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All of warrenjordan's Comments + Replies

Using ChatGPT for memory reconsolidation?
warrenjordan5mo20

Cool! I actually tried out another IFS bot recently if you’re not aware already.

https://ifs-therapist.vercel.app/

Third Time: a better way to work
warrenjordan2y1

Thanks for clarifying! Makes sense to me now.

Third Time: a better way to work
warrenjordan2y1

My first day experimenting with this and had a question.

I worked for 90 min and went to lunch, which I usually take 60 min. However, I only earned 30 min of break assuming a ratio of 3.

I have back-to-back meetings for 2 hours after my lunch break. How much break time should I have after those meetings, since I took an extended lunch break?

Is it 40 min (120/3) or 10 min (40 min earned after 2 hour meetings - 30 min past earned break time due to lunch break)?

Or something else?

2bfinn2y
40 mins. Extended meal breaks use up/cancel any previously earned break time, so the afternoon session starts from scratch. (Hence there's no need to time the work stint just before an extended meal break, as the break you earned is ignored.) I'm not sure this is unclear in my post, but if you still think it is I'll change it somehow! Or maybe if I add an example that might help clarify.
How to generate idea/solutions to solve a problem?
warrenjordan2y1

Ah, I've heard of this method before but never tried it. 

Wondering if you had any recommended resources for using this for software innovation? 

2GuySrinivasan2y
This was all right -ish, replacing the very physical principles. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2432096 Not inspired but fine to try. This is a copy of a format I used with my team: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1guFRreqNUS6JUauBpWumCYoWilWorbkcnpBIg-yVJKQ/edit?usp=sharing It worked decently well for generating very new ideas. I'm not sure I recommend either of them, but they're fine.
Effectiveness of Moderna booster shot and mix-and-match?
warrenjordan2y1

This is great, thanks! 

Was wondering if you knew of any sources of how efficacy wanes over time (or persists) for two-doses of Moderna? I'm not actually sure if I do need a booster since I have no clue what baseline I'm working with. 

2Weekend Editor2y
The evidence on vaccine efficacy waning is somewhat confusing to me! On the one hand: Some of the initial data on waning from Israel (using Pfizer) was hopelessly confounded with age, leading to a huge Simpson's paradox effect. Once you (a) figure out the Bayes error (they calculated Pr(vax | hospitalization) when they really wanted Pr(hospitalization | vax)), (b) properly stratify by age, and (c) calculate confidence limits on vaccine efficacy, the effect goes away. On the other hand: Later Israeli data presented at the Moderna booster hearing cleaned that up and showed there was a waning effect. Moderna did something similar with their vaccine, comparing the people in the treatment arm of their clinical trial vs those in the control arm who got the vaccine 6 months later when it read out, showing a waning effect between those 2 carefully matched groups with known distributions of age, race, gender, etc. On the gripping hand: Both of those show the onset of "waning" coincident with the onset of the Delta variant, i.e., last summer. So was it really waning, or was it Delta? I can't tell. They show a waning effect with respect to initial infection, but continued robust protection against hospitalization (still 85-90%). That could be normal: * Antibodies do decrease with time. You're not carrying huge blood levels of antibodies for every virus you've ever encountered thus far in your life. * But T-cells and memory B-cells are still there. When an antigen from a previous infection is presented to the relevant memory B-cells, they trigger production of antibodies which then stop the infection. That way you can be technically infected for a couple days while that happens, but be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, and quickly clear the infection. So it might be that we're just seeing antibodies fade, but which rapidly come back upon re-challenge with the virus. On the (unnamed) fourth hand: I looked at a recent study by Townsend et al. at the Yale
Anyone been through IFS or coherence therapy?
warrenjordan3y1

Yes, my father passed when I was young, almost 20 years ago. I started therapy only last year as I became aware of the schemas (e.g. pursuing grand accomplishments to relieve/prevent feelings of emptiness reminiscent of his passing) that have been affecting my QoL. There may be other schemas I could be unaware of as well, but the pattern I see is that they revolve around my father's passing. 

Therapy has been great, however I've experienced greater effects through "self-therapy" using a combination of IFS, coherence and Focusing. 

Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality
warrenjordan3y4

Scott's post reminded of memory reconsolidation. It seems to me that a "trapped prior" is similar to an "emotional schema" (not sure if that's the right term from UtEB). 

If one can be aware of their schema or trapped prior, then there seems to be a higher chance of iterating upon it. However, it's probably not that simple to iterate even if you are aware of it. 

Notes on Attention
warrenjordan3y2

I found the distinctions between the terms for attention helpful, as well as techniques to cultivate one’s attention.

For me, I still find the differences between mindfulness and awareness elusive. I’m not sure if I comprehend the difference.

For example, let’s say I go for a hike and at the summit, I gaze upon a vast, lush mountain range. What is someone doing to practice mindfulness at that moment. What about when they are practicing awareness?

My guess would be that if they are practicing mindfulness, they are “tuning” to their senses: seeing the colors, t... (read more)

1Anya Liebendörfer3y
From my understanding, the difference is in how much interpretation work you do. For mindfulness, you are trying to get at the raw sensation. There is no mountain range or forest, there is only the beautiful imagery in front of you. You actively try to inhibit any kind of pattern-recognition that abstracts away what you see and ideally see the trees for the forest. Whereas awareness is allowing the pattern-recognition to function, in such a way that you notice when something is unusual. An aware person would notice a deer in the forest, and not get distracted by the different trees.
How to practice rationality?
warrenjordan3y1

What works for you to cultivate rational thinking, if you are not doing rationality exercises? 

2Viliam3y
I have no hard data to prove that my rational thinking is improving, so maybe it isn't. But here are the things I am trying recently: Reduce the social media: I almost stopped reading Reddit, and there are days when I don't use Facebook. Now my major distraction is Hacker News, but I try to reduce that, too. I downloaded and read a few textbooks, mostly on math. The idea is that if I am curious about something, e.g. set theory, it is more efficient to get the fundamentals right first, and only then proceed to more controversial parts. (Here, the rational thing is not the information I get from the textbook per se, but rather the habit to look at the textbook first.) I tried to meditate again... but this was only a week or two ago, so no results to report yet. (The expected benefit is to be able to focus better and reduce distracting thoughts.)