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Reasons to not buy the book: 1. I am a scientist. This sure doesn't seem like science to me. Reasons to buy the book: 1. I am too ignorant to be pessimistic

• ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  Ha! I'm flattered; hope it works for you. On the science question, I'd be interested to read more about the science of motivation. It seems intuitive that reading the same thing over and over would tend to reinforce it in your mind. Isn't that the basis for propaganda and brainwashing in general? However, intuition and science are often orthogonal, so some hard data would be interesting.
  • revorad 16y ago
    The brainiacs at LessWrong have been thinking, discussing and arguing about akrasia for a long time - http://lesswrong.com/tag/akrasia/ http://lesswrong.com/tag/akrasia/. You will find some references to scientific studies and data there. Sounds like a very difficult nut to crack.
    • lionhearted 16y ago
      Regular LessWrong reader, infrequent LW contributor here. I think the problem with akrasia is it's a lot like "being sick" - if you call your physician on the phone and say, "I'm sick" he won't be able to really help you without further diagnosis. Seems like akrasia could be any one of a couple dozen things (fear of failure, fear of success, habit, chemical addiction, many more things). We're not at a point in anti-akrasia/rationality/motivation/etc to be able to accurately diagnose and treat all of the causes of it. I think we'll get there, though. Someday. Quite a ways off. But progress is being made. In the meantime, I'll second Ryan's recommendation for the book. It's good.
      • yters 16y ago
        We also may just not be able to fix it. Some things we just can't do, regardless of our science and engineering. For example, we are the most prosperous civilization in history, yet we have record rates of suicide and unhappiness compared to more "backward" civilizations. In fact, the 20th century has been the most horrific in the history of the world, yet it was also the most advanced. If akrasia is something we can "fix," why haven't we fixed it by now? Surely not for lack of trying.
        • jodrellblank 16y ago
          I don't see much evidence of trying, and where I do see evidence of trying I see a lot of "fixing". I see Buddhists and meditators fix their problem of "I want to do something but can't make myself do it" by erasing the "want" part, I see disciplinarians and organisers strengthening their ability to make themselves do things and meditators and organisers reduce the obstacles in their way of doing things. How many people do you know who have one or two self help books which they read (or partly read) but didn't really act on? Does that count as trying? How many schools and colleges and night schools do you know which have courses in "curing yourself of procrastination"? Any? It still seems very much stuck in the past, like natural philosophers talking about phlogiston. Some self help techniques work, but finding which you click with and doing them right and keeping trying until you get results and avoiding the dross and doing so while not being affected by whatever problems you have that you want to change isn't a simple thing and people generally don't seem to "try hard" at it (in the right ways).
• DevX101 16y ago
  I am a scientist. This sure doesn't seem like science to me. I'm not an expert in self-motivation so I don't know if there are placebo controlled randomized experiments to test effectiveness of self-motivation, but it seems like a reasonable and testable hypothesis that there are some real cognitive effects. We know that athletes exhibit "muscle memory" where after prolonged repetition of a physical motion there are real changes that occur in the brain to make future repetitions sub-conscious, i.e. "being in the zone". I suppose there could be an analagous system for higher order cognitive processes.
  • fleitz 16y ago
    Given that the placebo effect is real, why not just use a placebo. Sure, this book may not be better than a placebo, but it's $8. If you get any positive effect at all it's probably worth it.
    • ma2rten 16y ago
      This book requires you to do something for 3 time everyday for a year. That time is probably wroth a lot more than $8. So, I'd say some proof wouldn't be asked too much.
      • hugh3 16y ago
        Like most diet plans, this is one of those things which is very difficult to prove in the general case and quite easy to test for the individual. If you think it might work you can try it for a couple of weeks and see if it has any noticeable effects. If it does, that's well and good; if it doesn't, big deal. Now, from my point of view the idea that something like this could work is quite plausible. Repeat something to yourself often enough and you'll start to believe it? Sure, that sounds like the kind of thing that the human brain is just dumb enough to fall for. Personally I wouldn't do it in this precise form. Repeat that passage to yourself and you'll feel silly. For starters, it's written in pseudo-archaic English words which the author doesn't actually understand. "I will be liken to"? That isn't even a sensible grammatical construction.
