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Kaj Sotala Profile picture
@xuenay
Jan 7, 2019 • 17 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
Writing a new sequence on LW. My modest goal is to combine models from neuroscience, psychotherapy, meditation, game theory, and a bunch of other places, into a better model of how our minds work than the one suggested by our normal folk psychology. lesswrong.com/posts/M4w2rdYg…
First substantial post in my "multiagent models of mind" sequence, starts off by summarizing some essential points of "Consciousness and the Brain", and explaining Global Neuronal Workspace theory. lesswrong.com/posts/x4n4jcoD…
Second substantial post in my "multiagent models of mind" sequence, builds up to the #InternalFamilySystems model of mind by talking about how we might design a robot which behaved quite similarly as the IFS model predicts. lesswrong.com/posts/5gfqG3Xc…
Third substantial post in my "multiagent models of mind" sequence, I extend the model I've been building up to explain some things about change blindness and mistaking our thoughts as objective facts, and connect it with the book #TheMindIlluminated.
lesswrong.com/posts/AhcEaqWY…
Fourth substantial post in my "multiagents of mind" sequence: if we are composed of a society of subagents, then how come we manage to have relatively coherent behavior most of the time? When does this succeed and when does it fail? lesswrong.com/posts/oJwJzeZ6…
5th substantial post in my "multiagents of mind" sequence. If parts of our minds disagree, how do we get them to agree? Why don't they agree by default? Are there situations in which they refuse to talk with each other? Are they subagents or just beliefs? lesswrong.com/posts/hnLutdvj…
6th substantial post in my "multiagents of mind" sequence. I flesh out the concept of consciousness implementing a virtual Turing machine a bit more, and then apply it to examples such as emotion suppression, internal conflict, and blind spots. lesswrong.com/posts/7zQPYQB5…
7th substantial post in my "Multiagent Models of Mind" sequence, on how trauma shapes our thinking in invisible ways, and how healing one's emotional stuff is a prerequisite for rationality. lesswrong.com/posts/u5RLu5F3…
8th substantial post in my "Multiagent Models of Mind" sequence, connecting it with psychology's dual-process models and reframing "System 2" as working-memory augmented collaboration between subagents. lesswrong.com/posts/HbXXd2gi…
I summarize a book which claims to provide a theoretical model for how lasting emotional transformation (as well as any genuinely effective therapy) works. Its model seems very promising, I think. lesswrong.com/posts/i9xyZBS3…
Meditation has been claimed to have all kinds of transformative effects. I offer an explanation for one mechanism: increasing a person’s introspective awareness, leading to increasing psychological unity as internal conflicts are detected and resolved.
lesswrong.com/posts/WYmmC3W6…
Here is the introduction to a series of posts where I try to explain insight meditation, enlightenment, and particularly the Buddhist three characteristics of existence in a secular, non-mysterious way.
lesswrong.com/posts/Mf2MCkYg…
In this post, I start explaining what is going on with the Buddhist notion of "no-self" and what's up with meditation that affects the sense of self, as non-mysteriously as I can make it. (Spoiler: the self is like Google Maps. Well, kinda.)
lesswrong.com/posts/W59Nb72s…
Here I started outlining my model of what's going on with suffering, and how it relates to the cognitive science theory of predictive processing and Buddhist teaching about craving and attachment.
lesswrong.com/posts/gvXFBaTh…
Buddhists talk a lot about the self, and also about suffering. They claim that if you come to investigate what the self is really made of, then this will lead to a reduction in suffering. Why would that be? Here's my take... lesswrong.com/posts/r6kzvdia…
... the brain constructs a story of there being a single decision-maker. And while the story tends to be closely correlated with the system’s actions, the narrative self does not actually decide the person’s actions, it's just a story of someone who does.
lesswrong.com/posts/h2xgbYBN…
Few people would seriously claim that either physical things or mental experiences last forever. However, there are ways in which the fact of impermanence does contradict the brain's intuitive, built-in assumptions. lesswrong.com/posts/T8gD9mRD…

