guitar player's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Frugalchicos
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Frugalchicos »

Thanks for the website recommendation https://sites.google.com/site/thestoiclife/Home

I used to be very into stoicism a couple of years ago, but it has been a while since I don’t read anything about it. Do you have any book recommendation? Ideally, something that is not dense and makes you go to sleep lol :)

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Viktor K
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Viktor K »

so interesting reading about the stoic workbook you’re reading. what you mention matches almost word for word with the concepts in the books i’m reading now.

it can be fun and uncomfortable. but i’ve really embraced seeing it as a challenge and it’s helping my come out of isolation.

each change you do builds new synapses and reinforced existing ones. some things are already easier after a couple weeks. i’m excited and happy for your own growth in whatever areas you choose to focus on

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

@Frugalchicos

Well, citing from the website's section recommended reading
Both The Stoic Art of Living (Tom Morris) and Guide to the Good Life (William Irvine) provide a general introduction for some Stoic ideas by bringing out popular themes into a modern context, leaving out any real rigor or challenging life adjustment. Nevertheless, they appeal to the majority of people looking for a Chicken Soup for the Stoic Soul approach to life.
Both DW and I read Guide to the Good Life and enjoyed it. It will be a quick read. Irvine also has a book called 'Slap in the Face' and that one blends pop-Stoicism with some findings from Psychology.

I like Pigliucci, he wrote extensively on Stoicism in books and online! He is an academic (but not an ancient philosophy one: biology and philosophy of science) and his style has a hint of it as well.

I am now reading 'On Mercy' be Seneca and although the language is dated (or maybe just richer compared to the simple language we all use today), it dawned on me that Seneca wrote it to the emperor Nero when Nero was a teenager. So, it should match this sort of comprehension / life experience level once the linguistic barrier is no issue. Source texts are generally quite approachable once one gets used to the style.

@Viktor K

Yes, good ethical standards for emergent movement design, these concepts. I am glad they work for you!

Thanks for your kind words and your advice in the past re learning and career choices!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2022 update 28/52

Job

In a dramatic turn of events, my current line manager got promoted and now is looking for somebody to replace her. Needless to say, she would like to see me in the post! Then she would remain my line manager, but I would become a manager, too. I already set my mind on the new life track so this will most likely not work for me. That said, she and I had a good lengthy chat about work, life, and the future. It matters, leaving on good terms.

Still waiting for details of site and work-from-home arrangement for the new post.

Reading

Read Kurt Lewin's 'Cultural Reconstruction' and 'The Background of Conflict in Marriage' (the title lured me), as well as Seneca's 'On Mercy: Book 1'

I again failed to do Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics' chapter, so this coming week it will be two chapters:

Week 27: Act the opposite of anger.

Anger as a 'temporary madness' (Seneca). Stages: (1) prereflective - inevitable, sudden rise of a strong emotion, turn against whatever has caused it; (2) cognitive - reflect on what is happening (!!ACT HERE!!), recognize as anger, review and judge the cause; (3) give assent to the sensation - it is justified to feel this way (we think)!

How to be in control when reacting to anger, for the reaction to be justified (justice) and in the right proportion (temperance).

I will try to focus on not getting angry with myself for not being able to get done all I wanted to get done (as I tend to want to get more things done I have time for). And just pre-planning better.

Week 28: Put the sage on your shoulder.

This will be literally about imagining a role model looking at one's actions and giving gentle yet clear advice.

Maths and Stats

Celebrate!

Mathematical methods, models and modelling - distinction,
Analyzing data - distinction,
Practical modern statistics - distinction.

Simple carrot, but sweet and crispy.

I finished the 1/4 books on graphs, networks and design. I see a few more books available via the Open Library, all the series on Design is available and most books on Networks. So might read them before October if time allows.

I am prepping for the applied statistical modelling course now. I did this training on Unix shell; I will do 'Programming with R' and 'R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis' from here; might do a refresher on GitHub version control from there as well (I have this set up from my training on building websites back in Feb/March 2022).

MBTI

A work colleague had her last day yesterday. We went wild swimming + to eat wild raspberries, then came over to DW and I's place for teas and food. At one point she said that she did the MBTI a couple of times and turned out ENFP, so now I have my archetype of an ENFP.

Stay sharp

Now with the new job coming probably later this year, I have a good outlet to stay sharp and learn skills. I plan to use the job as a workshop for skill learning in general, different approaches, frameworks, methods. The new employer is very centred on skill acquisition, I think I would be able to do a funded MSc in Data Science while working there, if willing. For statisticians, they also encourage moving laterally and / or up every year or two, and they have some learning frameworks that I am munching on now.

