Yesterday I took some time to evaluate myself and see how I was doing, a practice I enjoy taking part in every so often. In doing so, I decided to read a couple journal entries from during and before my LDS mission. What surprised me is how different it sounded, how not-like-me it sounded. I'm well aware that I changed a lot during my mission, and I feel that I've changed at least as much since the completion of my mission. But one defining characteristic of the changes I've been through has been a gradual decline of my emotional excitability throughout my life. With the possible exception of the last few months, this has largely been unintentional and has gone mostly undetected. I don't necessarily consider this a loss, but yesterday I was wondering why much of my emotional excitability has faded. This post is somewhat of an attempt for me to gather my thoughts about it. The easiest way is for me to approach it autobiographically.
I remember little about what it was like to be a child, and I feel most people my age will relate. But from my parents' description of my personality, I was very expressive about almost everything that happened to me. It was very easy for someone to tell how I was feeling at any given time. I was also quite extroverted and had very little inhibition about sharing my opinions or thoughts about something. I think this is pretty common among children today.
This trend continued throughout most of junior high school. I was more withdrawn in the occasional environment where I felt less comfortable (physical education, for example), but for the most part, especially around those I knew well, I continued to be expressive and outspoken, with little care for what other people thought about me.
Sophomore year of high school was different for me. I had gone to a junior high school that most people in my area didn't, so when I returned to the high school that most of my childhood friends were going to, I knew a lot less people. My default became introversion, a habit I broke out of only when I was around people I knew well. Around this time I began to notice that most other people's ups and downs seemed more intense than my own. I concluded that it was because I had never really been through anything difficult; and because I had never known the sorrow of hardship, I didn't really know how to appreciate the joy of wellness.
This conclusion lead to some interesting behavior on my part. I often wondered why my life was so easy (I still do sometimes). Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I had often been taught that if we had not had extremely trying experiences up to that point in our lives, we would someday. I began wondering when all my trials were going to come, and if God was just "saving them up" to unload a barrel of crises on me when he saw fit. I would occasionally pray for trials, just because I knew they would come sometime so it might as well be now.
After a couple years of nothing hard really happening, I decided that one of two things must be the case: either I was so spiritually strong that nothing that happened to me seemed like a trial, or I was so spiritually weak that God was just babysitting me through life until I was able to handle something remotely hard (I didn't realize at the time that reality was probably somewhere between those two extremes). I also wondered where my motivation to do good was going to come from, since I never had to apply self-discipline or a work ethic to overcome any obstacles.
My first year of college brought a lot of changes. Like most people, I knew hardly anyone in the singles ward I attended at BYU. Most of my first semester free time was spent either associating with a few close friends or doing things by myself. After a few months of this, I realized I was missing something. Second semester I tried to get a lot more involved, and it worked. Our ward did a mini-version of the Lion King for a stake activity we had, and I played Pumbaa. It was the corniest thing in the world, but for some reason I still don't understand it was one of the best experiences I had in my life. I made some really close friends that semester, and I was happier than I had been before. As a bonus, anytime I listened to music from the Lion King, it brought back all the memories and feelings from that time in my life.
One of the first things that I learned about my mission was that I would experience greater happiness and joy than I had ever experienced before (Preach my Gospel, page v). Knowing how amazing college was for me, I looked forward to when that was going to happen. Sometimes I had great experiences that seemed like they "qualified" for my happiest experience ever, but after thinking about it for a while I decided that college was still better. I started to doubt somewhat if anything that great would ever happen. An experience I had about halfway through my mission crushed all doubt whatsoever (the last one described in the linked post). I may only be able to say that I had one experience that "topped" all the happiness that I had ever felt before, but I unquestionably did, and I can't deny that.
I mentioned that I've changed a lot since the end of my mission. Part of that was when I spent a summer in Oklahoma selling pest control, but that doesn't have much influence on what I'm discussing here. The main thing that's changed in the last few months has been how much I've pursued intelligence to the exclusion of several other things in my life. I've recently been exposed to several works of fiction that quite realistically depict the protagonist being able to do things that other people can't, largely because they can keep their emotions in check and use their intellect to solve problems. It's fiction. I know that. But I can't help it affecting the way I think. I know a lot of difficult decisions are coming up for me, both planned and unplanned, and my current opinion is that I'll deal with them a lot better by using my head and not letting emotions cloud my judgment. I don't know if that's the best way to go about doing things. But I don't plan on changing unless I feel that regaining my emotional excitability (or extraversion for that matter) is something I should do. Right now, being "left-brained" feels like part of who I am. I guess it's only a matter of time before I figure out whether it's worth the cost.
