There is also the case of the “true friend/ally” whose information is unpleasant, unwanted, otherwise counter to what I want, yet, it’s sensible and worth acting on.
I was getting at the improbability that anyone else’s information matrix is in my best interest.
For example, the reactions I have regarding beauty are directly against the natural desire of the woman I started seeing. My emotional information is saying “No”. I will probably end it.
However, I feel her trust. She is very insistent on how well we get along, (we actually share the same name in male/female form, and can talk at length on many topics).
However, the reactions in me are “end it”.
Her trust is misplaced.
I have been in exactly the opposite situation. Where I was the one being reacted against.
So, without even going into anything else, trust is misplaced.
In the context you provided, sure. She can’t rely on you to satisfy those deeper needs and vice versa. If she does rely on you, that is, if she trusts you, then her trust and reliance would be misplaced.
The weatherman is doing all he can to give you his best prediction of the weather tomorrow given his own information matrix and this is what you say about him?
gotcha yeah i feel the same. i barely feel attracted to anyone honestly. i enjoy the companionship of relationships but then often feel put off by the sex. i don’t think i’m attractive enough to afford the degree of selectiveness that my brain has landed on which results in me either being in relationships where i feel something is kinda sexually off and i’m going through the motions for the other parts of the dynamic i do enjoy, or being alone
By deliberately treating those we “settle for” (regardless of them probably being in our league) as if they were a Greek god/goddess type, in bed, we switch up the game.
It doesn’t mean the bliss of infatuated sex happens, but it does mean we are taking action.
The beauty reactions were automatic. A lot of my angst (I can now see) was wanting to be the best actualist vs the reactions that I was having.
I felt naturally disappointed about her looks but also a failure at actualism. I talked about actual intimacy being better than love, explained so much else too, but felt a complete fraud when I couldn’t move beyond the beauty reaction.
I am feeling really good now, and will most likely continue seeing her.
These posts by Kuba and Josef showed me the key to feeling good again.
Idk about the deterministic view which she is basing this video from, the physical laws we use (and infer determinism from) were invented by us and are convenient at the scales at which we spend our time, but are not ‘the fact’ of ‘how things work.’
‘How things work’ is much deeper and stranger than physics.
It may not matter though if the particles involved in our brains are predictable enough structurally.
I like the “it’s all one waveform” interpretation. It makes the universe instant while not violating the observation that nothing travels faster than light.
If the universe is an infinite and eternal “waveform” then anything in it can still conform to sub-light communication.
The medium itself doesn’t have to conform to the behaviour of the things in it.
A metaphor; An ocean can transmit vibrations at the speed of sound, but nothing else can travel that fast through water.
An infinite waveform can collapse instantly, but no finite object can travel that fast through it.
It’s still secondary, our testing consists of us observing phenomena, writing something down, and then seeing if the phenomena is consistent with our observation/written-down formula.
Because it’s secondary, there is room for mistakes (as can easily be observed in the long history of science), and it will forever remain a schema/model rather than the actual-thing itself.
I’m not even trying to bash science here, it has accomplished incredible things and in many ways remains the best thing we have. But to draw far-reaching conclusions from what we have observed is a practice with increasing likelihood of errors, because there is a chain of: observation → ‘laws’ → testing → refinement of ‘laws’ → an attempt to use imaginative logic to predict the happenings of the actual world
I’m really interested in what she just said about free will, “when we think we’re making a choice we’re actually just attempting to calculate what will come next”
Very interesting, that is something I spend an inordinate amount of time doing
It’s always now, this calculating a future business is attempting to access a future that doesn’t exist now
Richard (2000): There is nobody ‘steering the ship’ here … free will is a myth: the situation and the circumstances dictate, each moment again, the optimum course of action. What usually happens is that ‘I’ step in – albeit a split-second later – and arrogate authorship by claiming the organic decision-making process for being ‘my’ own decision. There is nobody in charge of the universe. Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 10
I’d only change one little thing:
“The situation and circumstances dictate, each moment again, the optimuma course of action.”
One is never free from making sub-optimal decisions and consequential errors.
Indeed. The brain, even one free of a ‘self’ is still a finite instrument subject to nutrition, rest, the innate capabilities of that individual brain (genetic structures- clearly some brains are smarter than others), the maximum capability of a perfect human brain (the theoretical perfect brain is still a brain), accumulated ageing damage, oxygen levels, and of course the information available.
An objectively “optimal” decision is a long shot.
Still, it’s going to be miles ahead of a brain subject to blind nature’s instinctual ‘self’.
Sure. Warren Buffett sans instinctual self might make better trading decisions than Warren Buffett with instinctual self. Naturally, this does not mean that Rick sans instinctual self would be capable of making better trading decisions than Warren Buffett with instinctual self.
