I’ll answer to both your replies here. Sorry about any confusion that the deletion of my first reply caused.
It seems like your argument is roughly:
1) There’s a difference between “wanting to want” and “object-level wanting”
2) If I manage to create a strong object-level want, I will boost my attention without needing to coerce myself
With some extra ideas:
* Having mistaken beliefs about what you want—ones not connected to revealed preference—is harmful, since it leads to self-delusion and stuckness.
* Actually-viscerally-motivated people can sustain attention to a meditation object, even without much training
If my understanding is correct, then we are largely in agreement. You are highlighting coercive tendencies in my post, and I do believe that there’s great value in anchoring my wants in something visceral. My usage of “should” might point to an inner conflict that’s useful to resolve, and I will look into this.
However, this wasn’t the key thing I wanted to focus on in the post—I was more curious about how the difference between a third-person and a first-person perspective affects my meditation.
I’m also convinced that actual-visceral motivation isn’t sufficient for an untrained person to sustain attention to the breath for a long amount of time, even if it is (roughly) necessary—or at least very helpful/useful.
Finally—you ask why I am attempting to do such an unusual thing. For me, meditation is connected to wellbeing, the amount of conscious awareness I can bring to my everyday life. I notice when I skip meditation, similarly to how I notice when I mess up my sleep or skip workouts. These factors lead to me treating it as important—in the “wanting to want” sense. Turning that into an actual-visceral motivation is part of the challenge of meditation—it’s a practice arena for challenging mistaken beliefs about my wants and turning them into actual-visceral motivation.
It’s similar to my just-woken-up self after a period of poor sleep hygiene—my momentary “revealed preference” is to stay in bed, snoozing. Giving in to this preference perpetuates the poor sleep hygiene spiral—akin to addiction. When this happens, I have a “wanting to want” (stepping out of bed when I wake up) that I ideally are able to transform into an actual-visceral motivation, similar to the move that is useful in my meditation practice.
Thanks for taking the time to thoughtfully engage, I appreciate it.
Jonathan Moregård
Consider Breathwork
I initially wrote another comment, that was written hastily. I decided to delete it, and want to give you a proper response.
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>It often makes sense to talk about “I”. “I” makes sense. I am writing this, for one. You know exactly what that means, it is clearly true, and there is nothing that noticing this requires you to flinch away from.
Agreed.
>”Should”, on the other hand, falls apart very quickly and is usually functioning to preserve a disconnect from reality. Valentine talks about it here, and So8res talks about it here.
Agreed, I generally like the advice in replacing guilt.
>You say you should focus on your breath. Why? Why aren’t you already drawn to your breath, if that’s what you want to focus on?
>Sensations of the breath are arising, yes. And so are many other things. If those sensations are interesting and worth attending to (according to you), then simply noticing that they’re there is enough. If it’s not, then “I want to focus on the breath” is empirically shown to be false—so now you have a question of why you’re trying to force yourself to do a thing you don’t want to do.
The post is in the context of focus meditation, where I practice my ability to sustain attention/focus for unusual amounts of time. Untrained people (and semi-trained people like me) can’t sustain focus for extended amounts of time—even if I set my mind to the breath, it will slip away.
Sustained focus can be practised through a process of self-conditioning:
1) Try to sustain focus on the breath
2) Realize that your mind has wandered (auto-switch)
3) Catch yourself and refocus on the breath
>The lack of “self language” when talking to oneself comes straight from maintaining connection to reality instead of BSing yourself. I might tell my wife I want to eat lunch, if that helps coordinate with her. But if I’m telling myself that I want to eat lunch, then with whom am I attempting to coordinate? I’ll just eat or not eat. It’s not that there’s never any such thing as a “self” that has enough coherence to become a useful model, it’s that when you’re saying “I want to focus on my breath” and then choosing not to, there’s clearly no coherent self wanting to focus on those sensations.
>There can be though, if that’s what you want.
I’m not sure I follow this part of your comment. I agree there’s no coherent self, I do not understand what you mean with “There can be though, if that’s what you want”. Do you mean “It’s possible to will/train yourself to have a coherent self”?
Sapir-Whorf Ego Death
Well, killing each other to resolve arguments does seem like the kind of thing I would frown upon (unless the killers seem to dislike other people frowning at them)
This post is targeted more towards people picking up things like Nonviolent communication (which I think can be great*) and ending up angry at their parents/friends for not being skilled.When someone new to nvc ends up judging non-practitioners, focusing more on failures than understanding, then they’re shooting themselves in the foot.
Even if you want to convert everyone, I would argue that irritation & correcting others aren’t an optimal way to drive adoption.
*) more info here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PCrTQDbciG4oLgmQ5/sapir-whorf-for-rationalists
Your Communication Preferences Aren’t Law
I follow most of the post, but got confused by the non-cyclic graph & halting problem/computational intractability part.
