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I want someone to try building a variant that just gives you timely cues about generally good mental health practices. Suggestions could be contextually based o

by abeppu 1y ago

I want someone to try building a variant that just gives you timely cues about generally good mental health practices. Suggestions could be contextually based on a local-only app that listens to you and your environment, and delivered to a wireless earbud. When you're in a situation that might cause you stress, it reminds you to take some deep breaths. When you're in a situation where you might be tempted to react with hostility, it suggests that you pause for a few seconds. When you've been sitting in front of your computer too long it suggests that maybe you'd like to go for a short walk. If the moral of the story is that having access to magically good advice is dangerous because it shifts us to habitual obedience ... can a similar device shift us to mental habits that are actually good for us?

ryandv 1y ago
The moral of the story is that neocortical facilities (vaguely corresponding to what distinguishes modern humans) depend on free will. If you want to merely enthral yourself to voices of the gods a la Julian Jaynes' bicameral man, you can, but this is a regression to a prior stage of humanity's development - away from egoic, free willed man, and backwards to more of a reactive automaton, merely a servant of (possibly digital) gods.
- abeppu 1y ago
  I think there's a meaningful difference between a tool to remind oneself to take a beat before speaking vs being told what to say. For example, cues that help you avoid an impulsive reaction of anger I think is a step away from being a reactive automaton.
  - ryandv 1y ago
    Anger is just another aspect of the human condition, and is absolutely justified in cases of grave injustice (case in point: Nazis, racism). It's not for some earring to decide when it is justly applied and when it is not; that is the prerogative of humanity. In either case none of this cueing or prompting needs to be exogenous or originate from some external technology. The Eastern mystics have developed totally endogenous psychotechnologies that serve this same purpose, without the need to atrophy your psyche.
    - abeppu 1y ago
      Absolutely anger is sometimes justified. But people are also angry when e.g. someone cuts them off in traffic. The initial feeling of anger may not be appropriate. A cue to help you avoid reacting immediately from hostility isn't so much deciding whether anger is appropriate but giving you the space to make that judgement reflectively rather than impulsively. Even if anger is appropriate, the action you want to take on reflection may not be the first one that arises. "The eastern mystics" managed to do a lot of things, but often with a large amount of dedicated practice. Extremely practiced meditators can also reach intense states of concentration, equanimity etc, but the fact that it's not strictly necessary to have supportive tools to develop these skills doesn't mean that supportive tooling wouldn't help a lot of people.
      - throwanem 1y ago
        It is strictly necessary not to have supportive tools in order to develop these skills. Sentience and the ability to learn from experience are all that is essentially required. Past that there are no crutches and no shortcuts, because you have mistaken for disability the refusal to grow.
      - ryandv 1y ago
        > the fact that it's not strictly necessary to have supportive tools to develop these skills doesn't mean that supportive tooling wouldn't help a lot of people. I would posit that the only faculty developed in wielding such supportive tooling, is skill at using those tools; when the real goal is the cultivation of character, the construction of a "virtual engine" [0] that governs action. Consider analogously that brain training apps' claims to improve general intelligence are specious at best, and don't seem to develop anything other than the ability to use the app. Since, in the case of the earring, this virtual governor has already been outsourced to an external entity, there is no need to cultivate one for one's self. Not only does this miss out on the personal development attained in said process, it also risks enthralling you to a construct of someone else's design; and one should choose carefully at which pantheon they pour libations, for its value systems might not always align with one's own. [0] https://www.meaningcrisis.co/episode-6-aristotle-kant-and-evolution/ https://www.meaningcrisis.co/episode-6-aristotle-kant-and-ev...
  - patcon 1y ago
    My sensibility is that agency is about "noticing". The content of information seems perhaps less important than the attention allocation mechanism that brings our attention to something. If you write all your own words, but without an ability to direct your attention to what needed words conjured around it, did you really do anything important at all? (Yes, that's perhaps controversial :) )
Barrin92 1y ago
>can a similar device shift us to mental habits I think the moral of the story is that instead of reaching for something to "shift you" start doing the shifting. You are a living mind, rather than asking for some device to affect you, assert your own will. Don't avoid stress and conflict, embrace it, that's life. This instinctive demand for some therapeutic, external helper is what's wrong in the story, people craving to be put into passivity. This need not even be a technology, The moral version of this could be some priest lecturing you on good and evil, some paternalistic boss making your decisions for you, the crux here is submission, being acted upon rather than actively embracing your own nature.