Metamorphose
Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Rationality
I was introduced to rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter spinoff known as Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. The work functions partially as an extended advertisement for the science/art known as applied rationality. Applied rationality is the effort to evaluate one's methods of decision-making, removing all irrational methods, and replacing them with rational methods based on cognitive science, decision theory, probability, studies on human nature, and various other categories of knowledge. In short, you're trying to take the stupid out of your decision-making.
Rationality appeals to people who 1) are intelligent, 2) have realized they are intelligent, 3) have decided that they want to make their intelligence one of their defining factors, and so 4) the obvious next step is to use your intelligence to learn how to make yourself smarter. It's more than just deliberately exposing yourself to mental challenges to prove yourself, just like weightlifting is more than just heading to the gym and spending inordinate amounts of time pumping iron. For almost every skill, there's a certain technique to it that has been learned and refined by those who have excelled in the past. In almost every case, knowing the technique is necessary to get ahead.
The surface value of rationality, from my perspective, seems to be that it helps rid people of cognitive biases that cause them to make improper judgments some of the time. This is done by identifying the presence of a certain cognitive bias and knowing how to bypass it. I don't want to describe any of the cognitive biases we've already found, but reducing or eliminating these seems to be the mental equivalent of replacing a faulty part of a decently-working machine, causing it to perform better. Rationality also consists of evaluating the beliefs and opinions we have about the world, and using a fact- and evidence-based approach to determine how rational our beliefs really are.
lesswrong.com is the main resource for those who want to learn more about rationality. I found much more on here about removing deleterious mental processes than culturing new beneficial ones, but I'm sure more reading will uncover more fruit. There's a LOT written on here, and I could spend a huge amount of time reading all of this. I'm not as excited about this as I was a month or two ago, but I'm always interested in sharpening the way I think. Posts like The Twelve Virtues of Rationality sometimes makes it seem like commitment to rationality can border on the religious; and while I don't intend to make this pursuit my main goal in life, I could easily spend more time on it than I should, to the detriment of other more important things.
Rationality appeals to people who 1) are intelligent, 2) have realized they are intelligent, 3) have decided that they want to make their intelligence one of their defining factors, and so 4) the obvious next step is to use your intelligence to learn how to make yourself smarter. It's more than just deliberately exposing yourself to mental challenges to prove yourself, just like weightlifting is more than just heading to the gym and spending inordinate amounts of time pumping iron. For almost every skill, there's a certain technique to it that has been learned and refined by those who have excelled in the past. In almost every case, knowing the technique is necessary to get ahead.
The surface value of rationality, from my perspective, seems to be that it helps rid people of cognitive biases that cause them to make improper judgments some of the time. This is done by identifying the presence of a certain cognitive bias and knowing how to bypass it. I don't want to describe any of the cognitive biases we've already found, but reducing or eliminating these seems to be the mental equivalent of replacing a faulty part of a decently-working machine, causing it to perform better. Rationality also consists of evaluating the beliefs and opinions we have about the world, and using a fact- and evidence-based approach to determine how rational our beliefs really are.
lesswrong.com is the main resource for those who want to learn more about rationality. I found much more on here about removing deleterious mental processes than culturing new beneficial ones, but I'm sure more reading will uncover more fruit. There's a LOT written on here, and I could spend a huge amount of time reading all of this. I'm not as excited about this as I was a month or two ago, but I'm always interested in sharpening the way I think. Posts like The Twelve Virtues of Rationality sometimes makes it seem like commitment to rationality can border on the religious; and while I don't intend to make this pursuit my main goal in life, I could easily spend more time on it than I should, to the detriment of other more important things.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Intrinsic motivation
This is something that I wrote a while ago, and I just rediscovered it in my journal. It was during my senior year, some time after I learned about extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation in psychology. I reflected on what sort of motivation I had, what sort of motivation I wanted to have, and the true nature of each in the spiritual sense. This was the result.
"There are two types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is based on rewards. In other words, I work had in school because I know I will be rewarded with success in life. I do my chores because I will rewarded with satisfied parents and a clean household. Or, in a truer, bigger, and harsher sense, I do what's right because I will be rewarded with eternal life. A reward is anything that gives one pleasure in varying strength. Therefore, the strength of the extrinsic motivation is dependent on the strength of the reward. For example, suppose student A does his homework because he wants to get into a good college. Student B gets paid $10 for every A grade. Ignoring other things, Student B is more likely to be extrinsically motivated because the reward is consistent, expected, and predictable. Extrinsic motivation is nothing without the promise of a reward. If I buy a meal for a homeless person, I expect to either feel good for my service, be congratulated by my peers, or know that I have made the world a better place. However, if I don't care at all about the homeless person, my friends' approval, or the state of the world, I could very well save that hobo's life and feel nothing. You have to care about your rewards, and if you care nothing for a potential reward, it is not a reward to you. Concern is like emotional pleasure. If you had no concern for anything, it would be like eating a cookie, tasting it, but having no feeling of pleasure from the taste of that cookie. A lack of concern is like the organ without the brain; that organ may be sending messages, but if the brain does not discriminate between good and bad messages or pleasurable/not pleasurable messages, no change occurs. Fortunately, everybody cares about something, and that makes rewards, and, by extension, extrinsic motivation universally effective. Extrinsic motivation is entirely received; some stimulus occurs outside of yourself that gives you pleasure. If not for the stimulus, there would be no pleasure, no reward, and no extrinsic motivation. With extrinsic motivation, all you need is the reward. I don't have to want to do any homework as long as I am promised that I will get good grades.