I imagine for folk here who are well versed in corporate culture this is all well known, maybe only a simulacrum of learning and to justify salary increases, or that people just learn to play those scripts along the Loser mindset. I will though initially attempt to use the tools for their intended purpose!

So, I am unifying different perspectives, as per the below (from last week). Also creating a googledrive spreadsheets to track things.

copy-compare-compile---|apprentice---|developing skills, aware of skills to be learned.
compute-------------------|journeyman--|competent and capable of standard tasks, needs support with non-standard tasks
coordinate-----------------|master-------|broadening the field, copes with non-standard problems, little or no guidance (expert)
create----------------------|expert--------|can also be in the role of a coach / mentor (innovator)

Thanks!

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 29/52

Job

No new developments re the new post.

A few people applied to manage the house I am in, the interviews are now held. For the other house, my friend got that post; I am very happy for him and for the organization!

Concert

We are doing a concert sometime soon, I will be playing again. Such a strange feeling reading it: 'I will play at a concert' sounds much bigger than actually going and playing at a local concert. I am very happy I get to do it.

Reading

I am now reading 'Wild Mind' by Bill Plotkin. I also have '80000 Hours' and 'Doing Good Better'.

From Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Week 27: Act the opposite of anger.

I had a hard time with this one. I am now learning R and want to know too much too quickly, so I would get grumpy with myself for not grasping things as quick as I want.

Week 28: Put the sage on your shoulder.

Well I put DW on my shoulder sometimes as she is rather clever.

Next week it will be:

Week 29: Review your actions nightly.

Maths and Stats

For the applied statistical modelling course, I did from here:
- The Unix Shell
- Version Control with Git
- Programming with R (38%)

Garden

There are heaps of strawberries and raspberries, as well as greens. The garden is a joy.

DW

I had some amazing encounters and chats with DW this past week.

Thank you DW!

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 30/52

Living arrangement - some advice appreciated

Hopefully some ERE folk can advise me on our future living arrangement as I clearly fail to keep cool head about it. I feel like I am turning circles thinking about it, need to go one level of complexity higher. So please help with a word of advice!

Fate permitting, we will be moving out from the community where we have lived the past 4+ years. This in itself is a sad event, we love it here. Living in the community is dependent on working for the organization* and since I am moving on to working in statistics in the next 2-3 months, we will need to move on. DW now studies cybersecurity and tells me that working full time and studying full time is too much to bear; she intends to take a break from working for some time and study.

* caveat: a friend of mine will be a manager of one of the houses in the community - this post comes with a three bedroom flat and he already invited DW and I to live with him for some time. So we could actually possibly stay in the community for a while longer, but this would likely not be a long term solution.

We now have two full time permanent contracts that we held for a long time and enough savings to secure a 60-80% LTV mortgage for a property. We have two accounts cash from which could be used for first property or would need to wait until retirement (we got bonus money on the cash).

Additionally, the space I inhabit in the village will be undergoing a major renovation probably early next year, and the manager of the place told me I am free to take any furniture from the house if I wish. So naturally I imagined that buying a place would make sense because I could furnish it with the furniture from where I am at now.

Yesterday we went to view the first property to test the waters. I found the process time consuming and stressful. The flat itself was okay but was in a poor looking neighbourhood with rubbish on the streets that did not look inviting. I tried to speak to a neighbour sitting in her window, but she just turned around and closed the window without saying a word! :|

That property was on the cheap side, had we purchased it for cash we would have ended up with 40% of our current net worth still in our pockets. There are properties in better looking neighbourhoods that we could still have afforded for cash, but we would have then used up nearly all of our savings.

I am aware of 10% inflation and prices of properties going up, and eventually interests rates for mortgages going up (but without property prices dropping).

If we do not purchase any property before moving out, we would then rent a place or a room in a flat share. In terms of money flow this would be more expensive (£200-300 mortgage installment for a purchased property vs £500-700 for renting a flat / room in a flat share).

What keeps me from having a cool head about this:
- I have an aversion to paying so much more per month for renting vs buying. Renting, me with the new job and DW with no job, our savings' rate would go down to maybe 10-15%.
- I fear the inflation will elevate prices for both buying and renting
- in the same neighbourhood, buying a property will get a better (bigger, better location, better finish) one than renting.
- I don't like the idea of borrowing a ton of money and if I want to keep the mortgage low, the neighboorhood will be sketchy (test: how do I feel about inviting my parents to visit?)

