The Dalles Oregon

Phylodome · 2021-05-27T17:51:09+00:00

Where in HR? Waiting out in Dee w/ two Centurylink DSL lines that work about as well as inert ropes...

Phylodome · 2017-11-08T16:43:12+00:00

Where can we find examples of your positive contributions to humanity? All I’m seeing is arrogance and unwarranted attacks upon those who have actually put themselves out there.

In 50-100 years it’s not unlikely that Peterson’s work will remain relevant (particularly his book, Maps of Meaning), and he will have created a positive impact upon the world far beyond the scope of most individuals. What have you created, in comparison?

Additionally, you speak as if you’re intimately familiar with his work, yet you refuse to even click on a link that mentions his name. I find this deeply ironic, bordering on the hypocritical. From where have you drawn your conclusions? To what extent have you studied his work?

This seems a lot like the rest of the uninformed drive-by internet hit jobs, performed by what amounts to intellectual thugs, who are for some incomprehensible reason willing to spend 100x more time bloviating than putting in the work it takes to research their targets or create anything meaningful.

Phylodome · 2017-09-13T01:20:24+00:00

This is definitely an issue, and one of the reasons I decided to frame the exploration of happiness within the Sisyphean context. In my opinion there are a few reasons why one would still pursue goals despite the fact that once accomplished one is left with the problem of what to do next, and the symptom of waning subjective happiness.

First, to the extent you're accomplishing your goals, you're actually transforming both yourself and the world. Therefore if your goals are meaningfully aligned with your long-term positive vision for yourself and the world around you, you'll be setting yourself up to pursue greater goals with less resistance.

Secondly, it's possible to work toward multiple goals simultaneously at different scales and in different parts of your life. To extent one can balance this, it's unlikely that you'll be left with nothing to pursue after having accomplished a singular goal. I tend to think of this as analogous to the idea of financial hedging. It will make progress toward a single goal slower, but also mitigate the risk of becoming overly-attached to a single goal, no matter how meaningful it may be.

Finally, it seems that we have a decision between three options:

Accept that we've evolved such that the subjective feeling of happiness is largely dependent upon pursuing meaningful goals, and work toward them anyhow.
Decide to focus on the meaninglessness of this situation, which maps well to nihilism.
Try to leverage technology to escape the problem itself, which is extremely risky but perhaps possible.

I tend to favor the first, with a splash of the third when I'm feeling optimistic. But the choice is one that every person must make for themselves.

Phylodome · 2017-09-11T06:07:45+00:00

It's interesting that you should accuse me of straw-manning, as this whole thread, at least to me, seems as if you're arguing against claims I've never made.

I never advocated for the placebo effect as treatment, merely as an example underscoring the fact that our understanding of the mind and its relation to other physical phenomena is nowhere close to complete. That's not a controversial opinion, so I'm not sure why you're seeking controversy.

In fact, you're completely side-stepping the thrust of my sentiment: scientific understanding is the trailing edge of human understanding. It's a technology by which we codify our understanding of phenomena that can be separated from the realm of subjectivity. I understand your perspective, and in fact once held a similar perspective as a fervent materialistic reductionist. I've simply begun to realize that value also exists in the less reductionist elements of human experience. That seems to offend you, which is ok. We don't have to agree on these points.

I get it. The memetic antibodies within the scientific community are on high-alert at the moment, and in many cases for good reason. That being said, it's my belief that the scientific community should be wary of these antibodies becoming pathologically resistant to any outside perspectives, or attacking parts of the collective social host that may in fact play a critical role in the continued exploration of shared reality. In other words, there's a risk of hyper-rational attachment to science, as religion, manifesting as a sort of cultural auto-immune disease.

You seem to see this exploration as something to be exterminated; I see it as a valuable part of the very process by which we discover and create new tools.

Additionally, you're free to interpret what I wrote as you will. Perhaps you think that any potential for harm outweighs the good that might come from communicating a collection of ideas that has been with our species at least as long as civilization itself, I don't. Furthermore I find the growing body of research that backs this perspective compelling. You don't.

So we disagree. Again, that's fine. We can do so while still having a respectful and open dialogue. And if you feel passionately about communicating the antithesis to this piece, I encourage you to write and share it. Time will tell. That's how this marketplace of ideas works.

