The whole first part of the article is how this is wrong, due to the gaming of notable sources
Matt Goldenberg(Matt Goldenberg)
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One way that think about “forces beyond yourself” is pointing to what it feels like to operate from a right-hemisphere dominant mode, as defined by Ian McGilcrist.
The language is deliberately designed to evoke that mode—so while I’ll get more specific here, know that to experience the thing I’m talking about you need to let go of the mind that wants this type of explanation in order to experience what I’m talking about.
When I’m talking about “Higher Forces” I’m talking about states of being that feel like something is moving through you—you’re not a head controlling a body but rather you’re first connecting to, then channeling, then becoming part of a larger universal force.
In my coaching work, I like to use Phil Stutz’s idea of “Higher forces” like Infinite Love, Forward Motion, Self-Expression, etc, as they’re particularly suited for the modern Western Mind.
Here’s how Stutz defines the higher force of Self-Expression on his website:
“The Higher Force You’re Invoking: Self-Expression The force of Self-Expression allows us to reveal ourselves in a truthful, genuine way—without caring about others’ approval. It speaks through us with unusual clarity and authority, but it also expresses itself nonverbally, like when an athlete is “in the zone.” In adults, this force gets buried in the Shadow. Inner Authority, by connecting you to the Shadow, enables you to resurrect the force and have it flow through you.”
Of course, religions also have names for these type of special states, calling them Muses, Jhanas, Direct Connection to God.
All of these states (while I can and do teach techniques, steps, and systems to invoke them) ultimately can only be accessed through surrender to the moment, faith in what’s there, and letting go of a need for knowing.
It’s precisely when handing your life to forces beyond yourself (not Gods, thats just handing your life over to someone else) that you can avoid giving your life over to others/society.
Souls is metaphorical of course, not some essential unchanging part of yourself—just a thing that actually matters, that moves you
In the early 2000s, we all thought the next productivity system would save us. If we could just follow Tim Ferriss’s system and achieve a four-hour workweek, or adopt David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology, everything would be better. We believed the grind would end.
In retrospect, this was our generation’s first attempt at addressing the growing sacredness deficit disorder that was, and still is, ravaging our souls. It was a good distraction for a time—a psyop that convinced us that with the perfect productivity system, we could design the perfect lifestyle and achieve perfection.
However, the edges started to fray when put into action. Location-independent digital nomads turned out to be just as lonely as everyone else. The hyper-productive GTD enthusiasts still burned out.
For me, this era truly ended when Merlin Mann, the author of popular GTD innovations like the “hipster PDA” and “inbox zero,” failed to publish his book. He had all the tools in the world and knew all the systems. But when it mattered—when it came to building something from his soul that would stand the test of time—it didn’t make a difference.
Merlin wrote a beautiful essay about this failure called “Cranking” (https://43folders.com/2011/04/22/cranking). He mused on the sterile, machine-like crank that would move his father’s bed when he could no longer walk. He compared this to the sterile, machine-like systems he used to get himself to write, not knowing what he was writing or why, just turning the crank.
No amount of cranking could reconnect him to the sacred. No system or steps could ensure that the book he was writing would touch your soul, or his. So instead of sending his book draft to the editor, he sent the essay.
Reading that essay did something to me, and I think it marked a shift that many others who grew up in the “productivity systems” era experienced. It’s a shift that many caught up in the current crop of “protocols” from the likes of Andrew Huberman and Bryan Johnson will go through in the next few years—a realization that the sacred can’t be reached through a set of steps, systems, lists, or protocols.
At best, those systems can point towards something that must be surrendered to in mystery and faith. No amount of cranking will ever get you there, and no productivity system will save you. Only through complete devotion or complete surrender to forces beyond yourself will you find it.
I just realized that this then brings the problem of “oh, but what’s the meta-meta strategy i use), but I think there’s just an element of taste to this.
One thing to note—Brainstorming itself is a meta-strategy that may or may not be the best approach at certain points in the problem, to generate meta-strategic approaches.
Brainstorming for me has a particular flavor—it’s helpful when I have a lot of ideas but don’t know where to start, or when it feels like my mind just needs the starter cord pulled a few times.
Other times, I get a lot more out of a taking a walk and let my mind wander around the problem, not specifically listing out lanes of attack, but sort of holding the intention that one may show up as I think in a free associative way and walk.
Other times it’s helpful for me to have a conversation with a friend, especially one who I can see has the right mind-shape to frame this sort of problem.
Other times it’s helpful to specifically look through the list of meta-strategies I have, wandering around my Roam and seeing how different mental models and frameworks can frame the problem.
I guess what I’m saying is, it’s helpful to separate the move of “oh, it’s time to figure out what meta-strategy I can use” from “oh, it’s time to brainstorm”
For those who disagreed, I’d love to be linked to convincing arguments to the contrary!
I’ve heard several people who should know (Musk, Ascher) make detailed cases that seem right, and haven’t heard any convincing arguments to the contrary.
[Question] Good ways to monetarily profit from the increasing demand for power?
But once they break the data-wall, competitors are presumably gonna copy their method.
Is the assumption here that corporate espionage is efficient enough in the AI space that inventing entirely novel methods of training doesn’t give much of a competitive advantage?
i don’t think the constraint is that energy is too expensive? i think we just literally don’t have enough of it concentrated in one place
but i have no idea actually
Zuck and Musk point to energy as a quickly approaching deep learning bottleneck over and above compute.
This to me seems like it could slow takeoff substantially and effectively create a wall for a long time.
Best arguments against this?
Paul Ekmans software is decent. When I used it (before it was a SaaS, just a cd) it just basicallyflashed an expression for a moment then went back to neutral pic. After some training it did help to identify micro expressions in people
People talk about unconditional love and conditional love. Maybe I’m out of the loop regarding the great loves going on around me, but my guess is that love is extremely rarely unconditional. Or at least if it is, then it is either very broadly applied or somewhat confused or strange: if you love me unconditionally, presumably you love everything else as well, since it is only conditions that separate me from the worms.
Yes. this is my experience of cultivating unconditional love, it loves everything without target. I doesn’t feel confused or strange, just like I am love, and my experience e.g. cultivating it in coaching is that people like being in the present of such love.
It’s also very helpful for people to experience conditional love! In particular of the type “I’ve looked at you, truly seen you, and loved you for that.”
IME both of these loves feel pure and powerful from both sides, and neither of them are related to being attached, being pulled towards or pushed away from people.
It feels like maybe we’re using the word love very differently?
Both causal.app and getguesstimate.com have pretty good monte carlo uis
IME there is a real effect where nicotine acts as a gateway drug to tobacco or vaping
in general this whole post seems to make this mistake of saying ‘a common second order effect of this thing is doing it in a way that will get you addicted—so don’t do that’ which is just such an obvious failure mode that to call it a chesterton fence is generous
The question is—how far can we get with in-context learning. If we filled Gemini’s 10 million tokens with Sudoku rules and examples, showing where it went wrong each time, would it generalize? I’m not sure but I think it’s possible
It seems likely to me that you could create a prompt that would have a transformer do this.
i like coase’s work on transaction costs as an explanation here
coase is an unusually clear thinker and writer, and i recommend reading through some of his papers
I think you’d have to consider both Scott Aaronson and Taylor Cowen to be rationalist adjacent, and both considered intellectual heavyweights
Dustin Moskovitz EA adjacent, again considered a heavyweight, but applied to business rather than academia
Then there’s the second point, but unfortunately I haven’t seen any evidence that someone being smart makes them pleasant to argue with (the contrary in fact)