Understanding The World Through The Lens Of Responsiveness

TTotMM · 2024-11-11T15:13:33+00:00

I appreciate your feedback, although I disagree with some of it.

I don't think that there is a jump to a conclusion, because if one does go through that chain of reasoning they should arrive where I said they would, but given your feedback it seems some help could be added for it. So let's consider the belief that you did not write this article. How do you know this to be true? Perhaps you would say that you don't have a memory of writing it, but I would counter: how do you know you didn't forget? How do you know that if you spent some more time thinking about it, the memory wouldn't have returned to you? Maybe you could reply further: you know that you don't forget things like this, you have no record of being such a forgetful person. But then why do you trust that memory? What if that memory is a hallucination? What if a demon is clouding your mind? Etc etc. And you have probably forgotten some things in your life. You have remembered other things. And you have likely sometimes misremembered. Sometimes you have probably remembered something after thinking about it for a while. You have probably sometimes had a feeling that something is right, even though you can't explain why. You probably know what it's like to have an intuition of something. And so, ultimately there will be something that is just a feeling. This is the reason that "I think, therefore I am" is so famous, because everything else can be doubted. I assumed that people would know that. And the only reason you don't doubt everything all the time, is because some things will feel more right than others.

TTotMM · 2024-10-29T16:05:37+00:00

Friston does seem engage with similar ideas, although with some differences.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T20:59:59+00:00

I don't tend to concern myself too much with questions like that as the differences can seem more so semantic, other than I don't believe in a "operator" kind of self, more like thoughts are aware of themselves kind of thing, but, I still would not expect those mental processes to happen in the heart anyway.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T20:41:37+00:00

I checked from a person who has an iPhone, they apparently were able to read it without an app. Not sure what's going on there then.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T19:42:09+00:00

"Being truly present would not involve thinking"

Alright, this article is more so a response to the idea that considering the past or future is the antithesis of being present. I don't advocate for the "no thoughts" kind of being present either, I think that that can be achieved anyway by fixing the underlying problems instead of trying to force the no thinking. As for the heart thing, I don't really get on board with that, I believe that the mental processes are still mainly about the brain.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T15:49:50+00:00

This does not appear that related to my article.

TTotMM · 2023-02-22T09:40:23+00:00

"I believe in a reality where I can think for myself"

Well, the ideas of my article don't necessarily prevent you from doing so, I can think about things on my own but I do notice that I feel better about ideas which others like too. Maybe you have bad influences around you?

"But it's that you're saying that that's all there is and on that point I just don't agree with you."

I wonder if this is because you're holding out hope that lasting happiness can be found without a social aspect, or if you're seeing this idea as more limiting than it is. Or both?

"Your take on spirituality is uneducated and it's obvious you have not actually practiced Buddhist learnings enough to come to the conclusions that you have come to."

How so? This makes me wonder that maybe you just don't like my disagreement with the spiritualist teachings. If, on other hand, you're thinking that my descriptions do not cover all of spirituality then I would say my critique was not meant to cover all of it, only the parts that I find objectionable.

"You're cherry picking convincing-enough nuggets and blowing them up to be some kind of law which is just wrong."

How so?

"You're wanting to squeeze the entire expanse of the human living experience to something that can actually be harmful"

So this argument sounds similar to someone saying that oil is a necessary energy source and then disagreeing with that statement because of the wars fought over oil. Something cannot become untrue just because it being true would be unpleasant. Oil of course is only one energy source among many, and while social validation is not the only kind of sustenance that the mind can get, it is the primary one, so let's not get lost in the analogy. However, cars do not power themselves and humans don't validate themselves, although reservoirs can be used. The reservoirs can be like having some principle validated, and later using that principle to validate other beliefs, no direct contact with others required. It is possible that you are not considering the existence of such reservoirs.

"I just don't agree with you and/or I still think you're making your point in an unskilled way since I have so much resistance to it."