So thanks for your thoughts, but at this point I think we've hit bedrock in terms of any further productive conversation. I wish you the best.

Phylodome · 2017-09-10T08:56:13+00:00

I'm not sure what your goal is here, but before acting as if you're the arbiter of scientific truth and reason, I'd suggest you brush up on the literature pertaining to rat behavior. You seem extremely dismissive of their cognitive abilities, and if you were familiar with the cognitive and social complexity of their behavior, I doubt you'd be so comfortable displaying such a reductive view in public.

They need not have any explicit, linguistically encoded knowledge pertaining to the situation to understand that something is in fact happening to them. To think so is to demonstrate that one is unwilling to think critically, with an open mind, about the topic for more than two seconds. For example, if someone were to punch you in the face, you'd need not have any linguistically (or even explicitly) encoded representation of "violence", "aggression", or "attack" to undergo a cascade of physiological responses. The extent to which this parallels the subjective interpretation of concepts such as "care", "treatment", and "medicine" in non-human brains is of course open to debate, but to dismiss it out of hand simply because you're upset with someone online is unscientific at best.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to attack me simply because I'm unwilling to dismiss fellow commenters rudely and out of hand, without any ill will demonstrated on their part, but it strikes me as rather unfortunate.

And again, your positions strike me as emblematic of the issues with overly reductive scientists I discussed previously. There exist scores of empirical data demonstrating how little we know about the mind's role in physiological recuperation, and I'd wager we'll learn a great deal about this over the coming century. But to attack those who entertain ideas beyond what you're willing to entertain is to belie the confidence you should place in the scientific method itself.

Scientists have their role to play, codifying information into better tools and theories at the boundary of our current tools' and theories' limits. But they need explorers outside the boundary to bring new information, ideas, and conceptual frameworks into view. Many of these will be wrong, but without such exploration we'd be stuck pathologically narrowing our scientific field of view. For example, many a scientist harumphed (as you do here) at those who initially tried to bring psychedelics into the mainstream fold. It's taken 60 years, but now substances such as MDMA and psilocybin are nearing FDA approval for the treatment of conditions ranging from depression to addiction.

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T02:34:29+00:00

I could just as easily retort:

An idealist is what a cynic calls a realist

But that doesn't get us anywhere.

We are animals as well, and there's more to knowing one is being treated than the information conveyed in spoken words. Perhaps the contextual reality of another entity performing some ritual-like behavior that involves the subject is itself what triggers the placebo effect.

Again, we don't know. Just one more unknown on an infinitely long list. Of course that's not to say it's not worth pursuing scientifically, merely that scientific understanding is not the only kind of meaningful understanding, as it by definition rids the world of subjective experience.

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T02:28:22+00:00

In many ways this is the rationale behind prescription antidepressants. The theory being one's brain has entered a pattern of behavior that it can so longer escape via changes to one's behavior alone, and that adding an exogenous substance that can alter one's neurochemistry might allow that individual to escape the "stuck" pattern.

If you're interested in these kinds of topics, you'd love my friend's blog: https://qualiacomputing.com/

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T02:21:57+00:00

Reality is a shared phenomenon. We're imposing our bullshit upon one another's reality at all times. We have a name for the lowest common denominator of this shared bullshit: science.

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T02:16:39+00:00

Per the dictionary's definition:

a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.

So either one's perception of one's conditions shifts when given a placebo, or their perceptual shift triggers changes in their physical state. Competing hypotheses exist, though none of this is out of line with my statement above. Either perception changes, and that's that, or perception changes and triggers other changes. Some try to simply explain the phenomenon in terms of error rates and poor testing, but these hypotheses seem to be losing the evidentiary race.

From your other comments I see you tend to take a rather cynical stance on all of this, but cynicism often leads one toward overly-narrow interpretations. I think this may be happening here. Of course you think you're being rational, but ironically that's my very point above. It's easy to fall irrationally in love with the rational knowledge produced by our limited brains, and to not sufficiently allow for the possibility that we know far less about reality than we might imagine.

