Thew gift of not feeling secure

It is bad luck. But very useful

I once had a girlfriend who was very nice. When i was not showering
for a few days, she said i smell still wonderful. After showering she
said my hair is not that curly, discouraging me even further.

Whenever I feel secure, I - naturally enough - give no shit on social
norms. Thus making me sometimes socially bad.

I am very easy to be fooled. My natural tendency is to believe
everything I read, to imitate everyone around.

Thus, it is only my sinister suspicion against the world that keeps me
sane, and by some accounts, even a little bit smart.

The autistic problem of self help

It is the fantasy that people can be told how to live.
That people cn live out of an instructions book.

There is something autistic about it.


I call it "the great divide"

There are some things that really really can improve life.
But they are divorced from the natural/normal way people live.


An opposite example is Steve Jobs work.
Computers were an autistic thing. Useful but ugly.

Steve jobs, womehow managed to marry the useful with the human, aestehtic, natural, intuitive.


Until someone manages to marry the useful,scientific with the natural human way of going aobut life, nothing is useful.  It is theoretical scientific autistic advice that nobody utilizes.


Bridging this divide is the real challenge

How measuring clouds the effect of multiple hidden parameters

Many things are affected by multiple parameters. (heart rate affected by mineral balance, mood, room temperature, sitting of lying down etc.)

At any given time most of the effects are hidden. But many of them act simultaneously,

Many more effects are potentials. These do not act commonly, but have the potential to affect strongly, (heart drugs etc.)


Scientific investigation will prefer the measurable parameters. And also the easily manipulable ones. Thus, a drug will take precedence is research over a frown (which clearly affect the heart rate). Any clear parameter will take precedence on the subtle ones (combinations, harder to measure, or those parameter that are not easily taken to the extreme, hence do not show strong effects in laboratory manipulations)


These biases will over time make a part of the effects scientifically known, while all other effects will not be seen. And the clouding of knowledge will be considered "scientific".
Instead of full appreciation of the variety of parameters that make things happen, we will have a focus on those measurable. Those manipulable in the lab etc.


when many things affect a single outcome the bias is much stronger.
To the exclusion of all other effects, the effects that enter easier into a scientific experiment get all visibility, and the illusion builds that these are central.


In fact, there are many causes. Many of whom are subtle and not easy to see and measure.

Also, many effects are usually minor. But become large when artificially enlarged. See my piece extreme and special cases and causes


To sum up. We have complex phenomenons that are affected by multiple small and big, clear and subtle effects. Scientific enquiries will concentrate to those that are: easy to measure and Easy to take to the extreme. Creating the illusion that those are the central causes to the exclusion of all else and of complexity.


See also the academic bias. This article is a special case of the academic bias

News and the delusion of relevance

I told a friend I am not following the news.

the moron says I am "detached from reality"
Now almost all news are of zero relevance to my life. Reading the news is living in a fantasy world, where irelevant things take center stage.

besides news makes me unhappy, and stupid. I am not doing stupid things no matter what "reality" and other nonsense are invoked to justify it.

I suspect that reading the news is a weakness for most. The rest is justifications 

Why fine tuninng works. And why nonody gets it right

Fine tuning is what is usually played in ICU (intensive care). You manipulate every bodily parameter in every possible way. And it works wonders in critical cases.

Common sense suggests, that without any new theoretical advance, similar forms of fine tuning should work. But they need caful parametrization, adherence and lots of experimentation and rigorously studying the data all along.

In a less sophisticated way, but i guess successful case, i think this lady managed to treat various maladies with endless play of supplements. She seems to check all the time the effects, and she did it for twelve years. So lots of data, lots of fine tuning.

Every success case here cannot be generalized.
This is probably why most grand scale supplement studies failed to show effects, while for people with specific conditions we have a lot of successful randomly controlled studies. these games are not generalizable. (beside the need for combinations etc.)


But the public is blind. polarized poinions prevail.
either one believes in complementary medicine and (to whatever level) scorns rigor. placebo effects never occur. etc. 

Or, he is a technical believer in institutional experiments. Anything that is not completely done under the umbrela of the full protocol is irelevant. 
An example to this blindness is the selenium experiment for cancer prevention (SELECT). it found no effect. 
Supporters of selenium claimed that selenium helps to those with baseline deficiet in selenium. 

makes sense. no? the author of the selenium trial has not even bothered to check the data for this. He has all the data. and the idea that selenium works for those with baseline deficiet is the most expected possibility (its a priori reasonableness is even higher than that of flat supplementation works!).
But he only said like "the trial showed negative results" and refused to carry even the simple test for which he had ALL the data on hand! dismissing it as secondary analysis


We need rigorous thinking even when outside the formal experimental design!

And fine tuning seems a very very lucrative route that is highly ignored, but which can ameliorate many ails when done correctly

Nested vs. Unnested thinking

Nested thoughts assumes stage one enforces the possibilities on stage two. It brings illogical behavior. I generally assume that with sleeping more i will have more energy. But when i slept little, assuming that game is over is depressive, and may not be smart. It is locking oneself into the assumptions of stage one. The delressive..... The use now. First, the assumptions of stage one use the average expected value of the stage one plan. I must sleep enough, because on average my theory is that I am functioning better with enough sleep. Once i have not slept, we are now, where i need to see if now i am exhausted, not if i should have been tired. Nested thinking locks you in the theoretical generalized thinking of stage one. Closed mindedness. Nested thinking does not accept new possibilities. Now, even if i Am tired, i may find comoletely new plans. Nested and unnested thinking are two different models to assess the world. Both have realistic aspects. Somehow, nested thinking is delressive. And i suspect is how more depressed people think. I like more unnested thinking. But i hope i am not overdoing it with stupid openmindedness. But the reason i am thinking that way, is because i am very irrational, and was always much better with getting out of trouble than in not entering it. I also found outting a line osuk costs a major aspect of rationality. Hence nested thinking is not good for me. More to the point i hate it. I would leave the meitculous utilitarian calculation of which way is more "rational" to those that can bear self forcing via rationality.

Not worth doing

Worth but not worth doing There are many things that are really worth doing. But they are not worth doing. When doing refers to the action of doing, rather than having them done without the effort. It is better to be on time. But it may not be worth doing. If doing entails obsessing for two hours to make sure you come on time (+ the later pain and discomfort when not arriving on time) it is not worth even to have it on your list.  So it is usually really best to be on time, but when accounting for the cost of doing it, it is not worth it. (and accounting to later pain when late, not even worth having it on your list...) Small improvements usually are the same. Lofe can be wastly better if we introduce nedless small improvements. I mean it. Because a million small improvements accumulate to even a completely different life. But usually the small things a not worth the effort and place in mind of *doing* them. Here comes the knowledge part. When people do not do something, they usually make themselves beleiving it is worthless. Just to be able not to do it (there is a natural bias that if something has value we must do it, so it is easier to avoid something by having a full belif it is useless.). The second reason is to feel comfrotable about not doing it. We fool ourselves that it is totally worthless in order to feel good. A wish person undstands that if its not worth doing it is not worth to do @even@ if it has some value. No pain. Because it makes no sense to do.  And.... No stupidity. You still acknowledge its value. Sometimes, the knowledge of this small value is useful.