Category Archives: Philosophy

Kaj Sotala, a self-described pursuer of truth, a few years ago offered some tips for those who want to "know how things are in reality." Excerpts below with my bolded highlights:

* Study things from as many points of view as possible, and try to understand as many models of thought as you can. This way, you can better understand the behavior of other people, and how people can think in ways that seem incomprehensible to you. If an atheist, talk to religious people until you understand them well enough not to consider them silly; if religious, talk to atheists until you understand them in the same way….

* Recognize your fallibility. Realize that in a quest for the truth, your own biases become your worst enemy. To defeat your enemy you must understand it, so set forth on studying it….Find the time to peruse articles like Wikipedia's list of cognitive biases and Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks. In your interdisciplinary studies, especially emphasize the sciences that help you in understanding and combating your bias, and the ones that allow you to think clearly – in his Twelve Virtues of Rationality (which is required reading for you), Eliezer Yudkowsky recommends evolutionary psychology, heuristics and biases, social psychology, probability theory and decision theory….

* Discuss the same subjects repeatedly, even with the same people. If you are losing a debate but still cannot admit you're wrong, ask for time to ponder upon it. Decide if your hesitation was you being too caught up in the defense of a topic, in which case you only need time to get over it and accept your opponent's arguments, or because there was more relevant information in your mind that you couldn't recall at the moment, in which case you need time for your subconsciousness to bring them to your mind….

* Avoid certainty, and of all people, be the harshest on yourself. 80% of drivers thinks they belong in the top 30% of all drivers, and even people aware of cognitive biases often seem to think those biases don't apply to them. People tend to find in ambiguous texts the points that support their opinions, while discounting the ones that disagree with them. Question yourself, and recognize that if you want your theories to find the truth, you can never be the only one to evaluate them….Meditate on the mantra of "nothing is impossible, only extremely unlikely". Think of the world in terms of probabilities, not certainties.

Here is Kaj's post on his personal values. Here is his "About Me" page on his personal web site where, in addition to basic factual information, he lists his one-paragraph stance on free will, ethics, rationality, love, religion, copyright, distribution of wealth, and medical regulation.

He is 24 years-old. For gender he writes: To paraphrase rm: "If there are men and women, then I'm a man. If there are men, women and transsexuals, then I'm a man. If there are men, women, transsexuals and something else, then I am something else."

Cal Newport’s three step way to become interesting:

1. Do fewer structured activities.
2. Spend more time exploring, thinking, and exposing yourself to potentially interesting things.
3. If something catches your attention, use the abundant free time generated by rule 1 to quickly follow up.

Below are 50 ideas for step 2. They are all direct quotes from Tom Peters. I bolded the numbers of the best.

1. Go to the nearest magazine shop. Now. Spend 20 minutes. Pick up 20 — twenty! — magazines. None should be ones you normally read. Spend the better part of a day perusing them. Tear stuff out. Make notes. Create files. Goal: Stretch! Repeat . . . monthly . . . or at least bi-monthly.

2. Go to the Web. Now. Relax. Follow your bliss! Visit at least 15 sites you haven’t visited before. Follow any chain that is even a little intriguing. Bookmark a few of the best. Repeat . . . at least once a week.

3. Take off this Wednesday afternoon. Wander the closest mall . . . for two hours. Note the stuff you like. (And hate.) Products, merchandising, whatever. Repeat . . . bimonthly.

4. Buy a packet of 3 x 5-inch notecards. Carry them around with you. Always. Record cool stuff. Awful stuff. Daily. Review your card pack every Sunday. (Obsess on this!)

5. Going the same place for vacation next year? Why not someplace new? Why not one of those university-sponsored 12-day trips to explore some weird phenomenon?

6. Project stuck in a rut? Look through your Rolodex. Who’s the oddest duck in there? Call her/him. Invite her/him to lunch. Pick her/his brain for a couple of hours about your project.

7. Create a new habit: Visit your Rolodex. Once a month. Pick a name of someone interesting you’ve lost touch with. Take her/him to lunch . . . next week.

8. New habit: You’re in a meeting. Someone you don’t know makes an interesting contribution. Invite him/her to lunch . . . in the next two weeks.

9. You run across somebody interesting. As a matter of course, ask her (him) what’s the best thing she/he’s read in the last 90 days. Order it from Amazon.com . . . this afternoon.

10. Take tomorrow afternoon off. Rain or shine. Wander a corner of the city you’ve never explored before.

11. Go to the local Rite Aid. Buy a $2 notebook. Title it Observations I. Start recording. Now. Anything and everything. (Now = Now.)