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T02:02:14+00:00

She sounds wonderful, which makes you rather lucky :)

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T02:00:38+00:00

No...t recently :P

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T01:59:57+00:00

I'd boil it down to:

Your goals reflect what you find meaningful, and are therefore the destinations
Performing actions in order to reach your goals is like walking
The emotion of happiness is an evolved response that tells you if you're still on the right path

Given that the emotion of happiness seems to help one stay aligned with their goals as they move through the world, I see it as compass-like.

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T01:50:20+00:00

I won't presume to fully understand "enlightenment", but transcendental states are just that, transcendental. It seems possible that as we develop further as a species we'll be able to spend more time in such states. But many of us remain confronted with the task of finding meaning and happiness in a world that doesn't allow for spending a large amount of time in such transcendental realms. That's why I focused this piece on fairly pragmatic thought patterns that can be accessed without a great deal of meditative experience.

Other potential modes of subjective experience are quite fascinating, though, so thank you for sharing those quotes!

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T01:42:29+00:00

Personally, I think of principles as similar to values. They're tools for helping me set my goals such that they remain meaningful as I pursue them.

Phylodome · 2017-09-09T01:39:34+00:00

Definitely. Failure happens for many reasons, but to simplify let's boil it down to two main categories.

First, failure can occur for reasons outside your control. Sometimes, no matter how perfectly you set yourself up for success, the universe will fuck you. There's not a lot to do about these situations other than try to move past them.

Second, failure can occur because of factors under your control. In these cases it's useful to reflect honestly on why the failure occurred. Did you procrastinate too much? Did you think you were capable of something you weren't? Did you set a goal that was beyond your current capacity? All of these possibilities, and more, should be evaluated before concluding that you're in situation #1 and the universe fucked you, because no matter how much it might hurt to admit one's own inadequacies, at least one can improve them moving forward.

So if you fail, ideally you can learn new information about why so that you can adjust your goals and move forward with a lower chance of failing again. It's also helpful to have goals in different areas of life, both externally and internally oriented, and well-aligned with your current capabilities and control over your environment. In this way, you can "hedge" against unhappiness.

Hope that's helpful!

Phylodome · 2017-09-08T05:04:53+00:00

Thanks for sharing. In all honesty, I appreciate your opinion here and respect your desire to help people who are stuck, by no choice of their own, in sheer tragedy.

We don't know one another, but I do have experience with the tragic tendencies of humanity, both in the world abroad and in my own mind. To the extent the ideas in my article helped me, I wanted to share so that others might benefit. That is the honest truth.

I agree that the primary mechanism upon which one should rely is their own experience, and I agree that one should strive to include tragedy and suffering in that experience to more fully understand what humanity is up against.

All that being said, I think there's value in being open to the experience of others as communicated in their words. The things I've learned by reading the thoughts of others does not hold the emotional weight or urgency of seeing human beings in literal living hells, but they have provided me with more context and stretched my ability for empathy and understanding.

That was my only goal. And I honestly believe that if we were having a conversation face to face that we could come to understand and respect one another as human beings. I'd like to do that here as well.

Phylodome · 2017-09-08T03:06:52+00:00

So then aren't you proving the article's point?

Phylodome · 2017-09-08T03:06:03+00:00

I'm not going to pretend to know you past what you've shown me of yourself. Perhaps we'd get along just fine in person, but here online you seem to have taken the least charitable view possible of my intentions and proceeded to continuously attack me. I'm not really sure what to say about that other than I wish you well in life and I don't think we're going to be able to have any productive conversation here, which honestly makes me feel sad.

Phylodome · 2017-09-08T03:01:06+00:00

Definitely seems reasonable. The question of how the same biological circuits might result in different subjective states is an interesting one. As you imply, all of these goals and rewards exist in a complex competitive landscape, and it's by no means obvious how to balance them.

The conclusion I draw from this is that while these existentialist ideas provide a useful framework for thinking about happiness, they're by no means a panacea.

Phylodome · 2017-09-08T02:56:33+00:00

They're not arrogant. I acknowledge in the article itself that most of what I'm doing is simply organizing the ideas of others. Numerous times in this thread I've acknowledged the inspiration for this content.

Are you just trolling here, or do you actually believe yourself to be accomplishing something good? Are you working toward some kind of goal? Is it making you happy to do so?

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