It seems that one useful distinction that isn’t made often enough is between “knowing how one ought to think” and “implementing the necessary changes”.
“knowing how one ought to think” is covered in depth here, while “implementing the necessary changes” is glossed over for the most part.
To some extent, the fixing part happens on its own. If you call the grocery store and they’re closed, you’re not going to want to go there anymore to pick up food- even without doing anything explicitly to propagate that belief.
However, not everything happens automatically for all people. It looks like some aspects of religion refuse to leave even seven years after becoming atheist. These are also the types of things that most people wouldn’t notice at all, let alone the connection to their former religion.
I think more effort is due on this front, but I don’t know of any easy to steal from source. There are a lot of related areas (CBT,NLP, salesmanship,self help,etc.), but they tend to be low signal to noise and serve more as a pointer towards ideas to explore rather than a definitive source.
We are probably inadvertently selecting for people who have some self taught/innate ability to self modify, since people who aren’t good at this don’t get as much out of the sequences. I’m currently working with a couple people that are bad at this to see if its something simple and easily fixed, and will report back with lessons learned.
Yeah. I’ve been thinking a bit about this. For some people, realising that they can think about thinking is revelatory, and the notion that they can change how they think is filled with fearful trepidation.
What other extremely basic things like this are there?
This sprang to mind with a particularly scary one—when I was out trolling the Scientologists in my dissolute youth.
A word about the victim who was already in there. She was a good example of Scientology working on people only insofar as they actually notice their minds for the first time EVER—which will be a productive thing—and then attribute any gains to Scientology itself rather than their own efforts. She was utterly BLOWN AWAY by the meagre thrill of a chat about Dianetics, to the point of going out right there and then to get $100 out of the bank to buy a course.
This is what you can get from just getting someone to notice their mind for the first time, and taking the credit for such.
I’d be interested in hearing more about this. Are there a lot of people like this? Are there polite ways to introduce people to this notion (I imagine some people would be somewhat insulted if you assumed they didn’t have this notion)?
That’s the thing—I don’t know! But it’s such a HUGE WIN technique.
And a serious susceptibility, if you’re introduced to it by the Renfields of a parasitic meme. And even if you already have it, if they get in through your awareness of the power of the idea of self-improvement.
I’m also wondering at other techniques—such as how to teach the notion of rationality by starting with small-scale instrumental rationality and expanding from there. I have no idea if that would work, but it sounds plausible. Of course, that can lead to the Litany of the Politician: “If believing this will get me what I want, then I want to believe this.” I expect I’d need to come up with a pile of this stuff then actually test it on actual people.
We are probably inadvertently selecting for people who have some self taught/innate ability to self modify, since people who aren’t good at this don’t get as much out of the sequences. I’m currently working with a couple people that are bad at this to see if its something simple and easily fixed, and will report back with lessons learned.
I’m extremely glad to hear that. Do please report back, whether or not you succeed in teaching the skills.
Not much progress (or time) with one person due to a depression related lack of motivation (still struggling to find a method to tackle the motivation part, and it’s sorta a prerequisite for progress)
But good results with the other.
I wanted to instill a solid big picture base of “what are we doing, and why?”, so I spent a few hours describing in depth the idea of identity/belief space, attractors, the eerily strong commitment and consistency effects, and other forces that push us around.
From there I went on to talk about the importance separating the bad qualities from the rest of our identity and creating a strong sense of indignation towards the problem part.
The particular step by step instructions were to identify the problem thoughts/behavior and say “fuck that!” directed at the problem. For example, if you get upset from something that you don’t want to upset you- say “Fuck that” with the attitude of “I don’t want that to upset me, and I don’t want to be the kind of person that gets upset by that”.
It was extremely effective right off the bat. The person in question fixed about a handful of problems that day without so much as a word (problems that had been persisting for months because one sentence explanations weren’t enough). From the outside at least, it looked as if the problems hadn’t ever been there. With 30 seconds of effort, it was able to completely reverse a bad mood (i.e. tears to persisting genuine laughter and smiles).
It’s worth noting that actually saying “fuck that” out loud was more effective than saying it mentally, and that saying it repeatedly, forcefully, and in some cases jokingly was sometimes necessary
After a couple weeks, the technique described stopped being as effective and stop being used. It looked like a case of lost purpose- the words were being recited without the necessary attitude—as if it were supposed to be magic.
I had been coasting hoping that my job was done, but apparently she lacked the introspective skills necessary to notice attitude slipping. I guess more effort needs to be put into creating thought maintenance habits.
Another serious conversation about what the point of all this is and how, exactly, this was supposed to work got her back on track. All the positive signs of progress are back and exceeding my expectations in directions only tangentially related to what was explicitly discussed.