12. Going out this Saturday night? Go some place new.

13. Having a dinner party next Sunday? Invite somebody — interesting — you’ve never invited before. (Odds are, he/she won’t accept. So what? Go for it. It’s just like selling encyclopedias. No ring doorbell = No sale.)

14. Go past a kiosk advertising local Community College courses for this fall. (Or one of the Learning Annex catalogues.) Grab a copy. Look it over this evening. Pick a couple of interesting courses and topics you’ve always wanted to know more about. Call the professor (with a little detective work, you can find her). If you’re intrigued, sign up and . . . at least . . . go to the orientation session.

15. Read a provocative article in a business journal. Triggers a thought? E-mail the author. So what if you never hear back? (The odds are actually pretty high that you will. Trust me.)

16. At church this Sunday, the pastor announces a new fund drive. Sure you’re busy. (Who isn’t?) Go to the organizing meeting after services. Sign up!

17. You’re working with your 13-year-old on his science project. You find you’re having fun. Go to school with him tomorrow . . . and volunteer to talk to the class about the topic.

18. A crummy little assignment comes along. But it would give you a chance to work with a group of people you’ve never worked with before. Take the assignment.

19. You’re really pissed off at what’s going on in your kid’s school. So run for the school board.

20. You aren’t really interested in changing jobs. But there’s a neat job fair in the next town this weekend. Go.

21. An old college pal of yours invites you to go on a long weekend by the lake. You never do things like that. Go.

22. A really cool job opening overseas comes up. It fits your skill set. You couldn’t possibly consider it. You’ve got a nine-year-old and your husband is content with his job. At least call someone . . . and find out more about it.

23. You’re on the fast track. But a fascinating job opens up . . . far away. It looks like a detour. But you could learn something really new. Really cool. Go talk to the guy/gal about it. (Now.)

24. The eighth grade teacher is looking for chaperones for the trip to the natural history museum. You’re a law firm partner, for God’s sake, making $350,000 a year. Volunteer.

25. You love taking pictures. You pick up a brochure advertising a four-day photography workshop in Maine next summer. Go to the workshop.

26. A friend of yours, a small-business owner, is go-ing to Thailand on a sourcing trip. She invites you to join her. Go.

27. There’s a great ball game on ESPN in an hour. Forget it. Go on that walk you love . . . that you haven’t taken for a year.

28. I’m not much on planning. But how about sitting down with your spouse/significant other and making a list of three or four things you’ve “been meaning to do” that are novel . . . then coming up with a scheme for doing at least one of them in the next nine months?

29. You’ve a-l-w-a-y-s wanted to go to the Yucatan. So at least call a travel agent . . . this week. (How about right now?)

30. You know “the action is at the front line.” Spend a month (two days a week) on a self-styled training program that rotates you through all the front-line jobs in the hotel/distribution center/whatever.

31. Ask a first-line supervisor who the most motivated clerk in the store is. Take him/her to lunch . . . in the next three weeks.

32. You spot a Cool Article in the division newsletter. Call the person involved. Take her/him to lunch. Tomorrow. Learn more. (Repeat.) (Regularly.)

33. You and your spouse go to a great play this Saturday. On Monday, call the director and ask him/her if you can come by and chat some time in the next two weeks. (If the chat goes well, ask her/him to come in to address your 18 colleagues in the Accounting Dept. at a Brown Bag Lunch Session later this month.)

34. Institute a monthly Brown Bag Lunch Session. Encourage all your colleagues to nominate interesting people to be invited. Criterion: “I wouldn’t have expected us to invite — — .”

35. Volunteer to take charge of recruiting for the next year/six months. Seek out input/applications from places the unit has never approached before.

36. Consider a . . . four-month sabbatical.

37. Get up from your desk. Now. Take a two-hour walk on the beach. In the hills. Whatever. Repeat . . . once every couple of weeks. (Weekly?)

38. Seriously consider approaching your boss about working a day a week at home.

39. Take the door off your office.

40. You’ve got a couple of pals who are readers. Start a Reading Group that gets together every third Thursday. Include stuff that’s pretty far out. (Invite a noteworthy local author to talk to your group now and again.)

41. Join Toastmasters. (I know it’s a repeat. It’s important!)

42. Pen an article for the division newsletter.

43. In the quarterly alumni magazine, you read about a pal who’s chosen to do something offbeat with her life. Call her. Tomorrow. (Or today.)

