Your post(s?) about scrupulosity, which introduced me to the concept, were/are very important to my psychological development. I think in general you have an interesting perspective on things and seem like someone who takes their principles seriously.
This is something that’s starting to take off and I think it has its place in the ecosystem of ultimately getting AI paused and proper governance installed. It’s just not what I do.
Finally, I'm really curious about attention (or "mindfulness") as a terminal value - for me, paying more attention to things seems like it should be an end in itself, regardless of its effect on your ability to rapidly cognize a table. Not eating meat has some negative real-world effects also, right?
Yeah I used to think that there was a “correct” amount of detail to notice and that was “all of it”. I thought if I didn’t miss a single detail I would like escape mortality or something bc I had all of the information. Pretty much as soon as I realized I thought this I realized it was obviously false.
Part of my journey with meditation was realizing how much of it was performing virtue to myself. I was trying to become omniscient under the guise of presence. And I wanted omniscience to be safe and good, not as an end in itself. Hypervigilance itself is misery.
Also really curious about the decision to stop meditating - like it seems you found out meditation was in some ways incompatible with living in the world normally, as many monastics have, but you made the decision to stop meditating instead of trying to stop living in the world normally.
Really curious about that - this might seem like a strange thing to say, but I'm wondering why you wanted to keep living in the world normally instead of, say, joining a monastery or something (I'm very tempted).
In Buddhist terms you could say I’m on the Bodhisattva path. I’m not turning my back on the world or my own life. I never really got how seeking Atman for yourself was not a betrayal of the rest of the world.
For a less altruistic reason, I love sex and I didn’t like the freaky shit I had already experienced. I started leading from within rather than trying to fit someone else’s spiritual teaching and part of that embracing pleasure and comfort.
Yeah, I loved sex too, still do though SSRIs have taken away most of the pleasure. I'm glad to hear that wasn't a problem for you. I'd do anything for a cure.
It makes sense that finding meditation (or parts of it) unpleasant or freaky would make you want to stop - my own experience has been it's the only thing that seems to settle my mind down, improve my mood, treat my depression, anxiety, and ADD, and it also feels really good to me. Which is kind of surprising, given my past history of trauma, I suppose - I don't take the harmful side-effects of meditation for granted. They are very real; I'm just lucky enough to have escaped them.
I don't give a fuck about someone else's teachings and I believe in embracing pleasure and comfort too, and for me leading from within means paying attention to that primal curiosity that tells me to pay attention to my experience, and that "navel-gazing" is in fact the most ethical and important thing. For me not paying close attention to my experience feels like a betrayal. It's the same truth-seeking urge that makes me a rationalist.
Since I know you also love "navel-gazing," doesn't it seem like a betrayal not to tune in to your experience?
I'm also cynical about my ability to make a difference - like I know we badly need an AI pause for our survival, but can I really do anything to make that more likely?
Also would really like to read more on illusionism after following your link!
I don't think you would stop being conscious if you accepted the truth of illusionism - illusionists don't report any change in their perception of (illusory) conscious experience, do they?
Would really like to hear more about your experiences with meditation, how it's modified your brain, and how you've tried to undo it, as someone who's spent a lot of time on meditation retreats and still not sure what happened to my brain!
Probably not the right place for this question. But I'm curious whether there's a precedent for this in history? The deliberate (partial) pausing of a major technology? Nuclear, ..
Your post(s?) about scrupulosity, which introduced me to the concept, were/are very important to my psychological development. I think in general you have an interesting perspective on things and seem like someone who takes their principles seriously.
❤️
Finally finally, I'd like to know about anti-AI branding. Why do we see no consumer products or software that's branded as not using AI?
I think promoting anti-AI branding would be really helpful to the cause as well as a good marketing strategy for those of us revolted by anything AI.
This is something that’s starting to take off and I think it has its place in the ecosystem of ultimately getting AI paused and proper governance installed. It’s just not what I do.
Finally, I'm really curious about attention (or "mindfulness") as a terminal value - for me, paying more attention to things seems like it should be an end in itself, regardless of its effect on your ability to rapidly cognize a table. Not eating meat has some negative real-world effects also, right?
Yeah I used to think that there was a “correct” amount of detail to notice and that was “all of it”. I thought if I didn’t miss a single detail I would like escape mortality or something bc I had all of the information. Pretty much as soon as I realized I thought this I realized it was obviously false.
Part of my journey with meditation was realizing how much of it was performing virtue to myself. I was trying to become omniscient under the guise of presence. And I wanted omniscience to be safe and good, not as an end in itself. Hypervigilance itself is misery.
Also really curious about the decision to stop meditating - like it seems you found out meditation was in some ways incompatible with living in the world normally, as many monastics have, but you made the decision to stop meditating instead of trying to stop living in the world normally.
Really curious about that - this might seem like a strange thing to say, but I'm wondering why you wanted to keep living in the world normally instead of, say, joining a monastery or something (I'm very tempted).
In Buddhist terms you could say I’m on the Bodhisattva path. I’m not turning my back on the world or my own life. I never really got how seeking Atman for yourself was not a betrayal of the rest of the world.
For a less altruistic reason, I love sex and I didn’t like the freaky shit I had already experienced. I started leading from within rather than trying to fit someone else’s spiritual teaching and part of that embracing pleasure and comfort.
Yeah, I loved sex too, still do though SSRIs have taken away most of the pleasure. I'm glad to hear that wasn't a problem for you. I'd do anything for a cure.
It makes sense that finding meditation (or parts of it) unpleasant or freaky would make you want to stop - my own experience has been it's the only thing that seems to settle my mind down, improve my mood, treat my depression, anxiety, and ADD, and it also feels really good to me. Which is kind of surprising, given my past history of trauma, I suppose - I don't take the harmful side-effects of meditation for granted. They are very real; I'm just lucky enough to have escaped them.
I don't give a fuck about someone else's teachings and I believe in embracing pleasure and comfort too, and for me leading from within means paying attention to that primal curiosity that tells me to pay attention to my experience, and that "navel-gazing" is in fact the most ethical and important thing. For me not paying close attention to my experience feels like a betrayal. It's the same truth-seeking urge that makes me a rationalist.
Since I know you also love "navel-gazing," doesn't it seem like a betrayal not to tune in to your experience?
I'm also cynical about my ability to make a difference - like I know we badly need an AI pause for our survival, but can I really do anything to make that more likely?
Also would really like to read more on illusionism after following your link!
I don't think you would stop being conscious if you accepted the truth of illusionism - illusionists don't report any change in their perception of (illusory) conscious experience, do they?
Would really like to hear more about your experiences with meditation, how it's modified your brain, and how you've tried to undo it, as someone who's spent a lot of time on meditation retreats and still not sure what happened to my brain!
Probably not the right place for this question. But I'm curious whether there's a precedent for this in history? The deliberate (partial) pausing of a major technology? Nuclear, ..
There's a whole list here:
https://pauseai.info/feasibility
Human cloning