  • 16y ago
• akkartik 16y ago
  What does it mean that the book is not scientific? It's just a tool. Is a spade scientific? You only need scientific method to organize observations. There are no observations here. There's nothing scientific about 'discipline', but it's still useful.
  • natep 16y ago
    The approach taken in writing the book was not scientific. There were no studies to determine if the phrases and methodology actually work better than a placebo (whatever that would be...lorem ipsum?). It's possible that this approach is no better than anything else, and it only seems to have a positive effect on people because it's what they happened to be doing. Not being scientific doesn't mean it doesn't work. Plenty of tools and techniques have been invented and developed without science that turn out to be effective when subjected to scientific analysis (example: many plants used for medicinal purposes). It seems to me, though, that many more turn out to be hogwash (examples: many plants used for medicinal purposes, blood-letting, homeopathy, prayer-as-treatment). In short, P(tool developed w/ science is effective) > P(tool developed w/o science is effective), and I don't know of a methodology more effective than science for determining the effectiveness of a tool or technique.
    • akkartik 16y ago
      P(tool developed w/ science is effective) > P(tool developed w/o science is effective) Agreed, but there was no claim to science, at least from the description. To me the original article seemed to air an opinion. Asking 'where's the science?' is akin to asking for proof, which makes no sense when we're discussing opinions. To me, "it's unproven" is just unfavorable opinion without articulating reasons. So I don't think it should get a vote in edw's comment :) (upvoted you, btw. You were at -1. Downvoting such a high-quality comment is a classic example of voting by agreement. I think I'm going to start a site highlighting the stupidest votes on HN everyday..)
      • natep 16y ago
        > You were at -1 Thanks. This isn't the first time I've made a thoughtful reply to a "science isn't important" comment. The last time, my comment didn't get as many upvotes as its parent, so I'm not too surprised that my comment wasn't received well this time, either. To you, "it's unproven" is not a valid reason for rejecting this book. But it is a valid reason for many other people, especially since it takes a great deal of commitment to use this (unproven) tool. Full disclosure, I just bought the book :) Would still really like to see it proven effective by science, but am not putting the burden of proof on anyone in particular (original author is dead) nor holding my breath.
• Methos 16y ago
  Actually I haven't read much of Ryan's blog/comments to make any opinion about him. But I definitely know that edw519 makes many interesting, informative comments on hn. And if he believes in Ryan's judgement, so will I.
• ianb 16y ago
  It's not science, it's engineering.
  • jonhendry 16y ago
    Ummm, no. I'm really happy that bridges are built using more rigor than is found in self-help books.
• gcheong 16y ago
  What weights are you assigning to each or your reasons that the sum of the 2 reasons "for" outweigh the 1 reason against?
  • marchdown 16y ago
    By the power of anthropic principle, AKA naïve reasoning, I call upon the practice of double-counting my evidence and gain a BOOK.
• FooBarWidget 16y ago
  Follow some psychology courses and then review your assertion that it doesn't seem like science. From a behavioral and cognitive view of psychology, gaining motivation from passages in the book is comparable to observed learning. If the motivation one gains from reading the book results in positive results then according to contingency conditioning theory it should result in reinforcement of the behavior, thereby producing an upward spiral. The book probably also influences humans' by altering their beliefs and therefore perceptions during top-down processing of information. From a biomedical view of psychology, reading a passage 1000 times probably alters your brain structure in significant enough ways that it alters your motivational attitudes. I think that if you put people who read the book in an fMRI scanner you'll see some difference compared to control people.
• madair 16y ago
  >> I am a scientist. This sure doesn't seem like science to me. maybe it's nietzsche or one of the romanticists you should start with then