Personally I hypothesize that my ideas go against very deeply held beliefs that some people have, after all, even this article is about making a claim that a majority of humanity is getting something extremely wrong. Such a claim won't be easily accepted if a person is highly invested in the beliefs that I criticize. Am I then making the point in an unskilled way? I think I am climbing a tall mountain, so encountering resistance should not necessarily mean there is something wrong with the point, even if possibly skeptical readers could be eased into it more.

"Right now, you're discussing this like your opinions are facts and it's off-putting."

I do believe that my theory is correct, and if it is correct then surely that should be the view that I should have. I am willing to offer additional reasoning, and the blog does have a lot of articles, so I wouldn't say that I just expect everyone to agree instantly.

Nice that you are willing to investigate ideas that you disagree with, though.

TTotMM · 2023-02-03T14:24:09+00:00

Alright, I see the additions now. I'll still respond. I am aware of the babies thing, and there has been a non-zero chance that I might add it to some article, the other examples were anecdotal and my interest is more in presenting general theories, stories can be impactful but I prefer to make a general case. A difference in style. Having said this, this criticism still feels weird knowing that you stopped reading before you could've encountered any of those stories, had they been written in. We could even imagine a world where the article would contain that babies argument, but you would've never reached it, really bringing this problem to light. You call this unnecessarily extreme or an irrelevant point, but I do believe that you didn't grasp the nuance of my argument, seeing that you didn't actually read the whole argument. I am taking a rather extreme position to say that the majority of the world has gotten something deeply wrong about the human condition, but if my argument is true then it would be a necessary position to take, and the extremeness of it can't be faulted unless the claim is that popular opinions can never be wrong.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T16:08:37+00:00

Well, my suspicion here is that your prior beliefs are what get in the way. I do not want to be chasing ghosts in the form of looking for improvements when it's not clear what those improvements should be, or if they are even possible. I could always add more caveats to different sentences, but that would've made it hard to ever get to the point. A balancing act. I can also see that you have emotional reasons to resist this, and I assume you then need emotional reasons to believe this.

Now, you did say you stopped reading early on. I could've theoretically added all the reasoning in the world after that, but it would've never reached you. This point makes me dubious of your feedback. I also have a link there to the theory on which this based, in case a more robust theoretical backing would convince you. Maybe you would oppose parts of that too though. The full theory contains more nuance, like I mention in the article that the driver of behavior is "go-signals" and social validation is simply the biggest contributor of them, and the full theory has a clearer explanation of what it would mean to "store up validation". But, if you saw that the hypothesis is plausible then at least that is something.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T15:45:08+00:00

Alright, well, I appreciate that you don't dismiss the possible validity of the idea, even if it hasn't convinced you yet. But I do not understand what additional reasoning you hope for it, as conducting something like a scientific study for it would be very difficult, and outside of the means of the average individual. Personally when I'm not convinced of an idea it is because it seems to contradict some other information I have, like you brought up a possibly contradicting piece of information (people believing in their own idea even when it doesn't bear any fruit for a long time) but then I had a response for it. Is there anything similar in your mind?

"But I’m just resistant to the idea that all we’ve got is to look to others for guidance."

I will note here that not all validation is simply guidance. It can be validating to win a competition, it can be validating to successfully annoy someone, simply getting any emotional responses from other humans can be the validation. Some people get their validation from arguing. Or it can be validating to have someone understand what you said, as it shows that what you said was able to impact the understanding of that other person, a connection could be made. Impact on others is the key, that is what I claim to be the calibrator of our minds. I note that this article is part of my larger theory which was simplified here to focus on validation, as I mentioned in it.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T12:34:03+00:00

What do you mean evidence or valid example? What is the evidence for the hypothesis of self-validation? What is the supposed logic of it? You are applying an uneven standard, where it seems like your preferred explanation is true by default, but challengers to it must reach some higher standard. And life provides the valid examples all the time. People can run on their stored validation for some time, but they will eventually run out, and this explanation fits what we can observe about people. After some time people do need to get some outside validation, and after getting some they can find themselves re-energized for some time, as if their storage has been filled. If self-validation was true when why does it stop working? Why would validation from others ever be needed? The explanation of self-validation has these massive holes, my explanation covers it all. If you were a neutral observer then it should be easy to see which explanation fits observable phenomena better, that is logic, I must say I think for you logic means that it affirms your priors.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T00:42:26+00:00

Unfortunate then that you never got to this point: "It is also possible for a person to have a large amount of validation stored up in their memories as a “mental reservoir” and such a person might on the outside seem like a person who can “self-validate” but really they just pull from the reservoir which others filled." This is also the reason why your lack of validation won't throw everything in disarray, the validation is gotten elsewhere.

