Jasen Murray on tranquility meditation
Since the page that I previously used to link to for a description of how to do tranquility meditation has died, I’m reposting the instructions here. I found them very useful in getting started with meditation, and they seemed to work better for me than any other instructions. Original credit for writing them goes to Jasen Murray. —- Very brief summary: Use either the breath or metta...
Read MoreKolme syytä epäillä valtiovaltaa
En pidä valtiota vihollisena tai pahana mörkönä. Siitä huolimatta on kolme hyvää syytä suhtautua epäluuloisesti kaikkeen valtion toimintaan. 1. Päättäjien kannustimet ovat vinoutuneet. Parasta olisi, jos poliitikot pyrkisivät tekemään mahdollisimman hyviä päätöksiä. Sen jälkeen heitä äänestettäisiin sen perusteella, miten hyviä päätöksiä he ovat saaneet tehtyä....
Read MoreLearning from painful experiences
A model that I've found very useful is that pain is an attention signal. If there's a memory or thing that you find painful, that's an indication that there's something important in that memory that your mind is trying to draw your attention to. Once you properly internalize the lesson in question, the pain will go away.
Read MoreLearning to recognize judgmental labels
In the spirit of Non-Violent Communication, I’ve today tried to pay more attention to my thoughts and notice any judgments or labels that I apply to other people that are actually disguised indications of my own needs. The first one that I noticed was this: within a few weeks I’ll be a visiting instructor at a science camp, teaching things to a bunch of teens and preteens. I was...
Read MoreLess Wrong posts
Less Wrong is “a community blog devoted to the art of human rationality”. In practice, there are all kinds of fascinating discussions on the site, on topics ranging from psychology to game theory and from futurism to self-improvement. I regularly post and comment on the site. Of the pieces that I’ve written, here are some of my favorites: Thoughts on moral intuitions. Attempts...
Read MoreLisääkö talouskasvu hyvinvointia?
Talouskasvu lisää selkeästi aineellista vaurauttamme, mutta totumme nopeasti muuttuneeseen elintasoon, joten ei ole varmaa missä määrin talouskasvu lisää varsinaista hyvinvointiamme.
Read MoreMaverick Nannies and Danger Theses
I explain why I think that some of the thought experiments that have previously been used to illustrate the dangers of AI are flawed and should be used very cautiously, why I'm less worried about the dangers of AI than I used to be, and what are some of the remaining reasons for why I do continue to be somewhat worried. ~3500 words.
Read MoreMeditation insights: suffering is intrinsically bound together with pleasure
A principle which I’ve been gradually been able to observe and internalize, thanks both to meditation and some other mind-hacking practices, is that suffering is never about the pain itself. There are conditions in which people report pain but do not mind it; pain is just an attention signal. Pain does not intrinsically cause suffering: what causes suffering is experiencing the pain, and...
Read MoreMonta samanaikaista suhdetta – miksipä ei?
Monia seurustelusuhteita revitään joka hetki aivan turhaan rikki, koska ihmiset luulevat että rakastaa voi vain yhtä ihmistä kerrallaan. Turhan tyypillinen kuvio on, että suhteen toinen osapuoli rakastuu johonkuhun muuhun. Hän ei kuitenkaan uskalla kertoa tätä kumppanilleen, koska nykymaailmassa ei kunnolla edes tunnusteta moisen mahdollisuuden olemassaoloa. Ajatellaan, että yhteen...
Read MoreMy idea of sacredness, divinity, and religion
Here’s a conception that I have about sacredness, divinity, and religion. There’s a sense in which love and friendship didn’t have to exist. If you look at the animal kingdom, you see all kinds of solitary species, animals that only come together for mating. Members of social species – such as humans – have companionship and cooperation, but many species do quite...
Read MoreMy knowledge as anti-knowledge
During my more pessimistic moments, I grow increasingly skeptical about our ability to know anything. Science, governmental institutions, the media, the Internet... all of these mostly fail.
Read MoreNyky-yhteiskunta ja motivaation kuolema
Päivän Hesarissa olleesta mielipidekirjoituksesta: Kaikki lapset aloittavat innokkaina ekaluokan, mutta osalta motivaatio loppuu jatkuvien epäonnistumisten takia jo alakoulussa. […] Opeteltava aines on käsitteellistä, ja niinpä lapsi ei voi ymmärtää asioita, ne on vain muistettava. Minäkin olen yrittänyt opettaa 11-vuotiaalle väkisin kirkon herätysliikkeitä ja renessanssia –...
Read MoreOpen loops in fiction
A fiction-writing trick I find particularly compelling are open loops. A cliffhanger is an example: you want to know how the hero survives, so your thoughts keep looping back to the situation, trying to figure out what happens next. But you need the author to tell you. Really good writing uses open loops at the sentence level as well. The first sentence of the story is meaningful on its own, but...
Read MorePolitical logic 101
Sometimes, seeing somebody you disagree with make both silly and insightful claims can help reduce your own biases.
Read MoreReality is broken, or, an XCOM2 review
Yesterday evening I went to the grocery store, and was startled to realize that I was suddenly in a totally different world. Computer games have difficulty grabbing me these days. Many of the genres I used to enjoy as a kid have lost their appeal: point-and-click -style adventure requires patience and careful thought, but I already deal with plenty of things that require patience and careful...
Read MoreRelationship compatibility as patterns of emotional associations
Much of relationship compatibility comes down to a fuzzy concept that’s variously referred to as “chemistry”, “clicking”, or just feeling good and comfortable in the other’s presence. This is infamously difficult to predict by any other means than actually spending time around the other. OKCupid-style dating sites, with their extensive batteries of questions...
Read MoreSaako hississä pyytää seksiä?
Hissit ovat näemmä päivän Internets-puheenaihe. Riippuen siitä keneltä kysyy, puhe on feministeistä jotka pitävät kaikkia miehiä potentiaalisina raiskaajina, siitä että viattomasta ehdottelusta ärsyyntyvät eivät välitä tyttöjen ympärileikkauksista, tai siitä että kahville pyytäminen on ahdistelua. Anteeksi mitä? Juttu alkoi viattomasta videoblogauksesta, jossa Rebecca...
Read MoreSähkökirja uhkaa (ehkä) suomalaisia kirjailijoita
Sähkökirjojen yleistymisen on peloteltu laajentavan verkkopiratismin kirjoihin ja uhkaavan siten kirjailijoiden elantoa. Olen samaa mieltä siitä, että suomalaisten kirjailijoiden elanto saattaa sähkökirjojen myötä heiketä. Tai sitten ei. Piratismin kanssa sillä ei kuitenkaan ole mitään tekemistä. Sain viikko sitten käsiini Kindlen, Amazon-verkkokaupan sähkökirjanlukijan. Monet...
Read MoreSimplifying the environment: a new convergent instrumental goal
Convergent instrumental goals (also basic AI drives) are goals that are useful for pursuing almost any other goal, and are thus likely to be pursued by any agent that is intelligent enough to understand why they’re useful. They are interesting because they may allow us to roughly predict the behavior of even AI systems that are much more intelligent than we are. Instrumental goals are...
Read MoreSocial media saps more than just short-term attention
The prevalent wisdom about why social media is distracting is that it provides a constant opportunity for immediate distraction. There's a lot of truth to that, but in addition to sapping our short-term attention, it also affects long-term attention.
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This work by Kaj Sotala is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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