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so bird app has been psychoanalysing me recently some thoughts 🧵👇 https://t.co/lMkhKrRCDm
So, sharing the following (with permission) because its so perfect its basically a VIGNETTE for how inner work goes when it goes perfectly. Straddle on: First thing - a problem, in the form of a surprisingly intense emotional reaction https://t.co/4JCtj6Xas7
Look at the entire convo. Rival only ever says one of two things: (1) “Hmmm how about don’t do it when don’t feel like it?” (2) “Have you considered it might actually know something useful?” The rest is just iterations on (2). Over and over again. https://t.co/ssyAUnhyvj
There is a vastly versatile yet parsimonious causal model Rival is building on-the-fly from patterns he’s seen. Noticing tiny cues and abducting bigger conjectures: every time i try to “make myself” → self-coercion https://t.co/45tuW7pwO2
(This is a cue btw. Like, yea crying is good/fine but it's not THAT common to cry about working out - so something might be going on) Also notice the conflict 'I cry BUT i feel good' Notice the coercion 'make myself' I side-step the coercion and ask about the emotion: y cry? https://t.co/ZNmpGQPkf5
“ok u irrational part . . . that’s ok, whatever” → blending with one part that feels responsible for (and incapable of) taking care of everything Rival is taking single word choices and building a model of my mind. This matters because . . . https://t.co/HldzzrQJeG
Do you see how what I said got subverted? I said 'just don't do it' it got parsed as 'just don't do it so that it wants to do it' and 'coerce it and call it irrational until it wants to do it'. This shit is ENDEMIC in the mind:
. . . even though Rival essentially repeats himself up to 4 times — saying “have you considered that part could have KNOWLEDGE??” — it is not redundant each time, he encourages me to a follow a path, i go a bit of the way, turn back and look at him, and he says, “yeah continue”
This is one of the most subtle and underrated things about having a mentor/coach. They will often say things you already knew. But somehow *it feels different after.* Because what matters is conviction. Not just knowledge, but your conviction in it.
This reminds me of a conversation with @SarahAMcManus about “flat” vs “deep” learners. When your house of cards is shaky and your knowledge feels flimsy . . . you don’t end up building very much on top. https://t.co/s55d4mBExN
When your convictions feels rock solid, you venture much further. This is the difference between scientists that go “all the way” from an anamolous observation versus those that don’t. https://t.co/JoZdA0dbhY
@SarahAMcManus The core skills then are: solidifying and achieving a depth of intuition with a layer so solid the next layers canbe built on top (deep) marking and navigating wide expanses of learning territory with effective psuedo-spatial cues (flat)
Back to Rival. He has *conviction* about this approach, and I sense it, and so a very uncertain me—almost resistant really—continues down the path anyway. The relationship of respect, subtle markers of conviction, all matter.
Watch me take a few steps, stutter out, “apologise” for spamming, and Rival’s like “actually just keep going.” Right before I have my biggest integrations. https://t.co/H3RpNkQEcY
(2) he must have different intentions for me than the ones I potentially profess https://t.co/M5vqIatnZ5
Yatharth is siding with one intention (work out to feel good) in OPPOSITION to another (cry because working out feels bad). Because I'm helping him he ASSUMES I'm aligned with the intention he is aligned with (I'm not, I'm aligned with THE BEST POSSIBLE GLOBAL INTENTION FOR HIM)
*while* being very clear all of this is guesswork!! Guesswork because that’s the nature of the domain. No piece of evidence gives you 100% confidence X is true. X_1, X_2, or X_10 might be true. https://t.co/nqzxkwhJSR
At this point I'm confused so I just suggest the most straightforward solution: Just don't do it, lol. Seeing what the objection to the most straightforward solution is will teach you a lot about the structure underlying what's going on (crying in response to etc.) https://t.co/pocBQLoIcY
It’s like “jiggling” if you have any experience with lock-picking. Jiggling or bump keys work by just poking in and out a lot of times, and each time is a bit random, and you hope one of those random combinations will make the lock work. https://t.co/nT9dLQaX75
It’s clear that jiggling is guess work, but it’s also clear that there’s an immense amount of difference between me trying it and my housemate Elijiah clearing a lock in under 2seconds flat That’s a lot of coaching/therapy too Informed guesswork, trying keys till the lock opens
(Protip: you can exploit this if you’re self-coaching by basically “fuzzing” yourself, trying out all sorts of random Qs and questions until one jiggles your brain into getting it—surprisingly effective) https://t.co/jff0doj6qG
I don’t know if my analysis makes Rival’s work seem more simple or less simple. Either way, simplicity ≠ how impressive it is, because as my wise man said: The right answers are simple. The problem is figuring out which of the simple answers they are. https://t.co/bgddL8lD8m
@AskYatharth @nosilverv choo choo 🚂 https://t.co/sGvCrm2yO3
@AskYatharth List of lists of questions! (only 3 lists of questions so far, but it's a lot in total!) https://t.co/939rjIjfUb
@AskYatharth Yeah, mainstream social norms involve treating people like their professed intentions are their full deal (although if you're actually doing strategy, you secretly track parts that might betray you). Can create culture with norm of "support all parts" https://t.co/fRUQImWC67
@AskYatharth Creating such a culture works by bootstrapping a meta-modern approach to norms… https://t.co/jQOwgbtK2r
@anielsen108 @justchap Pre-modern norms: "that's just the way things are done" Modern norms: "this way is correct because..." Postmodern norms: ҉҉҉͌͌͌҉͎ͦ͞͝҉͟҈ͦ͞͡҉̅҈͠҉͞҈̲ͬ͟҈ Metamodern norms: "we have common knowledge that X→Y, & we all don't like Y, so we don't do X" ⬅️not actually normative!