44. Buy that surprisingly colorful outfit you saw yesterday. Wear it to work. Tomorrow.

45. Develop a set of probing questions to use at meetings. “Will this really make a difference?” “Will anybody remember what we’re doing here two years from now?” “Can we brag to our spouse/kids about this project?”

46. Assess every project you propose by the “WOW!”/ “Is it Worth Doing?” criteria.

47. Call the Principal Client for your last project. Ask her to lunch. Within the next two weeks. Conduct a no-holds-barred debriefing on how you and your team did . . . and might have done. Now.

48. Call the wisest person you know. (A fabulous professor you had 15 years ago?) Ask her/him to lunch. Ask her/him if he or she would be willing to sit with you for a couple of hours every quarter to talk about what you’ve done/where you’re going. (Try it. It can’t hurt.)

49. Become a Cub Scout/Brownie troop leader. Or direct your kid’s play at school. The idea: spend more time around children . . . they’re fascinating . . . spontaneous . . . and wise.

50. Build a great sandcastle!

“If I were able to live my life anew, in the next I would try to commit more errors. I would not try to be so perfect, I would relax more. I would be more foolish than I’ve been, in fact, I would take few things seriously.

I would be less hygienic. I would run more risks, take more vacations, contemplate more sunsets, climb more mountains, swim more rivers. I would go to more places where I’ve never been, I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans, I would have more real problems and less imaginary ones.

I was one of those people that lived sensibly and prolifically each minute of his life; Of course I had moments of happiness. If I could go back I would try to have only good moments. Because if you didn’t know, of that is life made: only of moments; Don’t lose the now.

I was one of those that never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, an umbrella, and a parachute; If I could leave again, I would travel lighter. If I could live again, I would begin to walk barefoot until autumn ends. I would take more cart rides, contemplate more dawns, and play with more children, If I had another life ahead of me.

But already you see, I am 85, and I know that I am dying.”

— Variously attributed to Jorge Luis Borges and Don Herold (via Josh Kaufman)

The fascinating truth about humans is that many of us do not know ourselves very well. We don't know what we want. We don't know what's best for us. We don't know what we're trying to say.

It follows that we should not automatically trust someone's self-analysis or personal expression. If a woman I do not know well tells me very honestly, "I recently broke up with my boyfriend because he was boring," I will maintain some level of skepticism about her stated reason until I have a handle on the reliability of her introspections (or perhaps her willingness to self-delude).

Even on issues about which a person has unmatched knowledge and connection – the reasons for their parents’ divorce, the dynamics of their romantic relationship – their intuitions and default explanations can be very off. I know mine can be.

In general I think we give too much deference to the main actor's intuitions in cases where there's deep interior drama, like romance.

Some possible loose conclusions:

• Early on in any kind of relationship try to assess the accuracy of the other person's self-knowledge.
• Sometimes I feel like I know a person better than they know themselves.
• Sometimes it's other people, in all their brilliant distance, who can shed the most light on issues most intimate to us.
• Which are areas where self-knowledge is most consistently unreliable?

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My friend Eliezer Yudkowsky not too long ago wrote a useful paper on cognitive biases. Required reading.

How many people whose lives we admire actually maintain a torturous inner life? How many ideal men and women — and I don't mean perfect, I mean ideal, which is to say perfectly flawed — actually are consumed by insecurity or anxiety or guilt?

In American Pastoral, the character Swede is perceived as an ideal man in every respect. But his outer life is

accompanied by an inner life, a gruesome inner life of tyrannical obsessions, stifled inclinations, superstitious expectations, horrible imaginings, fantasy conversations, unanswerable questions. Sleeplessness and self-castigation night after night. Enormous loneliness. Unflagging remorse… And in the everyday world, nothing to be done but respectably carry on the huge pretense of living as himself, with all the shame of masquerading as the ideal man.

Was this Tiger Woods' inner life the past few years? Could it be the private mind of a close friend who's duping you with his charade? Has a journalist done her job if she does not know what keeps her subject up late at night, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling?

By the way, fiction addresses these type of issues the best. Unrelated: Philip Roth is a fucking genius.

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Wise and poetic advice for the exceptional from the same text:

As with any exaggerated trait that sets you apart and makes you exceptional — and enviable, and hateable — to accept your beauty, to accept its effect on others, to play with it, to make the best of it, you're well-advised to develop a sense of humor.

Otherwise, I'm told people will just hate you. This is not the only reason to try to develop a sense of humor…