My more general thoughts around the subject:

- we have a good thing going with aiming to specialize, I will be starting the statistics job and DW seems like got interested in cybersecurity. I also think that anyway, due to the sunken cost and her character, she will get the degree and get a job in the field. So why would we bother spending a lot of time viewing properties, dealing with banks etc. instead of renting somewhere and spending the time building professional skills** to have lots to offer to employers that they could remunerate with lots of money soon enough?

**the last few years, we excelled at generalist skill set, it can make sense to spend some time on specializing now.

- staying location independent and maximally flexible might be the best thing for us in this moment of transition

- I read that men in their 30s have this immense urge to get a place, maybe @Ego posted it somewhere on the forum. So maybe this is what is at play and biases my judgement.

- why do I feel that this cash that is for the first property/retirement sitting idly is so uncomfortable? It is okay to have cash, the most flexible financial resource. Wait for a property that is in the right place at the right time. Importantly, not tie oneself to a big mortgage. Keep on putting cash into this account and getting the 25% bonus from the government, then get a better place (finish, area, size) with a small mortgage nevertheless.

Job

My friend will be coming to see his new manager flat in one or two weeks. He will be moving from a different organization, so I am doubly happy that I sourced him. He will be a great addition to this village.

It has been about one month of the pre-employment checks for the statistics post. I heard from a colleague that her dad who works for the same organization waited 4 months (but his post is way more senior). I don't mind the wait, summer where I live is fantastic, stuffing my face with wild raspberries, ha! I also now have time to learn R and do prep for statistics courses.

Tree nursery

We are reviving an (~100 years) old tree nursery. These are huge raised beds above the walled garden. Yesterday we were filling the bottom up with gravel to prevent weeds from growing through, then will fill them up with soil. Beauty of a project.

Concert

The concert will take place in the second part of August as the first part will be occupied by our local Highland games.

Circus

There was a circus last week, folk from the local organic farm organized it. It was great, they have some folk with learning disabilities too and they performed, and splendidly!

Reading

The 'Wild Mind' by Bill Plotkin suffers the fate of all the books I read from the Open Library - it goes slowly as best to read from a laptop on which I do lots of other things anyway.

I have read '80000 Hours', a very quick read, book with tips on how to be a good utilitarian. DW is reading 'Doing good better' and I think I will read it after. We also have the 'Precipice'. This is from @Scott 2's thread.

From Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Week 29: Review your actions nightly. - this was reminiscent of 'Atomic Habits' and becoming 1% / a small fraction better each day. It was hard for me to establish a routine of sitting down and writing it down each night. But when I think about it, slacking on these tasks is a disservice to me at the end of the day.

Maths and Stats

I finished 'Programming with R' by the software-carpentry.org. Well presented, I aim to find time to do their other courses. I will be now working through either first chapters of 'applications of probability' or 'mathematical statistics'. Still two months before the start of the third (last) year of uni, I should be able to get lots more work done.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 31/52

Living arrangement

I feel I got over the big rant from last week. We will see what comes about where and how to live. For now we are still where we are. It occurred to me I was trying to speculate on the property market without knowing much about it. This is silly. DW and I are not even that very sure we'd be sticking around in Scotland mid-term.

This is very basic and maybe I am ridiculing myself by stating it but hopefully someone will get value from this statement: I think I was not thinking 100% straight and was getting distracted with others' opinions (everybody has an opinion) because I was dehydrated. I have been rehydrating the past few days and feel better and am straighter in my thinking.

Job

The soon-to-be house coordinator and my friend is coming to visit in the end of August. I hope this will not get derailed and he will indeed end up moving down here.

My new post is still in the pre-employment checks stage, so I will stop posting about it until I hear back from them. I browsed the internet, long waits at this stage with this organization are normal according to lots of people. Again, this is no issue for me.

Reading

The 'Wild Mind' by Bill Plotkin - Reading about East (Ch5).

From Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Week 30: Do whatever political good you can

This was a tricky week. They advise to really make sure that the public good or service provided does not benefit the benefactor. But to my mind almost every action can be considered having an egoistic component. Even the fact of feeling better about doing something that comes across as altruistic. Knowing the research that altruistic acts improve mental well being. And what about the win-win-win situations that I always aim for? Anyway, I helped with the tree nursery last week which was kind of altruistic (it was in my time off, but I had a good time doing it, felt good about it, and included it as part of my run so it was kind of workout). I also think that linking the org I work for now with my friend who will be managing one of the houses here was working towards a public good (although I will now have someone to visit here and he said I could stay at his place). I will give myself an extra star if he gets together with the promoted ex-manager of the house I work in now - they are like minded and I think both are looking for a partner.

