, I want happiness for all beings / lots of sex / a fluffy dog / etc., and this is why I’m devoting to truth.” What if you don’t get those? What if you only think you want those because you’re actually (say) seeking validation and trying to distract yourself from that truth via fervent activity? Ah, now the attempt to devote to truth gives you a choice: Sacrifice who you were on the altar, or go no further. If you proceed, maybe you still get lots of sex or whatever, but only if it survives the purification by Eternal Flame. You don’t get to know ahead of time. That’s the price.
Maybe that’s what you meant when you note that “This is not a decision to be made lightly.”
It’s also not a decision most people can make without standing in the Void. It’s like having wedding vows to stay with your beloved “in sickness and in health” without having a damn clue what sickness is. Maybe you keep the vow, but it’ll be pretty much accidental.
Really enjoyed this article! Your comment here was also helpful, but left me with a couple questions.
How do you see motivation working once you start abandoning the concept of goals?
Could you give a specific example of a terminal value failing to fit reality, and what abandoning it/changing it to fit reality would look like?
Reply part 2:
I can answer what I think is the spirit of this question. I’ve been playing along with the “terminal value” frame, but honestly I think it confuses things. Rather than trying to stick to the formal idea of a terminal value in humans, I’ll just point at what I’m talking about.
One example: deconversion. If you believe in God and love Him and this brings you tremendous meaning and orientation in your life, dare you take seriously the arguments that He doesn’t exist? Dare you even look? This isn’t just a matter of flipping a mental “god_exists” Boolean variable from “true” to “false”; for many people this can be on the level of losing God’s love and approval, and like the very force of gravity is no longer His will but is instead some kind of dead monstrosity. That’s something you risk if you’re more interested in truth than in being close to Him. What in you would need to shift so that your inner answer is “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, let me see the truth”?
Another example: breaking up with a friend. Maybe you’ve known someone since childhood… but some of this Drama Triangle stuff starts to click and you see that actually everything about your connection is based on (say) them Rescuing you and you playing Victim. When you try to talk to them about this, they brush it off, maybe even playing the Victim card themselves (“I just care about you! Don’t you appreciate all that I do for you?”). You could just keep playing along… or you could notice that you’re actually a “no” for playing this dynamic with anyone anymore, even your old friend. But maybe there’s nothing deeper than the Drama dynamic, and maybe they won’t be available for building something more. So what do you do? What resource in you do you call upon in order to choose to prefer truth even to this long-standing friendship? Are you willing to grieve, and have your old friend feel hurt at you (the shift to Persecutor), and practice standing your ground (i.e., deepening your devotion to truth)? Or do you cherish things as they are more than you want to recognize the deeper truth?
This stuff shows up in a thousand different ways, and my experience is that the more refined my “truth sight” becomes the more micro-level these little opportunities appear. Like, as I write this, is each keystroke devotional? Or am I focused more on making sure I answer your question than I am on whether it’s true for me to do so? What in me do I need to acknowledge and let go of in order to have each breath be married to reality?
Does this answer your question?
Yes, this feels much clearer now, thank you.
Quite welcome. Glad that helped. :-)
I’m glad to hear it. :-)
It’s not really that one abandons the concept of goals. It’s that doing serves being, so goals arise and fade within a larger context.
What’s your motivation for continuing to live? If presented with two buttons, one of which will let you leave the button situation & continue your life while the other one has you die right on the spot, I imagine you have little difficulty choosing the first one. You might be able to justify your choice afterwards as “survival instinct” or “net positive expected global utility from your remaining life” or whatever… but I’m guessing the clear knowing of the choice comes before all that. Your choice probably wouldn’t change whatsoever if you spent a while meditating and calming your reactions, for instance.
(Said differently: the clarity arises from the Void.)
The word “motivation” has a common linguistic root with “motor”. It’s that which causes movement. So the “motivation” of a stone rolling downhill is gravity. The motivation of a high school student attending college is (often) a whole social atmosphere that acts something like a gravitational field (what I’ve occasionally heard termed “an incentive landscape” in rationalist circles). There’s something very mechanical about the whole thing.
But when we talk about “being motivated” or epic feats like “shut up and do the impossible”, particularly when there’s any hint of “should” attached to them (like “I should shut up & do the impossible”), there’s usually an implication of free will. As though beyond all causes is some kind of power of choice. It’s obviously a bit batty when said that way, but we mostly agree not to pay attention to that.
…with the result that we have bizarre statements like “We should end racism.” What exactly is that as a choice? It’s not at all of the same type as “We should turn off the stove.” In practice it’s an application of a social force meant to shift the incentive landscape (usually via Drama Triangle dynamics, I’ll parenthetically add). But what’s causing that force to be applied? If you start tabooing the concept of free will, most statements about social movements and public policy start looking patently insane. If you finish tabooing it, they appear as they are: manifestations of a kind of collective mental software glitch that keeps human minds distant from reality. Stones rolling downhill.
Same for statements like “I should lose weight.” With what magical power? By the power of research and effort? If so, can you notice the element of magic being added wherein you somehow mysteriously can make yourself do the research and put in effort as though your choice is beyond all cause?
(The fact that the motivations often aren’t beyond experienced causes is part of why shame and inadequacy enter the picture. “I failed, and that means I suck” doesn’t make any more sense than “The stone rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill, and that means I suck.” Of course, the judgment isn’t causeless either.)
Intellectually solving the reductionist puzzle of free will is not at all the same as integrating the insight into your being and perception.
So, what does it feel like on the inside to end all distortions about free will?
I’m pretty sure this is part of what the Void stuff is getting you into contact with.
The place from which you choose to move your fingers is void of experience. It’s a kind of empty. Once you make the choice, there’s a cascade of experience and the result is basically predetermined by the mechanisms of reality. But the choice itself feels on the inside like it’s causeless.
Goals are in the realm of causes. Within sensation. They’re part of the machinery of the world.
When you see this clearly and stop pretending that getting somewhere is what existence is about, then your “motivation” emerges from the causeless realm of emptiness. You just do what you want.
Of course, within physics this is still mechanical. The reductionist lens sees that “causeless choice” is basically just how we experience a type of ignorance.
But at least the machinery stops being confused in practice about what the “free will” function is actually doing. And our narratives about ourselves and others stop trying to rely on these magical forces that don’t actually exist.
…though that’s still described from the outside.
On the inside, it feels silent.
I do because I want to.
“Where does the desire come from?” becomes a koan. The act of looking for the answer points back to the silence.
Which means that the carnival of sensation is much, much less able to control what I choose to do.
Does this answer your question?
(I’ll answer your second question in a separate reply since the topics are different. I don’t see this done often here… but I think it makes more sense given the nature of upvoting/downvoting, so I’ll try it and see what happens.)
This definitely helps clarify, thank you very much. I suspect it will take me some time to fully understand your ideas, but my current best stab at a (probably overcompressed) summary would be:
Hopefully I’m not totally misunderstanding you here.
That seems pretty darn good to me!