Is the non-cyclic graph a way of modelling causality as state transitions?
Re: computational intractability; I understand your argument as saying:
Dualism is used as a fundamental interpretative tool, since it makes it tractable to analyze feedback loops between brain and environment.
When meditating, dualism gets broken down due to lack of feedback loops and an increase in neutral annealing, leading to nondual world models
Questions: A. Why is the awakened brain capable of performing “computationally intractable” computation (non-dual & feedback loopy)? Seems more like an aptness thing than a fundamental impossibility thing (a la halting problem) B. Does all awakening-inducing meditative practices involve cutting feedback loops? Is awakening a theravada/Samantha thing?
I found your example problem very interesting, and started thinking about social dynamics that match “tell me if you do it, but don’t do it”.
The closest cultural anchor I could find is that of sin, confession, priest. Modelling the situation as a confession might be an apt anchor
Why is hostile low-quality resurrection almost inevitable? If you want to clone someone into an em, why not pick a living human?
Frozen people have potential brain damage and an outdated understanding of the world.
Approval-Seeking ⇒ Playful Evaluation
“By manipulating your belief system, you can lessen your inhibitions, by lowering the perceived threat of less control.”
I don’t follow this sentence
So I might read “trust the universe” and get closer to a flow state, or forget exactly what I meant by that.
Yes, this is the problem when signifiers detach from the signified. In my post on personal heuristics I mention something similar: the issue where many “stock wisdoms” turn into detached platitudes.
This is also reminiscent of spiritual practices (like meditation instructions) that turn into religious dogma.
For me, there’s a difference between having techniques that are dependent on reminders (like telling yourself “trust the universe”), and techniques that are more descriptive (like “take slow belly-breaths with long exhales” or “act upon your immediate impulses”)
This is an enormous topic that is under-theorized, agreed that language is somewhat lacking.
When I’m very in tune with my short-term desires, emotions and agency—acting according to instinct and impulse rather than ideas, plans or similar.
It’s a mindset/state of being I can go into, which has a very particular “flavour” to it, it’s light-hearted, unconcerned & in tune with what I want/like, in the moment.
I guess different people have different “modes” or “headspaces”, a kind of equilibria for how they experience the world, their own agency, and themselves. Different equilibria fit different situations. What I wanted to exemplify in the post was the potential of knowing what “modes”, “equilibrias” or “headspaces” you have access to, and try switching into non-standard ones when your default headspace doesn’t resolve the situation at hand.
Shifting Headspaces—Transitional Beast-Mode
If we want to shift group dynamics, I see these things as important shifts:
conflict theory → mistake theory
general complaints → specific solutions
overconfidence → humility
One way to go about this, inspired by Scott Alexander, is to ask for more concreteness: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/details-that-you-should-include-in
In general, though, I think the info content of the outrage is low. For most people, it mainly means “I read this thing online, and it resonated somehow”. I see most outrage group discussions as extensions of newsfeeds, best to be ignored.
For solid discussions, find the people capable of deep analysis, and read their work.
Do you mean “alert and active” as in:
Dealing with group-outrage situations without zoning out?
Staying up to date with politics and having an influence?
Shifting your social contexts to become less outrage-oriented?
Other?
This happened a while ago, and I’ve since migrated my social circles to distinctly non-partisan ones. I still want to help you, and would like to offer some ideas. Some of them might not fit your specific contexts. I trust you to pick the ones that seem promising.
Ideas:
Say something akin to “I get depressed talking about those people. I’ve decided to focus on people I like instead. Have you been excited about anything recently?”
Bring up the negative consequences explicitly. In a highly polarized state, not engaging in the outrage might be interpreted as a sign of betrayal. Explicitly bringing it up might be weird, but it gives you a non-traitor reason for not engaging in outrage
Look into authentic relating—a bunch of practices for deepening communication & connection. Nonviolent communication & circling are included in this category, as well as general “authentic relating”. You get some new tools for relating, and/or new friends.
Try to get people to reduce time spent on news & social media. Phone-free family gatherings?
Get people addicted to mobile games, so they spend their time on candy crush instead of culture wars
Become a hermit, build a log house under an oversized rock
For reference, most of the people I hang out with are involved in the nordic branches of the wider burning man community. They are busy actually doing things, rather than complaining about politics. YMMV, but equivalent spaces where you’re located might serve as a source of non-bitter connections.
Makes sense, I’ll see if I manage to get there in time.
Seems like your approach is cohering across perspectives while including more aspects into conscious awareness. Seems more likely to lead to integration/wholeness instead of dissociation/lost purposes.
edit: I’m also curious about your background/experience of meditation, if you are open to sharing.