I try to make an effort to keep in contact with people. Apparently this is a weird thing, because most of my friends don't do it. I also make an effort to get in contact with people I don't really talk to. This is also a weird thing. Most people I know are more interested in letting friendships happen to them. They don't go out of their way to find more friends.
I don't need to do this. I already have many friends that I enjoy spending with, and more than a few very close ones. I have several reasons for keeping at it, though. Of course there's the joy of having new friends. And part of it is an addiction thing: I get a huge rush from meeting new people. It gives me energy.
Less obviously, it lets me expand my areas of experience. The more people you know the wider a social network you have, meaning the more likely you are to find people that differ radically from you. When you just let friendship happen, eventually your group homogenizes. If not in terms of race, socioeconomic class, etc, it's mentally. I have a couple of friendship groups that I'm tangent to. Over time they hivemind a little. Modes of thought unify. Good for closeness, perhaps, but not for empowerment. If you keep introducing new friends into the mix, you always have highly novel relationships. You also have access to modes and worldviews that are normally blocked by your upbringing. I have friends who could buy my family. I find it very difficult to try thinking things from that kind of perspective, but I would have found it absolutely impossible two years ago.
What I find most interesting, though, is how it affects my perception of people. One of the most important rules I've learned for social interactions is "people are people". It's so obviously simple to think of, but hideously difficult to think. Imagine walking down on the street, and a car stops to let you pass. Do you realize that in that car is a person? One who has had just as many, if not more experiences than you have? Or do you think of that person solely as the driver of the car? I'd bet the latter.
You can't recognize everybody around you as being a full-fledged person, because then your brain would overload and you would die. There's a difference, though, between 'not recognizing everybody' and 'not recognizing anybody'. First is necessary. Second is a problem. People are not Chinese Boxes. They aren't automata responding precisely to your input. We only see them that way (unconsciously or not) because we don't interact with them on a deep enough level.
This is why I'm so obsessed with talking to people. It's the only way I know of learning how to see them as people.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The Dynamic
Preliminary: post-once-per-day ended up being a fairly bad idea, since I don't actually have content for more than one post a week.
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In On Ideas and The Fallacy of Reason I talked about how important dialog is. We are limited by ourselves and the only way to break that limit is to try stepping outside. The key to that lies in social interaction, which lets us see both the world and ourselves from another perspective. In False Promises I said that my ability to change is limited by who I am. How do I break past that?
I've always thought it's important to study topics outside your professional field, and even outside your interests. That's a way of opening new modes of thought. One thing that's hit me recently is the importance of interchangeability in thinking. A teacher I greatly admire once said that you could think of skills as a form of knowledge- the knowledge-how instead of the knowledge-of. The inverse of this is we can see knowledge as a form of skill- the ability to aggregate and process information. The skill of operating on what you know to figure out what you don't.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that other mental constructs are also interchangeable. Of course, the two I'm most interested in are worldviews and improvements. Let's say they are the same thing. Improvement is the act of moving into new worldviews that better suit you. For example, patience is simply the realization that waiting is good. On the flip side, worldviews reflect your state of being, and changing worldviews requires a change in state.
Okay, let's assume we can establish isomorphism. Cool trick. Now what? Well, We have this incredibly powerful tool for modifying worldviews. It or a modification of it should be equally powerful for fueling growth. Not only that, but it'd also be the most powerful tool, just like it is for beliefs. There can be other methods, but they'd pale in comparison.
If improvement is primarily triggered by external events, then we cannot barrel into it with sheer willpower. But just because an event is external does not mean it is random. Any force outside you can cause it. So if there was a way of making external events cause it, that would be the most powerful tool for growth.
So improvement <-> worldviews, external events <-> talkin' with people. What I'm trying to say here is that we need our friends to help us grow.
The idea of having friends contribute to your changes has been bouncing around my head for a long time, and I think it's a pretty trivial idea. The new bit is that I'm starting to think that it's not just helpful, it's required. Nothing else in your arsenal can match the power of the social network. And if properly harnessed, the network can cause profound levels of development. At will.
Okay, maybe not at will. But much more often than you'd get if you didn't tap it.
The term 'dynamic' springs to mind. Whenever I think about this, it just feels right. The social network is the frame on which we build dynamics, connections designed to cause growth. It isn't dependent of other connections. We can have friendships without the dynamic, and dynamics without friendship. Even so, I imagine that maintaining a strong dynamic without friendship would be incredibly difficult.