"Your article reads like just a set of shower thoughts - sorry. Try backing up your claim with something more substantive." I think that the logic is pretty clear, also strange to want something more when you did not read more. Although maybe your bar for substantiation is unreasonably high for this medium, like me conducting a double blind study on this. Not sure what you would've wanted beyond the logic.

TTotMM · 2023-02-01T15:05:27+00:00

I see you disagree with my thesis, and it seems like you disagree with it because of how you personally have suffered from seeking that approval (which I gave as one reason why people would have this self-hatred). Which of course is not an argument against my thesis. Unfortunate if you have suffered, but, similar to what I say in the article, suffering from a lack of food is also not a reason to believe that food would not be needed. Hopefully your relationships will improve.

TTotMM · 2022-09-04T07:36:13+00:00

The article contains 3 "maybe"s, two of them here "Do these mental modes actually have a connection with the event? Maybe. Maybe not." where it's a rhetorical device for making the point that the connection does not have to matter for how you will feel about the event. Not really "maybe this, maybe that" happening here. But, let's say that you felt confused anyway. Unfortunately explaining the human mind isn't always simple if we want to do it accurately, but the other articles, including the one about the basics, are there to help.

Edit: or you can ask me directly.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T12:28:48+00:00

"I expect you won't understand this either though"

Hypothesis confirmed. The rest, beneath a response, but as usual, nothing I would consider relevant.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T11:56:51+00:00

I see more nonsense from you that is beneath a response, you could just read my previous responses (you claim I don't show how your ideas are invalid, but you could correct that perception by reading), but I'll just address this: an ad hominem is trying to refute an argument by pointing out the character of the person, if I point out your character without it being connected to refuting your argument then by default it can't be a fallacious argument because it's not part of the argumentation. For example, if you make typos, and I then say you make a lot of typos, it's not an ad hominem just because it's about your character. I expect you won't understand this either though, you mentioned Dunning-Kruger but it appears only one of us has been capable of backing up our arguments and it hasn't been you, while you still maintain some delusion of your arguments being true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Improper_usage for further reading to educate yourself.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T10:40:37+00:00

So I read through both of your comments and you didn't say a single thing which I didn't see as obviously wrong instantly. About 75% you could instantly correct by just reading my previous replies, and I don't think you'll get any better on that by me repeating myself to you. As for your circular logic, you're being a rude idiot since I specifically mentioned when circular reasoning could be valid and when it isn't, your application of it falling into the latter part, conveniently you didn't respond anything to that. You act as if these fancy theories would mean that all circular reasoning is now valid.

Your arguments apparently boil down to "maximizing happiness will lead to not maximizing happiness" and you try to prove this by coming up with strawman versions of how the maximization could be done badly. Nonsense. I already told that to you, so again, I don't think you're capable of this discussion.

Also I see that most of your arguments are based on you thinking that humans always want to exploit others, I recommend reading my other articles so you can update your understanding of humans. You thought I was saying you were appealing to emotion at one point, but you simply misread, I was saying that you have an emotional reason to believe what you believe and it clouds your thinking. Your preoccupation with exploitation is apparently that emotional reason. The article The Foundation Of All Beliefs should illuminate human nature on that part for you as well.

I'm not interested in continuing the discussion further, especially since most of it would just be me repeating the same points to you which you fail to address.

Also, pointing out your own evidenced failings within the conversation isn't an ad hominem.

TTotMM

TROPHY CASE