This week also fitted very well with my recent interest in effective altruism.

Maths and Stats

There was a physics and astrophysics 3 year undergrad student doing relief work in my house. We had a good chat about physics, maths and stats. I queried him about quantum physics, he complained about difficulty grasping mechanics and programming, and said how he liked the relativity theory. I recommended him software carpentry for learning python.

I am now reviewing for my future stats modules. In particular, I have been looking at
* basic math skills,
* calculus for stats,
* interpreting plots (histograms, scatterplots, residuals),
* common statistical distributions (bernoulli, beta, binomial, chi-squared, continuous / discrete uniform, exponential, gamma, geometric, normal, poisson, t-distributions), formal definition of probability (classical, conditional and Bayes' Theorem),
* statistical tests and estimation (central limit theorem, maximum likelihood estimation, estimation and confidence interval, parametric tests)

In the coming week I aim to continue the review and cover
* statistical tests and estimation (goodness to fit tests),
* regression (simple / multiple linear),
* statistical report writing.

Then I will carry on to read through first chapters of 'applications of probability' and 'mathematical statistics'. I look forward to the latter, I don't like black boxes, had to take lots of equations this past year 'on faith' and didn't like it.

Foraging

My pastime the last week or two has been eating wild raspberries. These days I am usually 5-10min late at work because of the raspberries (they grow everywhere including my way to work). Following reading Plotkin's 'Wild game', today started talking to the raspberry bushes.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

guitarplayer wrote:
Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:02 am
Following reading Plotkin's 'Wild game', today started talking to the raspberry bushes.
I talk out loud to nature ALOT more these days after exploring Plotkin. I figure the West Coast of the US is filled with hippies who talk to nature, what is one more? Nothing to see here. Move along friends. ;).

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

@mF good attitude. I also bend it further, having conversations with inanimate objects occasionally, e.g. some nice pieces of furniture (I am lucky to have some beautiful retro furniture with hand carved motifs). People do it without realizing anyway, though often it goes down the lines of 'you *** car' when the car breaks, or 'why do you not work?!' in frustration when a piece of code does not execute.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2022 update 32/52

Job

Just when I wrote last week that I would shut up about the upcoming job switch until something new emerged, something new has emerged. Namely, a formal round of pre-employment checks: disclosure application, bank account details, pension choice etc. I did that, the next step will be when it is all processed and we will negotiate a starting date.

ETA: I have signed a conditional contract, they finally spelled out the site. It is my and DW's preferred site, i.e. the more fun of the two biggest settlements in Scotland. Great !

Reading

The 'Wild Mind' by Bill Plotkin - reading about subpersonalities now (read North, reading South). One approach to reading about Plotkin subpersonalities can be that these are tools that have been internalized to the point of become unknown-unknowns and overtaking the 3D-Ego. Then 'if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail'. Plotkin's work sheds light making them known-unknowns. The work is to unearth the subpersonalities and keep on having them as known-knowns. Then use them consciously when necessary to protect against physical, psychological, social or financial harm, if needed. Ideally quickly approach a situation where the chance of harm is greatly diminished (=ERE). Focusing on the unconscious/conscious (egosyntonic/egodystonic, psychotic/neurotic) division, reading Plotkin's work helps understand (wissen) the subs, but the exercises he proposes can get one closer to embody subs (kennen).

The Gervais Principle - a re-read.

Tempo - by the same author. It is an intuitive book for musically inclined folk. (ETA: After reading some 1/3 of the book, I am leaning to put it away. Perhaps the tempo of the book does not suit me?)

From Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Week 30: Act with reservation

This week was about acknowledging randomness in the world and that there are few tightly-coupled elements in life system. Things planned not always (rarely?) turn out as planned. It's ok, keep on trying.

Maths and Stats

I finished reviewing stats and started the first chapter of one forthcoming stats module 'applications of probability'. The first chapter is, again, review of typical distributions, but the vocab is more advanced. In addition:
- The Theorem of Total Probability is stated formally,
- More mathematical notation is introduced,
- The concept of probability generating function (p.g.f.) is introduced,
- The idea of simulation is stated in a clear way:
The idea of simulation
is to generate values in such a way that the results obtained are indistinguishable from those that might be observed if a physical experiment were actually carried out. Properties of the random variable or random phenomenon of interest can then be explored by inspecting the results.
Book 2 will be about 'modelling events in time and space'.