This provides a huge launching point. We can beat stagnation and inaction through proper use of the dynamic. Unfortunately, just the outline is there. There's a topic in mathematics called Generalized Abstract Nonsense, which is the art of using objects in proofs without knowing their properties. I'm arguing that dynamics are essential to growth. Hooray. This doesn't tell us how to use them, or even what makes them so much more powerful than anything else. In order to properly harness dynamics we'd probably have to work out those bits.
Even so, I'm confident about this. Even if the interchangeability breaks down, the worst it could do is refute the idea that dynamics are the most powerful tool. I don't think you'd have any trouble establishing their usefulness without using mathemagics.
---
In On Ideas and The Fallacy of Reason I talked about how important dialog is. We are limited by ourselves and the only way to break that limit is to try stepping outside. The key to that lies in social interaction, which lets us see both the world and ourselves from another perspective. In False Promises I said that my ability to change is limited by who I am. How do I break past that?
I've always thought it's important to study topics outside your professional field, and even outside your interests. That's a way of opening new modes of thought. One thing that's hit me recently is the importance of interchangeability in thinking. A teacher I greatly admire once said that you could think of skills as a form of knowledge- the knowledge-how instead of the knowledge-of. The inverse of this is we can see knowledge as a form of skill- the ability to aggregate and process information. The skill of operating on what you know to figure out what you don't.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that other mental constructs are also interchangeable. Of course, the two I'm most interested in are worldviews and improvements. Let's say they are the same thing. Improvement is the act of moving into new worldviews that better suit you. For example, patience is simply the realization that waiting is good. On the flip side, worldviews reflect your state of being, and changing worldviews requires a change in state.
Okay, let's assume we can establish isomorphism. Cool trick. Now what? Well, We have this incredibly powerful tool for modifying worldviews. It or a modification of it should be equally powerful for fueling growth. Not only that, but it'd also be the most powerful tool, just like it is for beliefs. There can be other methods, but they'd pale in comparison.
If improvement is primarily triggered by external events, then we cannot barrel into it with sheer willpower. But just because an event is external does not mean it is random. Any force outside you can cause it. So if there was a way of making external events cause it, that would be the most powerful tool for growth.
So improvement <-> worldviews, external events <-> talkin' with people. What I'm trying to say here is that we need our friends to help us grow.
The idea of having friends contribute to your changes has been bouncing around my head for a long time, and I think it's a pretty trivial idea. The new bit is that I'm starting to think that it's not just helpful, it's required. Nothing else in your arsenal can match the power of the social network. And if properly harnessed, the network can cause profound levels of development. At will.
Okay, maybe not at will. But much more often than you'd get if you didn't tap it.
The term 'dynamic' springs to mind. Whenever I think about this, it just feels right. The social network is the frame on which we build dynamics, connections designed to cause growth. It isn't dependent of other connections. We can have friendships without the dynamic, and dynamics without friendship. Even so, I imagine that maintaining a strong dynamic without friendship would be incredibly difficult.
This provides a huge launching point. We can beat stagnation and inaction through proper use of the dynamic. Unfortunately, just the outline is there. There's a topic in mathematics called Generalized Abstract Nonsense, which is the art of using objects in proofs without knowing their properties. I'm arguing that dynamics are essential to growth. Hooray. This doesn't tell us how to use them, or even what makes them so much more powerful than anything else. In order to properly harness dynamics we'd probably have to work out those bits.
Even so, I'm confident about this. Even if the interchangeability breaks down, the worst it could do is refute the idea that dynamics are the most powerful tool. I don't think you'd have any trouble establishing their usefulness without using mathemagics.
Monday, May 7, 2012
On Ideas
Missed two days of the groove, and I think the post I did last Friday on The Other Blog doesn't really count. I feel like I should punish myself somehow. Or I could stop being a baby about this and get back on the run. Let's do the latter!
If there's one thing I'm paranoid about this blog, it's coming across as an arrogant jerk. If there's a second thing (and there is), it's saying inane things. I want(ed) this blog to be a way of codifying and tempering my ideas on change, not a way of parroting pointless platitudes. Yes, it might be important to think outside the box. Everybody knows this. If I wanted to talk about using lateral thinking as a means of empowerment, I'd need to try to find something new and interesting to say about it. Otherwise I could replaced by a monkey copying over random pages from "Six easy steps to a better you" and nobody would notice a thing.
