Riding on the coattails of Ben’s ‘Take Back Your Distance’ section of last week’s Thin
Take Back Your Thinking
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Regarding philosophy of consciousness, I recommend Thomas Metzinger. I think his more accessible book is titled The Ego Tunnel.
Awesome - thank you.
An excellent piece, very personal, very helpful. I appreciate the pointers and the personal take on each approach.
As for Aurelius’ “Our life is only perception” I would substitute “My life is only perception.” I know about your life only through my observation of your expressions, written or otherwise communicated, only through your interpretation and translation of your own life experiences and thoughts. I do not share your perceptions, I can only infer by comparison or analogy what your feelings and emotions and thoughts must be. This is as it has always been with sentient beings.
It does seem that silence, quiet thought, contemplation is avoided more and more; I infer a fear of boredom out there, and of course in here as well. When I feel that fear building in myself, I find it difficult to move back to thinking, to take back my thinking. Establishing protocols such as you have done is brilliant. Thanks, Neville.
Complexity vs Simplicity
As impressive as Complexity is, wisdom sides with Simplicity every single time. And yet we almost always choose Complexity, especially when we spend more time looking forward than backward.
re: hackable humans
This brings to mind a recent twitter thread by a former Google worker who did programming for YouTube’s AI algorithm. He illuminates how his work has resulted in flat earth videos being heavily promoted to many new audiences. From Guillame Chaslot’s thread:
“So basically we have the two best AIs of the world, on Instagram and YouTube, competing to convince people that the earth is flat. Because it yields large amounts of watch time, and watch time yields ads. This is a #raceToTheBottom 11/”
The most frightening impact he mentions is how flat earther videos have likely been used as justification by Boko Haram to murder teachers and burn down schools in Nigeria. Reminds me how some joker in the US would upload a video burning a Quran onto the internet and all of a sudden rocks are being thrown at our soldiers on the other side of the planet.
For our context, it’s worth noting that things which are attempting to hack us are not even necessarily intended to be doing so.
Protect your psyche accordingly.
[Guillame Chaslot thread: https://twitter.com/gchaslot/status/1064527592428986368 ]
Thanks Neville, I appreciated the Fogg article as a new parent. Removing apps ability to “trigger” to steal your attention is something I try do. I also switch phone to do not disturb between home hours to not get caught in the dopamine hit loop.
Thanks Neville - once addicted, I find it harder & harder to put down my smart/stupid phone. It’s refreshing to see this discussion, and it is overdue. Thank you.
A good friend of mine took a good look at my up-time and blessed me with a plaque, with the request that it be placed where it could be viewed daily. It says “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” - Socrates . We aren’t so unique in this, are we?
Freinds that know us are truly a blessing, especially when they care enough to reach out. Keep up the good work, for the sake of the pack.