- Fake reductionism is a subset of fake explanations
- With a fake reduction, you do not actually have the decomposition of the phenomenon you’re looking at - you only know that it has been decomposed
- It’s been explained by “science”, but you don’t know the explanation
- The reason that people feel a sense of existential emptiness after phenomena have been explained by science is because they don’t have the scientific explanation in their minds - they have nothing
- The easy way to counteract this is to avoid using “it’s been explained” as a stop-sign for inquiry
- If it’s been explained, what’s the explanation?
- Just because it’s been explained by science doesn’t mean it’s boring
- Equations are interesting, but they don’t have the same level of drama that legends and religion do
- Fiction should be about humans, not about natural phenomena explained by science
- Humanity needs a new set of “Great Stories” which take into account the fact that we’re not pre-civilization beings sitting around a campfire
- Every awkward conversation that Nate has had has actually turned out to be helpful
- What are the signs of a forbidden conversation
- Pausing to remember which specific version of yourself you should show to the person you’re having the conversation with
- When the idea of having the conversation feels bad
- The best way to deal with having forbidden coversations is to steer towards them
- Notice the aversion and train yourself to feel enjoyment in overcoming it
- Remember the enjoyment you feel when you overcome aversion and use it as a reward for next time
- How do we mine regrets for useful tools?
- Don’t think about what you should have done
- Think about how you should have thought
- Think about the process that led you to the action that you took
- 2 options when looking at past regrets
- Mistake was unavoidable - you made the best decision that you could have under the circumstances
- There was an error in your pattern of thinking that you can fix or have already fixed
- Either you fix your pattern of thinking or you accept the error as unavoidable - there’s no gain in “if only” thinking
- Once you realize that you could have avoided regrets by thinking differently, you can ask yourself if you could have avoided mistakes pre-emptively by changing your pattern of thinking ahead of time
- This leads to applied rationality - change your thinking ahead of time to avoid mistakes
- Aversive memories, used in this fashion, aren’t traps, they’re valuable resources that show you where you can improve your patterns of thinking