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More from @xuenay

Kaj Sotala Profile picture
Jan 6
I think there are probably a lot of people who tried ChatGPT a little bit in the beginning and then bounced off, or read all the articles about how LLMs hallucinate all the time and reasonably figured they didn't want to use them. But AI chatbots have gotten a lot better.
My definite favorite is Claude ( ). (That website offers a few different models; the "Sonnet" version is the best, though requires a paid subscription if you want to talk to it in any regularity.) Here are some of the ways I've used it recently:claude.ai
1) Tell it "here's an essay that I started writing" and give it what I have so far. It will comment with ideas, possible other directions, and connections to related things. I talk to it and also tell it about other ideas I want to work into the essay, but haven't written yet.
Read 27 tweets
Kaj Sotala Profile picture
Dec 22, 2024
Have been grinding these types of exercises for two weeks now

(It makes metaphysical claims about "energy" but I think it's mundane psychological and physical processes instead and the thing works anyway)

This is the closest that I've gotten to having "pleasure on demand" Image
Image
A gentle touch feels pleasant and it turns out that an imagined gentle touch is pleasant, too

As it starts becoming practiced enough that I can access some of it at will, the consequence is a feeling of relaxation and widespread positive feelings in my body Image
Image
Image
Right now I'm lightly imagining that I'm stroking my cheeks, and I feel my jaw relaxing in response

It's not very _intense_ pleasure but it feels invigorating

I'm often low-energy in the mornings and doing this helps get some (non-mystical) energy moving with minimal effort
Read 8 tweets
Kaj Sotala Profile picture
Jul 6, 2024
A trauma book I was reading had an interesting claim that indecision is often because the person looks for the approval of an internalized authority figure but is unable to predict what action they would approve of.
The writer is a Jungian therapist, so he attributed it to looking for the approval of an internalized parent, but I think it can be broader.
I feel like that has some intuitive truth to it, in that when I don't care about anyone's opinion (or if nobody ever finds out) then it's much easier to just pick one action and commit to it even if it might go badly.
Read 17 tweets
Kaj Sotala Profile picture
Jun 5, 2023
(Part I.) Sometimes I find my thoughts looping through the same motions.

I'm thinking of where to go to eat. Different options pop into my mind, none of them perfect.

"Ugh, that place is expensive"
"Ugh, that place has no good vegetarian options"
"Ugh, that place is far away" Image
After a while, I notice my mind having bounced back to the beginning of the list.

"Ugh, that place is expensive..." Image
If pay close attention, I may notice a slight sense of... bouncing off, each time I think of an option.

It’s as if each ugh is surrounded by a shell that deflects my mind, preventing my mind from fully processing the ugh. Image
Read 15 tweets
Kaj Sotala Profile picture
Jan 28, 2023
1000 hours of formal recorded meditation since January 18, 2018.

Doesn't include: probably a similar amount of unrecorded semi-formal meditation, a hard to estimate but significant amount of "off-the-couch" practice, practice I did after 2009 before starting to use this app. Image
(Note that this screenshot has been slightly edited, since for some reason the "average per day" number it actually shows me is twice what it should be; the correct amount is 33.1 minutes [I couldn't be bothered with editing that last digit].)
Several people asked about the effects

It's a difficult question. I'm sure my mind is significantly different now than before, but effects come gradually so it's hard to remember how things were before. (I have a history of forgetting even huge changes: kajsotala.fi/2015/08/change… )
Read 15 tweets
Kaj Sotala Profile picture
Jul 18, 2022
I was feeling rushed this morning. It wasn't that I had any real urgency, but I want to get a reasonable amount of work done today, and I'd been having a slow start for the day.
Besides work things, there were also several personal things that I needed to get done, and I was feeling an acute ugh that argh I need to do that and I need to do this and why didn't I do anything yesterday and now I'm going to feel rushed for the rest of the week again.
Then I remembered that the feeling of urgency isn't a fact about the world, it's a fact about my own mind.
Read 10 tweets

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