It seems like evolution could have programmed us to listen to those most like us (our parents usually?) but instead made us seek to mimic those with high status.
There's actually plenty evidence suggesting babies and children pay more attention to those more similar to them. But status is also a really useful proxy (Joseph Henrich talks about this)
Are you saying status is a proxy for self similarity? Or just that kids also mimic status?Anyway, my understanding is that babies mimic parents and then teenagers switch to mimicking status. No?
No that's not what I'm saying. There's a lot of different types of cues that babies and children pay attention to. Similarity cues (gender, skin color, etc), success cues (happy, popular), skill cues
It would be mighty convenient if, as well as our ancestors' physical things, we could also inherit their wisdom as if a physical thing.
Unfortunately, it appears that wisdom is usually gained through some kind of suffering: while one may not know the future in detail, it is wisdom if you can see what kinds of things will maybe generally turn out well for you and which things probably won't.
This problem, the transfer of wisdom, is one I think about a lot. If it was personality that was all, then the Dalai Lama boy reincarnation would be sufficient, but wisdom appears to be only reliably transferred by personal suffering. In an ideal world, we would like to minimise suffering, but it appears that some amount is necessary or we won't know how to create an ideal world. And the transfer of wisdom is largely what is lacking in today's society as we lose the knowledge of how to build things in the real world.
Returning to the topic, it would be wonderful if we could have such a practical connection with past lives and thus gain their wisdom without introducing any new suffering. I think that's a potential of videogames, for people with empathy. Can we gain in our Wisdom attribute by playing the right role in a role-playing game? But if all the world's a stage, isn't that just life? So clearly we can gain wisdom through playing roles in games.
If you are struggling to be a well-functioning person: that is a struggle I sympathise with deeply. It is hard to be well-functioning in such an absurd world as this. Almost everyone is almost entirely wrong almost all the time. Yet things somehow work anyway.
At the moment, my torturous existence consists of "organising my notes." I am putting together a damn notes app that isn't shit, so I can put my thoughts into a computer in a better way than Markdown text and make a personal website. And I'd love to write a longer comment here about ways of being and this scaling wisdom problem, but my laptop is running out of battery and I need to recharge. I feel like there are so many things competing for my attention that I just need to wind down a bit and make sure I'm not crazy.
Hopefully I'll be done with that in a couple weeks and I can get onto the interesting stuff. I've been quite impressed with Lumo, Proton's AI, to the point where normal search now feels impoverished.
The immensity of the frustration I feel when I look at the state of software today cannot be overstated. I just want one good, non-shit program. It'll be helpful for both writing and life admin and a lot of other crap. It will help organise information for a human on a computer. This is what I'm spending my battery on at the moment because I believe it will lead to a much more organised approach to digitising my notes, writing articles, essays, and even videos and audio. It will help me be a better person, I believe. Then, of course, I wish to share that experience with you and with everyone.
It seems like evolution could have programmed us to listen to those most like us (our parents usually?) but instead made us seek to mimic those with high status.
There's actually plenty evidence suggesting babies and children pay more attention to those more similar to them. But status is also a really useful proxy (Joseph Henrich talks about this)
Are you saying status is a proxy for self similarity? Or just that kids also mimic status?Anyway, my understanding is that babies mimic parents and then teenagers switch to mimicking status. No?
No that's not what I'm saying. There's a lot of different types of cues that babies and children pay attention to. Similarity cues (gender, skin color, etc), success cues (happy, popular), skill cues
It would be mighty convenient if, as well as our ancestors' physical things, we could also inherit their wisdom as if a physical thing.
Unfortunately, it appears that wisdom is usually gained through some kind of suffering: while one may not know the future in detail, it is wisdom if you can see what kinds of things will maybe generally turn out well for you and which things probably won't.
This problem, the transfer of wisdom, is one I think about a lot. If it was personality that was all, then the Dalai Lama boy reincarnation would be sufficient, but wisdom appears to be only reliably transferred by personal suffering. In an ideal world, we would like to minimise suffering, but it appears that some amount is necessary or we won't know how to create an ideal world. And the transfer of wisdom is largely what is lacking in today's society as we lose the knowledge of how to build things in the real world.
Returning to the topic, it would be wonderful if we could have such a practical connection with past lives and thus gain their wisdom without introducing any new suffering. I think that's a potential of videogames, for people with empathy. Can we gain in our Wisdom attribute by playing the right role in a role-playing game? But if all the world's a stage, isn't that just life? So clearly we can gain wisdom through playing roles in games.
If you are struggling to be a well-functioning person: that is a struggle I sympathise with deeply. It is hard to be well-functioning in such an absurd world as this. Almost everyone is almost entirely wrong almost all the time. Yet things somehow work anyway.
At the moment, my torturous existence consists of "organising my notes." I am putting together a damn notes app that isn't shit, so I can put my thoughts into a computer in a better way than Markdown text and make a personal website. And I'd love to write a longer comment here about ways of being and this scaling wisdom problem, but my laptop is running out of battery and I need to recharge. I feel like there are so many things competing for my attention that I just need to wind down a bit and make sure I'm not crazy.
Hopefully I'll be done with that in a couple weeks and I can get onto the interesting stuff. I've been quite impressed with Lumo, Proton's AI, to the point where normal search now feels impoverished.
The immensity of the frustration I feel when I look at the state of software today cannot be overstated. I just want one good, non-shit program. It'll be helpful for both writing and life admin and a lot of other crap. It will help organise information for a human on a computer. This is what I'm spending my battery on at the moment because I believe it will lead to a much more organised approach to digitising my notes, writing articles, essays, and even videos and audio. It will help me be a better person, I believe. Then, of course, I wish to share that experience with you and with everyone.