"Intrinsic motivation is more difficult. People who run on intrinsic motivation do not receive an award from anyone--"
I stopped here, probably because it was late and I had to get to bed. I wondered over the next couple of days whether intrinsic motivation was truly possible, because it seemed like I didn't have any. The spiritual side of my dilemma made me even more confused, and this paradox is illustrated in my next entry:
"I begin with the question: Does intrinsic motivation exist? Intrinsic motivation is a feeling of pleasure or fulfillment that comes entirely from ourselves. Or does it? When we experience pleasure or fulfillment, that feeling either comes from God or ourselves. If God gives us that feeling, either it is sent to us or something within our bodies and/or spirits was created to experience that feeling when something happened. It seems for now that I am forced to conclude that either intrinsic motivation does not exist (because every feeling of pleasure is given to us) or that people create pleasure for themselves outside of God. Neither of these things seem possible, nor do I want to believe them. I know that the only thing we have to offer is our will, because everything else was originally given to us in the first place and therefore would be of no value to God if it was returned. Our will is our only gift to God, but if He did not give it to us, who did? Who made it? How did it come into being--"
Again I was unable to continue, this time because the prospect opened up a whole new dimension of thinking to me that I couldn't handle all at once. I was mainly confused about who I really was, and it took me a while to reconcile this confusion. A few days later, this is what I came up with:
"You have something of your own. God made you, yes, but there is some part of you that is completely and entirely unique, something that existed long before you had a consciousness. If every aspect of your personality was created, you would essentially not have existed as an intelligence. Because you did, you know that there is a 'you' that existed before you even gained a spirit. This is what makes true and pure intrinsic motivation possible, because God's feelings of pleasure that we receive are not entirely manufactured externally. We receive the internal comfort that the Spirit provides, but as beautiful and amazing that feeling is, it still came from God and thus can be classified as extrinsic motivation in a way. But it is not entirely that way. The Holy Spirit, in its workings, also activates the inner spirit, the self of self that lives far within us. Thus it becomes true intrinsic motivation because you are creating something that you love. You are driving yourself to spiritual perfection. Why is this component important? Because without it, God would essentially be programming a person to see how it would 'run' on earth. It would be a cruel God that gave people damning traits; that is, giving people attributes that would lead to their downfall by direct causation. God knows, as I now know, that there is a part of you that is completely independent of who He created your spirit to be. You are not just a formula for creation. God did not put you on the earth just to be who He expected you to be, because there would be no conflict that way. He knew your future only because He had seen it. He did know every part of you, but He also knew that there was a part he could have no control over in creation or maintenance. This is commonly known as free will. No matter how hardwired your personality may be to follow certain behavior patterns, you can always override that. The only bulwark that can stand against the flood of God's will is human agency, a fact that is as tragic as it is necessary for learning."
The last part of this, of course, is only possible because God chose to include human agency in the plan of salvation, but it is still true. The last part of this entry was written to myself, but I believe it can apply to everyone.
"You thought that there were only two options: one, that there is no such thing as intrinsic motivation because every good thing or feeling came from God, or two, that intrinsic motivation came from a force other than God. Neither of these you wanted to believe, but I invite you now, as has happened to often for you in the past, to connect successfully two contradictory notions. The feeling of the Spirit is a harmony of God's confirmation and your inner self, which of course you do not know much of yet. Intrinsic motivation both does and does not exist. Pleasure, true fulfillment, both does and does not come from God. But pure intrinsic motivation occurs when and only when the will of the individual is parallel to the will of God, because that is when the sweet tones of eternity all align to form one euphonic chord of the infinitum."
