Decibel #8
Here’s some things from around the internet I consumed this week and found interesting:
Below, find some of my thoughts.
1. Decibel
First, an informational two minutes about the decibel and physics.
Second, why this blog is called “Decibel”.
When I was an undergrad at Caltech, I made a group of friend who enjoyed playing the N64 edition of Super Smash Bros. The group had a propensity for wacky nicknames, including the likes of Dr. Zero, Snu (señor negative uno), Skoi, and Advil. I was given the name Decibel, after my propensity for loud exclamations. The name stuck and I liked it enough for this blog.
2. Looking Back on My Alignment PhD
I was reading a retrospective of someone’s (not mine) PhD and found this particular habit to be a both interesting and novel to me.
Other helpful habits I picked up
I’m not really sure where these two habits go, so I’ll put them here. I wish I’d had these skills in 2018.
Distinguish between observations and inferences. When people speak to you, mark their arguments as observations or as inferences. Keep the types separate. I’ve gained so much from this simple practice.
Here are two cases I’ve recently found where people seem to mistake the folk wisdom for observation:
- “People often say they’re afraid to die” is an observation, and “people are hard-wired to be afraid of death” is an inference.
- “I often feel ‘curiosity’ and some kind of exploration-impulse” is an observation, and “people are innately curious” is an inference.
The author doesn’t expand too much on how exactly it’s been helpful beyond “gained so much”, but I’m curious in what concrete ways this practice would be helpful. It’s an easy enough thing to practice, and as far as mental models or ways of thinking goes, pretty harmless, so I’ll likely try it a bit and see what happens.
Distinguishing between observations and inferences is a specific type of awareness, so I would expect this to be useful in ways that awareness is useful. You can’t respond to things you don’t notice, so becoming aware of something grants agency. This is good.
Maybe disagreements become less… convoluted? If I can tell if the disagreement stems from a difference in sight or thought, maybe that leads to more clear communication. Or maybe it cleans up conversation in way that makes it easier to treat the other with charity.
Later on in the comments section, while answering a question asking for tips on becoming unstuck on problems, the author mentions another technique that I find quite amusing:
- Pretend I’m smarter and see what happens
At first glance I just laughed. How silly! But then… maybe? Like maybe this could actually work? I briefly imagined using this and now I’m just set on actually trying it.
3. WAKE UP! by Anthony de Mello
This talk has some interesting ideas and some entertaining parables.
[1:53] The Jewish rabbi who had served God faithfully all his life and he said one day to God, “God I have been a devout worshiper, and I have kept the law as best I could, and I’ve been a good Jew, now I’m old and I need some help; let me win the lottery.
He prayed and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed and one month went by and two and three and five and a whole year went by and three years went by.
And the man in desperation one day said, “God give me a break! And God said give me a break yourself! Buy a ticket!”
(quotes autogenerated and partially corrected by me — timestamps in case you want to listen to the actual words)
[11:10] Monks and scholars must not accept my words out of respect but must analyze them the way a goldsmith analyzes gold by rubbing, scraping, cutting, and melting.
And so I will rub and scrape a bit below. These are my musings, not to be taken has solid convictions, but as someone poking at the ideas to see what is there.
[18:58] How would it be that one person would react in one way another in another to the same stimulus? That has something to do with your programming.
…
[23:19] Imagine you’re waiting in a line for a ticket and somebody breaks the line. Can you imagine how crazy it is that because someone has misbehaved you’re going to punish yourself. It’s like taking a sledgehammer and hitting yourself on the head; you’re going to get angry; you’re going to let your blood pressure go up; you’re going to lose your sleep; this is crazy!! And everybody says it’s normal! Well they’re all lunatics that’s all.
I’ve been thinking about this one for a few years and I have to say it’s helped me interact with people that annoy me.
First, I notice that I am annoyed. Then I try to see that there could be another person in my shoes who would not be annoyed. With those thoughts held at the same time, I realize that I am choosing to be annoyed. I’m choosing to be disturbed.
It certainly doesn’t work everywhere, but it works with annoying bosses and traffic jams. It also doesn’t work immediately with full success— after all, it’s your brain’s wiring, the conditioning that’s lending you these thoughts. It takes time to rewire.
[1:20:43] Falling in love is the exact opposite of love.
Falling in love is about developing a strong attachment to someone. Someone whom you feel you cannot live without. When you have that kind of attachment, you no longer can see them for who they really are. You are no longer free in front of them. Your happiness depends on them. That is not reality.
This feels… mostly true? I’ve never fallen in love the way the romantic “falling in love” works, so maybe I just don’t know, but it seems to me that being hopelessly attached to someone and deeply full of romantic love for someone are pretty different. It’s the later I’m attracted to.
[1:27:34] When you have an infatuation, an attachment, an addiction, an obsession with a human being… your heart is no longer sensitive.
I’m sympathetic to this in two ways. First, there is the straightforward obsession. Love is a freedom; attachment ties you down. Second, I think we can create our own image of who someone is, then spend our days interacting with that image instead of the actual person. And that image doesn’t have to be a positive infatuation or a full image — often we can build up partial negative images of someone, using those to interact with instead of the real human in front of us.
This language I’m using is a little wishy-washy, which I don’t enjoy, but I definitely have a real felt sense that I’ve built up an image of someone and treated them using that image rather than Seeing them.
[1:15:22] Here’s another surprise: love is not desire. I desire you with all my heart, you know, in as much as I love you, I do not desire you. I enjoy you thoroughly; but I’m too full to need you. It’s like when you come, you’re so enjoyable. And when you leave, I’m not at all miserable…
… I’m full and if you are full too how marvelous that is
This reminds me of a conversation I had with an ex-girlfriend about our understandings of what “miss you” meant.
When I say I miss someone (girlfriend or not), I’m acknowledging that I enjoy their physical presence. It’s a statement of attraction. It’s not an expression of a pain I feel when they are gone. Turns out, not everyone uses it this way. It also turns out that the pain of someone being gone is something I haven’t often felt. I used to think that I just hadn’t loved someone deep enough yet, but maybe it’s the opposite? Maybe because there is some sort of deeper love that I’m secure and able to live happily when they are not with me.
So, that story told, I’m partial to Tony’s explanation, admitting that it fits into my natural way of thinking about love in this context.
Feel free to subscribe via RSS too.