by abeppu 1y ago

ryandv 1y ago

The moral of the story is that neocortical facilities (vaguely corresponding to what distinguishes modern humans) depend on free will. If you want to merely enthral yourself to voices of the gods a la Julian Jaynes' bicameral man, you can, but this is a regression to a prior stage of humanity's development - away from egoic, free willed man, and backwards to more of a reactive automaton, merely a servant of (possibly digital) gods.

abeppu 1y ago
I think there's a meaningful difference between a tool to remind oneself to take a beat before speaking vs being told what to say. For example, cues that help you avoid an impulsive reaction of anger I think is a step away from being a reactive automaton.
- ryandv 1y ago
  Anger is just another aspect of the human condition, and is absolutely justified in cases of grave injustice (case in point: Nazis, racism). It's not for some earring to decide when it is justly applied and when it is not; that is the prerogative of humanity. In either case none of this cueing or prompting needs to be exogenous or originate from some external technology. The Eastern mystics have developed totally endogenous psychotechnologies that serve this same purpose, without the need to atrophy your psyche.
  - abeppu 1y ago
    Absolutely anger is sometimes justified. But people are also angry when e.g. someone cuts them off in traffic. The initial feeling of anger may not be appropriate. A cue to help you avoid reacting immediately from hostility isn't so much deciding whether anger is appropriate but giving you the space to make that judgement reflectively rather than impulsively. Even if anger is appropriate, the action you want to take on reflection may not be the first one that arises. "The eastern mystics" managed to do a lot of things, but often with a large amount of dedicated practice. Extremely practiced meditators can also reach intense states of concentration, equanimity etc, but the fact that it's not strictly necessary to have supportive tools to develop these skills doesn't mean that supportive tooling wouldn't help a lot of people.
    - throwanem 1y ago
      It is strictly necessary not to have supportive tools in order to develop these skills. Sentience and the ability to learn from experience are all that is essentially required. Past that there are no crutches and no shortcuts, because you have mistaken for disability the refusal to grow.
    - ryandv 1y ago
      > the fact that it's not strictly necessary to have supportive tools to develop these skills doesn't mean that supportive tooling wouldn't help a lot of people. I would posit that the only faculty developed in wielding such supportive tooling, is skill at using those tools; when the real goal is the cultivation of character, the construction of a "virtual engine" [0] that governs action. Consider analogously that brain training apps' claims to improve general intelligence are specious at best, and don't seem to develop anything other than the ability to use the app. Since, in the case of the earring, this virtual governor has already been outsourced to an external entity, there is no need to cultivate one for one's self. Not only does this miss out on the personal development attained in said process, it also risks enthralling you to a construct of someone else's design; and one should choose carefully at which pantheon they pour libations, for its value systems might not always align with one's own. [0] https://www.meaningcrisis.co/episode-6-aristotle-kant-and-evolution/ https://www.meaningcrisis.co/episode-6-aristotle-kant-and-ev...
- patcon 1y ago
  My sensibility is that agency is about "noticing". The content of information seems perhaps less important than the attention allocation mechanism that brings our attention to something. If you write all your own words, but without an ability to direct your attention to what needed words conjured around it, did you really do anything important at all? (Yes, that's perhaps controversial :) )

Barrin92 1y ago

>can a similar device shift us to mental habits I think the moral of the story is that instead of reaching for something to "shift you" start doing the shifting. You are a living mind, rather than asking for some device to affect you, assert your own will. Don't avoid stress and conflict, embrace it, that's life. This instinctive demand for some therapeutic, external helper is what's wrong in the story, people craving to be put into passivity. This need not even be a technology, The moral version of this could be some priest lecturing you on good and evil, some paternalistic boss making your decisions for you, the crux here is submission, being acted upon rather than actively embracing your own nature.