On the other hand, thinking of new and innovative things to say is hard. The good ones are already taken. The bad ones are also already taken. Trying to come up with a new things to say is a brutally difficult skill to develop. I dearly hope that someday I'll be good enough to come up with innovative ideas whenever I need to. Sort of a pipe dream. Until then, I have to hope that I can force whatever ideas I do have into something remotely interesting. That's another important skill to have, but it comes a little easier than the first one.
Or I could think outside the box!!!
My two mosts successful posts were The Fallacy of Reason and On Elitism. Other posts of mine got more hits, but those were the ones that got the most responses. They were the ones that sparked the most interesting discussions. They were also the two pieces that I wrote in response to other people. In both cases somebody said something that horrified me and I vomited a stream of words to get the taste out of my brain. I dunno if this is dependent on hating the other person's position. Maybe it's really just the feeling that my ideas are directly relevant to a person (despite neither person reading this blog). But maybe it's because I think faster when I feel threatened. Having good ideas is a way of fighting back (despite neither person reading this blog).
I think it also has to some extent be personal. The discussion has to involve you, or the attack must threaten you. The only revelation I had from Atlas Shrugged was "Rand is a blithering idiot". But throw an individual into the mix and it gets more fun. The person is addressing you, and you have a responsibility to respond.
I'm already seeing this as incredibly inane. "Talk to people!" Yeah, that's new. The extra tacked on bit is "Talk to people you vehemently disagree with!" I think as long as you can enter a discussion knowing "I will vehemently disagree with them and probably feel threatened" it should be okay.
If there's one thing I'm paranoid about this blog, it's coming across as an arrogant jerk. If there's a second thing (and there is), it's saying inane things. I want(ed) this blog to be a way of codifying and tempering my ideas on change, not a way of parroting pointless platitudes. Yes, it might be important to think outside the box. Everybody knows this. If I wanted to talk about using lateral thinking as a means of empowerment, I'd need to try to find something new and interesting to say about it. Otherwise I could replaced by a monkey copying over random pages from "Six easy steps to a better you" and nobody would notice a thing.
On the other hand, thinking of new and innovative things to say is hard. The good ones are already taken. The bad ones are also already taken. Trying to come up with a new things to say is a brutally difficult skill to develop. I dearly hope that someday I'll be good enough to come up with innovative ideas whenever I need to. Sort of a pipe dream. Until then, I have to hope that I can force whatever ideas I do have into something remotely interesting. That's another important skill to have, but it comes a little easier than the first one.
Or I could think outside the box!!!
My two mosts successful posts were The Fallacy of Reason and On Elitism. Other posts of mine got more hits, but those were the ones that got the most responses. They were the ones that sparked the most interesting discussions. They were also the two pieces that I wrote in response to other people. In both cases somebody said something that horrified me and I vomited a stream of words to get the taste out of my brain. I dunno if this is dependent on hating the other person's position. Maybe it's really just the feeling that my ideas are directly relevant to a person (despite neither person reading this blog). But maybe it's because I think faster when I feel threatened. Having good ideas is a way of fighting back (despite neither person reading this blog).
I think it also has to some extent be personal. The discussion has to involve you, or the attack must threaten you. The only revelation I had from Atlas Shrugged was "Rand is a blithering idiot". But throw an individual into the mix and it gets more fun. The person is addressing you, and you have a responsibility to respond.
I'm already seeing this as incredibly inane. "Talk to people!" Yeah, that's new. The extra tacked on bit is "Talk to people you vehemently disagree with!" I think as long as you can enter a discussion knowing "I will vehemently disagree with them and probably feel threatened" it should be okay.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
The Fallacy of Reason
Last night I had an argument with a friend about a thing. Since this was online I will probably be having this argument with them tomorrow too. Over the course of this argument I brought up something from my personal life. Her response was (paraphrased) "I want to talk about arguments, not personal feelings."
On the surface this seems reasonable. We are always told that anecdotes have no place in evidence. If a study shows that punching chickens does not cure cancer and I tell about how aunt Martha punched a chicken and cured her leukemia, I'm being a terrible debater. I think this has been taken too far, though. Anecdotes have been entirely shut out in favor of "reason". But are these enriched by the lack of experience? I'd say no. It's the opposite.