"There are two types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is based on rewards. In other words, I work had in school because I know I will be rewarded with success in life. I do my chores because I will rewarded with satisfied parents and a clean household. Or, in a truer, bigger, and harsher sense, I do what's right because I will be rewarded with eternal life. A reward is anything that gives one pleasure in varying strength. Therefore, the strength of the extrinsic motivation is dependent on the strength of the reward. For example, suppose student A does his homework because he wants to get into a good college. Student B gets paid $10 for every A grade. Ignoring other things, Student B is more likely to be extrinsically motivated because the reward is consistent, expected, and predictable. Extrinsic motivation is nothing without the promise of a reward. If I buy a meal for a homeless person, I expect to either feel good for my service, be congratulated by my peers, or know that I have made the world a better place. However, if I don't care at all about the homeless person, my friends' approval, or the state of the world, I could very well save that hobo's life and feel nothing. You have to care about your rewards, and if you care nothing for a potential reward, it is not a reward to you. Concern is like emotional pleasure. If you had no concern for anything, it would be like eating a cookie, tasting it, but having no feeling of pleasure from the taste of that cookie. A lack of concern is like the organ without the brain; that organ may be sending messages, but if the brain does not discriminate between good and bad messages or pleasurable/not pleasurable messages, no change occurs. Fortunately, everybody cares about something, and that makes rewards, and, by extension, extrinsic motivation universally effective. Extrinsic motivation is entirely received; some stimulus occurs outside of yourself that gives you pleasure. If not for the stimulus, there would be no pleasure, no reward, and no extrinsic motivation. With extrinsic motivation, all you need is the reward. I don't have to want to do any homework as long as I am promised that I will get good grades.
"Intrinsic motivation is more difficult. People who run on intrinsic motivation do not receive an award from anyone--"
I stopped here, probably because it was late and I had to get to bed. I wondered over the next couple of days whether intrinsic motivation was truly possible, because it seemed like I didn't have any. The spiritual side of my dilemma made me even more confused, and this paradox is illustrated in my next entry:
"I begin with the question: Does intrinsic motivation exist? Intrinsic motivation is a feeling of pleasure or fulfillment that comes entirely from ourselves. Or does it? When we experience pleasure or fulfillment, that feeling either comes from God or ourselves. If God gives us that feeling, either it is sent to us or something within our bodies and/or spirits was created to experience that feeling when something happened. It seems for now that I am forced to conclude that either intrinsic motivation does not exist (because every feeling of pleasure is given to us) or that people create pleasure for themselves outside of God. Neither of these things seem possible, nor do I want to believe them. I know that the only thing we have to offer is our will, because everything else was originally given to us in the first place and therefore would be of no value to God if it was returned. Our will is our only gift to God, but if He did not give it to us, who did? Who made it? How did it come into being--"
Again I was unable to continue, this time because the prospect opened up a whole new dimension of thinking to me that I couldn't handle all at once. I was mainly confused about who I really was, and it took me a while to reconcile this confusion. A few days later, this is what I came up with:
"You have something of your own. God made you, yes, but there is some part of you that is completely and entirely unique, something that existed long before you had a consciousness. If every aspect of your personality was created, you would essentially not have existed as an intelligence. Because you did, you know that there is a 'you' that existed before you even gained a spirit. This is what makes true and pure intrinsic motivation possible, because God's feelings of pleasure that we receive are not entirely manufactured externally. We receive the internal comfort that the Spirit provides, but as beautiful and amazing that feeling is, it still came from God and thus can be classified as extrinsic motivation in a way. But it is not entirely that way. The Holy Spirit, in its workings, also activates the inner spirit, the self of self that lives far within us. Thus it becomes true intrinsic motivation because you are creating something that you love. You are driving yourself to spiritual perfection. Why is this component important? Because without it, God would essentially be programming a person to see how it would 'run' on earth. It would be a cruel God that gave people damning traits; that is, giving people attributes that would lead to their downfall by direct causation. God knows, as I now know, that there is a part of you that is completely independent of who He created your spirit to be. You are not just a formula for creation. God did not put you on the earth just to be who He expected you to be, because there would be no conflict that way. He knew your future only because He had seen it. He did know every part of you, but He also knew that there was a part he could have no control over in creation or maintenance. This is commonly known as free will. No matter how hardwired your personality may be to follow certain behavior patterns, you can always override that. The only bulwark that can stand against the flood of God's will is human agency, a fact that is as tragic as it is necessary for learning."
The last part of this, of course, is only possible because God chose to include human agency in the plan of salvation, but it is still true. The last part of this entry was written to myself, but I believe it can apply to everyone.
"You thought that there were only two options: one, that there is no such thing as intrinsic motivation because every good thing or feeling came from God, or two, that intrinsic motivation came from a force other than God. Neither of these you wanted to believe, but I invite you now, as has happened to often for you in the past, to connect successfully two contradictory notions. The feeling of the Spirit is a harmony of God's confirmation and your inner self, which of course you do not know much of yet. Intrinsic motivation both does and does not exist. Pleasure, true fulfillment, both does and does not come from God. But pure intrinsic motivation occurs when and only when the will of the individual is parallel to the will of God, because that is when the sweet tones of eternity all align to form one euphonic chord of the infinitum."
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