After that I will move on to the first two books on 'Mathematical Statistics'. Then if I have time I will return to the software carpentry course 'R for reproducible scientific analysis'. Optimistically, I will also have time to work through their 'Programming with Python' and 'Plotting and Programming in Python'.

Foraging

Wild raspberries are mostly gone now. We went in the hills to collect bilberries (hackleberries) though, I've been talking to them, too. Heather is loaded with pollen. We also collected meadowsweet and had tea from it. It has got compounds similar to aspirin and is a painkiller.

Image

Image

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notes to self:
* by happenstance, I haven't been consuming much alcohol the last 2-4 years. I drank something maybe 4 times in the last year, also by happenstance. I like it very much like this.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 33/52

Job

Filled out a medical questionnaire for the new post.

Reading

Finished:
- Bill Plotking 'The Wild Mind' - I am yet to read through the appendix with exercises. Spontaneously I have been implementing some things from the book. Being in conversation with my surroundings. I wrote perhaps 4 short poems for DW.
- Venkatesh Rao 'Be slightly evil' - a quick read, and entertaining.
- Venkatesh Rao 'Crash Early, Crash Often' - there were some really good essays there. In general, reading this author makes one think that he and the forum administrator were or are in correspondence!

Reading now:
- Frans Osinga - 'Science, Strategy and War - The Strategic Theory of John Boyd'. I find this a beautifully woven together tapestry of disciplines. Partly because of the extensive background the author lays before introducing Boyd's approach (which is described only in chapters 6 and 7, I am now on chapter 4. ETA29/08/2022 - now finished).

From Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Week 32: Practice Stoic Sympathy stealthily

There were three tasks for the past week:
- do not talk about practicing stoicism. I managed that okay, actually I don't brag about stoicism irl (I did talk about it to my colleagues in the first weeks though!)
- practice sympathy. I had lots of opportunities due to the nature of work I do.
- refrain from being judgemental. As above.

Maths and Stats

I started reading Book 2 on 'applications of probability' but this has stalled because I was reading other books.

Holidays

A family event coming up in October, we will be away for a few days.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 34/52

Job / Changes

So it is officially happening. I have given my notice at work, last working day 27 September. At the new place they offered 26 September as a starting date but I asked to postpone until 3 October - agreed. A few days of slack in between, meanwhile I need to find a flat in or around Glasgow. I sent a few queries already. Hopefully by the end of the month I will have something sorted. DW will wait with giving her notice until we have a place to live. Then she's going to be, as one of my colleagues described it, a 'lady of leisure' for a while.

A nice situation is that because the house I now live in is going to undergo a general renovation, the general manager of my organization said that I can take any furniture from here if I need to. So looking for both furnished and unfurnished places. Also, DW and I are aiming for a one year no-heating challenge when we move. So the flat we are going to find can also be an electric heating one as we will ideally not use the heating. Hope I'll find something in due course. I am not looking forward to multiple trips to Glasgow this month but might need to carry them out. It seems that flat rentals in the UK, particularly via agencies, are very formalized these days and require in-person viewing. I'd rather just spot a place online and 'book it' / pay for it, then move in.

I had a few sad days, saying goodbye to the hills and burns around here, the garden. Now I mostly look forward to the change, feels like an adventure. A complete change of scenery, life will be totally different. At work and after work. I have been spending lots of time the past few days reading material from this website, as the new post is going to be a Civil Service post.

Reading

Finished:
- Frans Osinga - 'Science, Strategy and War - The Strategic Theory of John Boyd'. Wow I am impressed with this book big time. In the run-up to it I read 'Be Slightly Evil' etc and I know that one of the inspirations of Rao was Boyd's work, so I sort of laid the foundation for it.

I have a thought, to apply the ideas from Osinga's book to strategize around the system of the 3D-Ego with 4 facets and 4 subs from Plotkin. Probably mostly by the gentle means, like persuasion etc. Thanking the loyal soldiers etc. But perhaps sometimes by confusion, like sometimes I get my rebel or addict playing out and in retrospect I feel it would be good to confuse them by doing something completely unexpected.

From Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Unfortunately I have neglected my exercises this past week. So in the coming week I will do two in one:
Week 33 - set up social rules for living
Week 34 - care about more people (and other beings)

And the week after that I will do:
Week 35 - Question every action

Killing

Thinking recently of complex adaptive / open / living systems (vs non adaptive / closed / non living systems) I pondered the question of life and death. I had one professor at one of the Unis I attended who had a course called 'Killing' (I did not take it because I was more interested in 'cognitive science and policy making'). I reached out to the prof with the query, asking for the reading list for the course. He gave me the list and all the core readings, ha! This is a MA level course from the moral / political philosophy point of view, but I think it could be possible to extrapolate to a wide variety of open systems in some shape or form. I even thought about running an informal study group here on the forum or simply setting up a separate thread devoted to it.

The weekly topics are

Week 1: ‘The Badness of Death’
Week 2: ‘Doing and Allowing: The Doctrine of Double Effect’
Week 3: ‘Self-defence: Rights’
Week 4: ‘Self-defence: Responsibility’
Week 5: ‘Saving numbers’
Week 6: ‘Abortion’
Week 7: ‘Suicide and Euthanasia’
Week 8: ‘Killing Animals’
Week 9: ‘Poverty’
Week 10: ‘War I’
Week 11: ‘War II’
Week 12 ‘Revision and Conclusions’

Moral philosophers whose works would be discussed: Nagel, Quinn, Thomson, Quong, McMahan, Otsuka, Taurek, Scanlon, Marquis, Velleman, Singer, Kagan, Murphy, Walzer, Hurka.

Maths and Stats

I did some progress on Book 2 of 'applications of probability' i.e. covered the non-homogenous Poisson process. But I was mostly busy with other things. I need to be careful here, focus on less in a Stoic fashion. Which is one reason that study separate thread for 'Killing' might not happen.

That being said, the course only starts in October and I am now working ahead of the schedule.

Also, I have learned from one forumite that it might be possible for me to negotiate study time with my prospective line manager. This is because the fact that I do a BSc in Maths and Stats sheds a very positive light on them given my role (as in, they foster professional development of their staff). I will explore the possibilities in the initial few months.

AxelHeyst
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

Wow lots happening, cool update. I'm really excited you read Boyd! Super interesting idea to run Boyd on Plotkin subs. The first thing that occurs to me is that I'd be cautious about running any internal work that frames subs as Adversary.

To me, I read my subs as having been in a psuedo adversarial relationship with my ego for years: they've had to act on my behalf constantly *while keeping themselves hidden from conscious view*. For years. As a result, my subs are simply way better at going ninja in the depths of my subconscious, and are likely to view conscious attempts at persuasion as almost insultingly obvious. I'd be concerned I'd just scatter them to deeper levels of stealth in my subconscious.

A Boydian perspective that has helped though is the grand strategy perspective of "what is needed is a common vision so noble, so inspiring, that it pumps up friendly resolve while..."

In other words, I reach a point where I can sit down with my sub and have a conversation about what I'd like to have happen, a vision where we work together consciously and we use their tremendous strengths and abilities to the common cause of this vision for us that I paint. And I honestly treat my sub like an independent entity, and I merely invite it to consider participating in this endeavor, and give it plenty of time to think it over on its own.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

That is a good point to not treat subs as an adversary.

Having been in the military, naturally Boyd would think and talk lots about adversarial situations. After reading Osinga (also the initial foundation chapters), it seems to me that by extension the ultimate tool for winning in combat is not to engage in combat in the first place, sort of along the lines 'what a strange game, the only winning move is not to play' (and along of what you wrote about the grand strategy above). But I get that Boyd talks about a situation of scarcity where the aim is to increase the scope of one's actions so they can achieve their goals and cope with the environment better than others also interested in what is scarce.

Thinking of Plotkin, my understanding is that his ego development process starts when all the scarcity problem is solved, because the subs, to begin with, emerged to deal with threats of physical, psychological, social and / or financial (ERE1 helpful here!) harm i.e. situation of scarcity. So yes, applying Boyd to Plotkin's characters seems to only be done with a 'wink' i.e. for example when the subs are already domesticated but occasionally misbehave (nobody's perfect). Even then, this approach might be doomed to fail since as you say they are such ninjas at what they do!

Yes I also imagine Plotkin's characters as a wee group, all the subs; thinking of the 3D ego as the father and son and holy spirit also springs to mind (not that I am religious).

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

An old friend reached out to catch up.