As much as we hate to admit it, reason is a subjective thing. We find evidence to suit beliefs, not the other way around. We put too much power on our invisible assumptions, and too little on what we profess we believe. Let me take an obvious example:
"The presidency requires being always available and able to give your all. Women can have children and need maternity leave. So women should not be president."
Sounds silly, right? Replace 'president' with leader and you get something from Rousseau. He was a hell of a lot smarter than I was and way better at using his reason. So why does he say something so stupid? He's operating under the prevailing assumption of the time that men > women. His argument perfectly fits in with his beliefs so he does not try at all to examine it for flaws.
Are we any better? Our 'reason' is built on axioms, and those axioms didn't come from the brain wizards. It's shaped by your world. Where you grew up. The people you talk to. What you want to believe. It's why every 14 year old can so obviously see how everything works and you just don't get it. His world is so limited that nothing challenges his core beliefs. He may use great reason, but that's like building your house out of the best cardboard around. It's still made of cardboard. Everybody's been there. I have. So have you.
It's only we grow a little older and actually get some experience in the world that we stop thinking we know all of the answers. The experience is what should shake our core beliefs. Think communism will make everything just peachy? You see how people backstab each other if we can get away from it. Or maybe Objectivism is the One True Path! Oh wait, the poor people are poor because they're in terrible nightmares, not because they're lazy bums. Religious people are deluded sheeple! If you can get through this university and still believe that, then I applaud your willful ignorance.
That's why I bring up personal experience. I can't make you live my life. I can't force you to grow up in a very religious community, or struggle with mental illness, or have to learn humor like a new language. But by god I can let you know what it's like. It's a tiny glimpse into a different world, and maybe, just maybe, you'll see that your core beliefs aren't the unshakable tenets of reality. Just as mine aren't. No one's is. But if we think that trying to understand each other's personal experiences is an affront to some nebulous 'reason', we're not going to get anywhere. We'll just logic ourselves in our tiny bubbles and pretend that if people don't agree with us they're not being 'intellectual'. That's as far from reason as you can possibly get.
On the surface this seems reasonable. We are always told that anecdotes have no place in evidence. If a study shows that punching chickens does not cure cancer and I tell about how aunt Martha punched a chicken and cured her leukemia, I'm being a terrible debater. I think this has been taken too far, though. Anecdotes have been entirely shut out in favor of "reason". But are these enriched by the lack of experience? I'd say no. It's the opposite.
As much as we hate to admit it, reason is a subjective thing. We find evidence to suit beliefs, not the other way around. We put too much power on our invisible assumptions, and too little on what we profess we believe. Let me take an obvious example:
"The presidency requires being always available and able to give your all. Women can have children and need maternity leave. So women should not be president."
Sounds silly, right? Replace 'president' with leader and you get something from Rousseau. He was a hell of a lot smarter than I was and way better at using his reason. So why does he say something so stupid? He's operating under the prevailing assumption of the time that men > women. His argument perfectly fits in with his beliefs so he does not try at all to examine it for flaws.
Are we any better? Our 'reason' is built on axioms, and those axioms didn't come from the brain wizards. It's shaped by your world. Where you grew up. The people you talk to. What you want to believe. It's why every 14 year old can so obviously see how everything works and you just don't get it. His world is so limited that nothing challenges his core beliefs. He may use great reason, but that's like building your house out of the best cardboard around. It's still made of cardboard. Everybody's been there. I have. So have you.
It's only we grow a little older and actually get some experience in the world that we stop thinking we know all of the answers. The experience is what should shake our core beliefs. Think communism will make everything just peachy? You see how people backstab each other if we can get away from it. Or maybe Objectivism is the One True Path! Oh wait, the poor people are poor because they're in terrible nightmares, not because they're lazy bums. Religious people are deluded sheeple! If you can get through this university and still believe that, then I applaud your willful ignorance.
That's why I bring up personal experience. I can't make you live my life. I can't force you to grow up in a very religious community, or struggle with mental illness, or have to learn humor like a new language. But by god I can let you know what it's like. It's a tiny glimpse into a different world, and maybe, just maybe, you'll see that your core beliefs aren't the unshakable tenets of reality. Just as mine aren't. No one's is. But if we think that trying to understand each other's personal experiences is an affront to some nebulous 'reason', we're not going to get anywhere. We'll just logic ourselves in our tiny bubbles and pretend that if people don't agree with us they're not being 'intellectual'. That's as far from reason as you can possibly get.
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