Someone once shared a trick with me: if you’re not a great cook but want to sell food, your best bet is to make it spicy. Spiciness is often used as a trick to cover up culinary shortcomings. Let’s call this spicy sleight. Before we move on, it’s worth pointing out that this phenomenon is…
Author: tre
Hi friends, welcome back. In the first two posts of this series, we have discussed pain, pleasure, then danger, and discomfort. Now let’s switch gear and talk about something more concrete: technology. My aim is that after this you will start seeing all the different addictech & anestechia around us, and find yourself more consciously…
Last week I stumbled upon this post on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/C9QKQ9CqtRl/ For accessibility purpose, here’s the text in the image: soracities: – “the ‘humans are inherently selfish’ fanclub can genuinely and in all honesty go to hell. i once came back from a school yard where the kids had heaped piles of leaves and cut wildflowers…
Hi friends, I’ve been looking at this one chart from this report by Our World in Data about time use. I’m sure you’ve seen different sections and different charts out of this report being shared online since this was released a while ago. But my mind keeps going back to this one chart in particular:…
I have a useful test to evaluate claims on LLM’s ability to “understand”. This example shows that at this current moment, even one of the smartest LLMs, GPT-4o, is truly “merely” a heap of statistical operations and is not as “intelligent” as humans. Here I asked [1] GPT-4o to merge the different definitions I have…
Parent post: I am a recovering rationalist llm -m 4o “which cognitive fallacies apply to ‘everything happens for a reason'” The phrase “everything happens for a reason” can involve several cognitive fallacies. Here are a few that may apply: Appeal to Destiny (or Fatalism): This fallacy is the belief that events are preordained or destined…
Being seen vs being looked at https://youtu.be/u8kSiylePVI?t=2395 I recently saw this video where they discussed about the distinction between being seen and being looked at. Never thought much about it before, but yes being seen and being looked at are so different. Being looked at gives the I-It vibe, while being seen puts the person…
Thought of some activities that facilitate Flow state, bring you to the present moment, engage your whole self (mind, body, soul) playing music playing sports playing video games programming woodworking writing cooking painting dancing conversing (not just talking or just listening) Of course you still need other components of flow to enter the flow state…
Hi friends, welcome back. In the first part, we looked at the extent of painful and pleasurable sensations. We also split pain into two camps: danger and discomfort. Now, how do you know if you are in danger or are you “merely” uncomfortable? I’m in pain. Should I run or should I lean into it?…
I want to talk about pain, pleasure, danger, discomfort, and suffering. It started when I realised how temporary some painful physical sensations are and how addicted I am to pleasurable experiences. Because this simple observation started growing heads and legs, we’ll split this into a series of more digestible posts: Sensory signals {pain|pleasure} are fleeting.…