I think it will take more work to get her to the point of truly appreciating the sequences. I’ve got her to the level of easily knocking down trivially seen obstacles, but I think in order to get the most out of the sequences, you have to be able to notice the importance of things that are more subtle and take them seriously. With luck, this could be taught as easily, but for now my effort is on ‘error correcting code’ to keep her on track.
It seems that one useful distinction that isn’t made often enough is between “knowing how one ought to think” and “implementing the necessary changes”.
“knowing how one ought to think” is covered in depth here, while “implementing the necessary changes” is glossed over for the most part.
To some extent, the fixing part happens on its own. If you call the grocery store and they’re closed, you’re not going to want to go there anymore to pick up food- even without doing anything explicitly to propagate that belief.
However, not everything happens automatically for all people. It looks like some aspects of religion refuse to leave even seven years after becoming atheist. These are also the types of things that most people wouldn’t notice at all, let alone the connection to their former religion.
I think more effort is due on this front, but I don’t know of any easy to steal from source. There are a lot of related areas (CBT,NLP, salesmanship,self help,etc.), but they tend to be low signal to noise and serve more as a pointer towards ideas to explore rather than a definitive source.
We are probably inadvertently selecting for people who have some self taught/innate ability to self modify, since people who aren’t good at this don’t get as much out of the sequences. I’m currently working with a couple people that are bad at this to see if its something simple and easily fixed, and will report back with lessons learned.
Yeah. I’ve been thinking a bit about this. For some people, realising that they can think about thinking is revelatory, and the notion that they can change how they think is filled with fearful trepidation.
What other extremely basic things like this are there?
Do you have anecdotes about this? If you do I would be interested to hear them.
This sprang to mind with a particularly scary one—when I was out trolling the Scientologists in my dissolute youth.
This is what you can get from just getting someone to notice their mind for the first time, and taking the credit for such.
I’d be interested in hearing more about this. Are there a lot of people like this? Are there polite ways to introduce people to this notion (I imagine some people would be somewhat insulted if you assumed they didn’t have this notion)?
That’s the thing—I don’t know! But it’s such a HUGE WIN technique.
And a serious susceptibility, if you’re introduced to it by the Renfields of a parasitic meme. And even if you already have it, if they get in through your awareness of the power of the idea of self-improvement.
I’m also wondering at other techniques—such as how to teach the notion of rationality by starting with small-scale instrumental rationality and expanding from there. I have no idea if that would work, but it sounds plausible. Of course, that can lead to the Litany of the Politician: “If believing this will get me what I want, then I want to believe this.” I expect I’d need to come up with a pile of this stuff then actually test it on actual people.
I’m extremely glad to hear that. Do please report back, whether or not you succeed in teaching the skills.
Your overall point also seems very good.
I have a detailed progress report for you!
Not much progress (or time) with one person due to a depression related lack of motivation (still struggling to find a method to tackle the motivation part, and it’s sorta a prerequisite for progress)
But good results with the other.
I wanted to instill a solid big picture base of “what are we doing, and why?”, so I spent a few hours describing in depth the idea of identity/belief space, attractors, the eerily strong commitment and consistency effects, and other forces that push us around.
From there I went on to talk about the importance separating the bad qualities from the rest of our identity and creating a strong sense of indignation towards the problem part.
The particular step by step instructions were to identify the problem thoughts/behavior and say “fuck that!” directed at the problem. For example, if you get upset from something that you don’t want to upset you- say “Fuck that” with the attitude of “I don’t want that to upset me, and I don’t want to be the kind of person that gets upset by that”.
It was extremely effective right off the bat. The person in question fixed about a handful of problems that day without so much as a word (problems that had been persisting for months because one sentence explanations weren’t enough). From the outside at least, it looked as if the problems hadn’t ever been there. With 30 seconds of effort, it was able to completely reverse a bad mood (i.e. tears to persisting genuine laughter and smiles).
It’s worth noting that actually saying “fuck that” out loud was more effective than saying it mentally, and that saying it repeatedly, forcefully, and in some cases jokingly was sometimes necessary
After a couple weeks, the technique described stopped being as effective and stop being used. It looked like a case of lost purpose- the words were being recited without the necessary attitude—as if it were supposed to be magic.
I had been coasting hoping that my job was done, but apparently she lacked the introspective skills necessary to notice attitude slipping. I guess more effort needs to be put into creating thought maintenance habits.
Another serious conversation about what the point of all this is and how, exactly, this was supposed to work got her back on track. All the positive signs of progress are back and exceeding my expectations in directions only tangentially related to what was explicitly discussed.
I think it will take more work to get her to the point of truly appreciating the sequences. I’ve got her to the level of easily knocking down trivially seen obstacles, but I think in order to get the most out of the sequences, you have to be able to notice the importance of things that are more subtle and take them seriously. With luck, this could be taught as easily, but for now my effort is on ‘error correcting code’ to keep her on track.