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A few years ago I started undertaking practices to let go of emotional attachments, which I discovered after a lengthy and difficult period trying to figure out
by tomhoward 3y ago
A few years ago I started undertaking practices to let go of emotional attachments, which I discovered after a lengthy and difficult period trying to figure out how to overcome some major life challenges.
I’ve been doing these practices consistently now for about 11 years. Even after all that time, I’m not at all free of emotional attachments; I’m working through some very deep career-related ones right now. But that’s by the by.
One of the things you start to learn when you spend enough time doing this work is that people’s emotional attachments are way more powerful than people’s ability to reason and see logic.
One you see it, you can’t unsee it. I now notice it all the time, in journalism, on Twitter, on podcasts, here on HN, and anywhere contentious topics are being discussed, people who are regarded as being as “rational” and “scientific” in their worldview will routinely argue positions that are logically absurd but they won’t be able to see it, due to their emotional attachment to the conclusion. And often their interviewer or debating parter – even if they’re somewhat in opposition – won’t notice and call them out on it because they have the same attachment to the position.
I’ve come to believe that science and logic really doesn’t hold much sway in society at all; we have positions/conclusions that are largely predetermined via people’s egos and emotional attachments, then scientific data is cherry-picked to form a "rationalisation" that feels just valid enough to pass under people's radar.
- jdog1076 3y agoDo you mind referencing the specific practices?
- MaxHoppersGhost 3y agoVery well said. What’s sad is how hard it is to get people to recognize they’re doing this, and no one thinks they do it heven though everyone is guilty of it. I don’t know what the answer is but it’s destroying society’s trust.
- krainboltgreene 3y ago[flagged]
- _ywdj 3y agoI'm not "stoic" or much into any other "ism", and don't particularly align with many other people in "STEM" fields. The practices I've discovered came after many years of experiencing debilitating emotional and physical pain, which is now mostly resolved, though not completely, hence the ongoing work. That it's common for people to be influenced more by cognitive biases and other emotional patterns than logic is not exactly a novel or controversial notion, but it's easily forgotten, particularly by people who self-describe as "rationalist" (which I very much don't). Anyway, I frequent HN in the hope of avoiding sneery comments like this one, which seems to break the guidelines.
- krainboltgreene 3y agoYou should take an half an hour out of your time to watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSvKNNtkUSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSvKNNtkUSU
- _ywdj 3y agoOk I watched it, thanks. I’m not sure if it is meant to make me aware of anything I wasn’t already aware of, but for the record, I’ve spent much of the past 10+ years thinking about the pros and cons of this work and wrestling with the risks/pitfalls she describes (as well as eschewing stoicism for pretty much those reasons). One of the biggest changes from doing this work is that I’ve become less repressed and more compassionate and emotionally available, as well as being more committed to working to overcome societal injustice and dysfunction.
- travisjungroth 3y ago> I’ve come to believe that science and logic really doesn’t hold much sway in society at all Not directly. It's not like our politicians are having better discussions than the Ancient Greeks. We have satellites though, so that's cool. Math, science, all that, they don't have much power just through words. They need an avenue like technology to get leverage. Cure polio or make a billion dollars trading securities. Then you have some sway.
- lukeholder 3y agoI think it’s just all just a replacement for religion. For some reason everyone longs for meaning.
- Balgair 3y agoI'm reminded of this DFW quote: "Here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."
- rdtsc 3y agoPeople who believe themselves to be more intelligent than others have an easier time rationalizing anything just to maintain that image. It’s just arrogance in my view. One way to detect this is to see how many public apologies, corrections, withdrawals, opinion reversals they have done in public. There aren’t too many front page news that sound like “Shit, I guess I was wrong about my position, I apologize for my condescending comments…”