We met a decade and a half ago when I threw a party for about 150 of my fellow psychology students in a newly rented two level flat I had had together with a bunch of four other friends. We got that flat because the student dorm where we lived one year prior had gotten closed for renovation so we had to move out. I managed to invite all the ~150 people since someone at the department had failed to conceal the mailing list in one of the official emails. Though only about 70 of them turned up, the party was still memorable.

It was in fact my second year of studying in that city as I had started off with sound engineering one year earlier. At some point, finding myself reading philosophers and social thinkers on the benches of the physics department, I had a vague idea that I should study social sciences or humanities, as the love of music alone will not cut it with the sound engineering. Mind you, I had decent grades at the physics department.

So anyway, I got a voice message from that friend and listened to it just now. She went to visit our uni city last weekend and thought of me and that flat, and the district it was in and all. Got three kids now, pretty active as she has always been. Doing some life coaching, blogging, writing articles, she works in a school as a psychologist as well. Sadly, her mum passed away after a long time of being unwell and dad got depressed. She's trying to help but obviously there is resistance as per the five stages of grief.

And then she goes on to say that amidst those grey clouds she is an incurable optimist, and (pointing at me): 'just like you have always been actually, that you would always know how to find joy and sun in everything, and somehow to draw [strength] from yourself, trust yourself.' I don't hear that sort of stuff too often so my jaw dropped somewhat.

And then memories of my uni times started pouring in. I moved to the city from a very boring, square city and environment. I remember being so, so terribly hungry of everything in the first three years or so. I would be walking around to different departments of my uni, and to other unis as well, chatting with random people. I would be going to free concerts and events constantly. In the first year I must have averaged maybe 5h sleep/night with all the parties in my student dorm. I would start traveling in various shapes and forms. That period felt pretty magnificent and surreal all together. I gained so much momentum in this, it might be I am still running on it now.

The friend, I vividly remember splitting a bottle of wine with her over 'Into The Wild' and that was such a great night. She at that point was renting a room in a tenement building where a famous rock star was having a flat above her.

There were so many of such vignettes and impressions. They keep on coming to my mind the very moment. Life has been a blast so far.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

2022 update 35/52

Job

Last working day at my current post is 27 September, the first day in Statistics will be 3 October.

I am now in touch with the person I will be reporting to, he seems nice enough judging by emails. He is based in another city, mentioned that hybrid working is currently in place amongst team members. I will meet him on my first day.

Flat

To my great relief I found a centrally located 1 bed flat for rent! It will be
- 1.7km from my workplace (if I choose to work from there which I might as it might be a largely empty high quality office space),
- 450m to the nearest mid sized LIDL,
- 1.9km from a very large LIDL,
- 1.2km from a Krav Maga learning centre (I aim to take a few lessons with DW)
- 950m from the nearest library (we already got ourselves library cards yesterday)
- 2km from a huge super resourceful famous library
- 900m from the nearest leisure / activity centre (swimming pool, gym etc, £15/month membership fee for a bunch of things, in my mind the most important would be unlimited swimming. Maybe it will be time to say farewell to my 200burpees/day routine!)

Amidst the fierce competition for flats, I have rented it from a few days back even though my contract starts only in October. But this is fine, I think of it as paying premium on top of the rent of $700/month. The rent is okay, but of course nothing compares to our current $650 for rent, council tax, bills and food (for two people). The energy price is going to nearly double starting October, so finally we will have the incentive to practice some ERE skills. That being said, the flat is warmer than where we currently are, being on the 2nd floor and with double glazing.

Reading

Moving is cited by some as the third most stressful life event, after bereavement due to loss of a close family member and divorce. It does feel quite stressful, all the little things connected to moving. Also, selecting through things we will take with us. The place is furnished which makes things easier. In relation to the stress, I am now reading

Robert Sapolsky - Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.

I also want to read
Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir - Scarcity: Why having too little means so much.

I want to read this because I feel that the move and especially hiked cost of living combined with a single salary activate in me a scarcity mindset. I suspect this is on par with what the very wealthy EREites feel before pulling the plug and living off of their interest. This is silly, I should stop this. We will anyway live on probably around $14,000/annum/2 people. And we have heaps of money which, even with the investments doing nowadays poorly, would last us between 10 and 20 years of living, depending how imaginative we would become.

From Pigliucci's 'Handbook for new stoics':

Week 33 - set up social rules for living: the rules I have set up are
1. always act as if others are looking
2. maintain equal outlook, regardless if bad or good things happen
3. in eating and drinking, I am going to satisfy the needs of my body and not indulge

I had mixed success with the rules, but I see how they could be helpful with dealing with stressful events, like moving for example!