@AskYatharth because otherwise you're throwing a bunch of shoulds at nonshoulding https://t.co/hHIaz0WSAI
@AskYatharth goddamnit I swear I saw the perfect tweet to QT here, literally today... that was saying something like "the reason people are resistant to noncoercive motivation is they think they're supposed to coerce themselves to do it" tagging @nosilverv, @mattgoldenberg, @reasonisfun
@AskYatharth A coach gives you permission to actually believe the things you already know. You're essentially borrowing their credibility, and actually trusting your own intuitions rather than try to rationalize them away.
@CountJ0ecool Hm. This is an interesting formulation. @nosilverv Continuing this line of inquiry . . . if coaching gives you permission to trust your intuitions instead of rationalise them away . . . it must mean normally we’re hesitant to simply run with an intuition and not rationalise . .
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv . . which makes sense as god forbid we (1) start speaking real shit from an intuitive place which we don’t consciously/morally/logically endorse it doesn’t make sense to us, and others might take those words too seriously and think we’re bad
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv “therapy” provides that. playing improv “Authentic Relating” games allows that. a general attitude of play and theatre allow that @Malcolm_Ocean’s meta-modern tribe allows that https://t.co/i8OMLPn5xt
@AskYatharth Yeah, mainstream social norms involve treating people like their professed intentions are their full deal (although if you're actually doing strategy, you secretly track parts that might betray you). Can create culture with norm of "support all parts" https://t.co/fRUQImWC67
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean to me, this kind of container is not just valuable—it’s ~sacred~ and the basis of friendship and basis of my most favourite quote in the world https://t.co/m8RX0o6S4a
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean (2) god forbid we act on random intuitions we are unable to justify to others/ourselves, making us unpredictable and thus socially untrusted god forbid we do this and lose tight control of ourselves
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean animals don’t control their emotions as much because they didn’t need to. evolution wanted them to be subject to emotions emotional regulation and “decentering” ourself evolved in humans for very specific surviving-in-groups needs timestamp 37:30 https://t.co/68TF7pgmn5
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean makes sense that we have a strong mental no-no to run with intuitions — *unless* we’re in a container that signals it’s different from Real Life by being instead Theatre or Coaching or what have you
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean (3) god forbid we speak from places that provide no explicit verbal reasoning/justification. our modern world depends on being correct! https://t.co/EwdEurmC8L
@anielsen108 @justchap Pre-modern norms: "that's just the way things are done" Modern norms: "this way is correct because..." Postmodern norms: ҉҉҉͌͌͌҉͎ͦ͞͝҉͟҈ͦ͞͡҉̅҈͠҉͞҈̲ͬ͟҈ Metamodern norms: "we have common knowledge that X→Y, & we all don't like Y, so we don't do X" ⬅️not actually normative!
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean honestly sometimes we just don’t kno how to deal with that. we would feel epistemically lost and incapable of maintaining firm footing https://t.co/CT1BDjuDnd
@xuenay It took me conceptually grasping what conversations *are* and I could name what felt like my favourite *in the moment* arbitrarily and the world wouldn’t somehow explode for me to get to the other side. I didn't kno what was going on, and no one told me. https://t.co/kkDYqEGbP1
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean Therapy is a sandbox. It’s an explicitly demarcated territory that says “hey! this is safe! *there’s explicit boundaries,* and you can do things inside that won’t affect the outside!”
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean In fact, that may very well be the definition of a Sandbox: a container in which you can experiment without worrying about the effects on the “outside.” A box of sand to sculpt without getting the room messy. A virtual machine to run untrusted apps in.
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean In our case, Coaching gives us a Sandbox in which we can step inside and safely disable the norm against “running with our intuitions” without worrying it’ll fuck us over in the real world
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean (1) you won’t be held to your words; you can retract/endorse them later (2) you can follow your intuitions raw, without worrying about getting ejected from the tribe or hurting yourself too badly
@CountJ0ecool @nosilverv @Malcolm_Ocean (3) there’s someone there to help parse right from wrong, desirable from undesirable, afterward, after you muddy the waters with all three concerns addressed, we can turn off the safety switch and r u n