Week 34 - care about more people (and other beings)

I did some meditative exercises, where I would imagine a person I care about deeply, then hold the feelings and imagine other people who are more far away from me socially.

I put the effort a few times to initiate a pleasant conversation with someone I don't' like that much.

This coming week will see the 'action' section wrapped up, then I will proceed to 'assent'.
Week 35 - Question every action

Maths and Stats

I got books for the first of the last four modules for my last year of the Maths and Stats BSc adventure.

I did some limited progress on Book 2 of 'applications of probability'.

ETA: Concert

I almost forgot, we finally had the concert in the beginning of September. I performed 'Classical Gas' by Mason Williams and the all too famous 'Romance' by an anonymous composer. I got some standing ovation.

ertyu
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Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:31 am

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by ertyu »

The flat sounds awesome, and at an awesome price, too. Sounds like you guys will enjoy your new area.

The Sapolsky book is great -- I'll look into Scarcity, sounds interesting.

Congrats on the concert and good luck w the job next month

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thank you @ertyu! It's gonna be a big cultural shock, but we've been there so it will be like visiting an old friend.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Note to self:
- DW taking more ownership of the parasympathetic system, I sympathetic system, anima / animus,
- Diad as the basic social structure, extrapolate from there - compare and contrast,
- Comparative advantage in a relationship,
- Pulling grand theories to a microscale, pushing personal theories to a macroscale, limits of this and second order logic. What is @daylen going on about when he writes about pull/push?
- Joscha Bach, Principles of Synthetic Intelligence. PSI: An Architecture of Motivated Cognition,
- motivation as a longstanding interest.
Last edited by guitarplayer on Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:35 am, edited 3 times in total.

daylen
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by daylen »

One way to formalize: Agents pull towards their bounded agency and push away from their bounded agency. Sensory perceptions are far outside this boundary. Intuitive perceptions are far inside this boundary. Feeling and thinking (judgements) are near to this boundary. Thoughts belonging externally to language and signs, and with feels belonging internally to the bodily vibrations and tones associated with linear parsing and interpretation of such thoughts.

Reading could be considered a process in pulling thoughts in and feelings out. Inversely, writing could be considered a process in pushing thoughts out and feelings in. Both being partially transparent relative to the concrete objects(S) being referenced at a separate level with corresponding abstractions(N).

guitarplayer
Posts: 1301
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:43 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Yep I get it, I will try to have another look at your drawings elsewhere. What is (I know this is not central to these two paragraphs) linear parsing ?
________________________________________________________________

From https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

"There are some explorers who treat conversation as their specialist explorer subject, but these are very rare indeed"

These might just be the leaders of the green (r)evolution.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Sapolsky. I listened to the audiobook earlier this year but had to return it to the library before I was finished. I felt like I got what I wanted out of it though. I paired it with a book by one of Sapolsky's colleagues at Stanford called The Upside of Stress. The arguments offered an interesting counter narrative to a lot of the regular discussions on stress. It was also revealing looking more closely at the experiments on stress studies.

You can check out McGonigal's Ted Talk which was the basis for the book. It might be uplifting as you move into a new career.

https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonig ... anguage=en

I didn't notice anything contradictory in the two books. Just different approaches to the topic - biological vs. psychological.

daylen
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by daylen »

Let a writing technology have both a form and substance. The substance could be stone, wood, paper, glass, and so forth. The form is an encoding of a particular language(*) that arises when detecting edges on the substance (due to depth/light/color differentiation). Parsing is the process of decoding a writing tech by attending to a series of chunks that make up the entire form on a bounded substantial object (of stone, wood, paper, glass, etc.). An agent can parse by switching between narrow and wide focus to hone in on what is relevant in the next time step at various chunking sizes(+). From this emerges a continuous or discontinuous curve(#) that can be drawn over the surface of the writing technology intersecting all edges. A continuous curve would indicate no attentional bifurcations are necessary to compete all the interpretations and thus can be "linearized" from beginning to end. A discontinuous curve would then be associated with non-linear parsing in which a beginning and end are up for interpretation (e.g. a painting).

(*) May be represented as a node in a tree of languages with edges corresponding to transitions, bifurcations, and mergers. Such would capture the time evolution of language with current branches summing into a structure with variable complexity over time.

(+) e.g. symbol, root, word, sentence, paragraph, page, etc.. Depends on language and agent framing ability.

(#) Such curves can be transformed into straight lines through stretching/compressing the substance while preserving form.

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