Scheduling

[Eternity]

@Elliot

So what’s wrong with your analysis? And what’s right with it? Can you critically analyze it now?

I’m just noting down that I did see this and I will respond tomorrow.

I do think I can analyze it now.

[Elliot]

@Eternity

For perfectionism in my studies I haven’t done much because I never recognized it as such or thought to deal with it. One thing that comes to mind is that I’m very open to making mistakes and figuring things and not being perfect when I’m learning. It’s when, at some point, I felt like I “got it” that I become perfectionist.

Hmm. But didn’t you say stuff about perfectionism about posting stuff and wanting it to meet high standards? (I’m going by memory but I think LMD said something similar so I could be mixing stuff up.) But you aren’t already done learning to write and post.

@Eternity

I think this happened with grammar trees. The beginning was “easier” because I didn’t expect to be good and that’s fine, but after doing it for so long subconsciously I assumed they had to be perfect. So I would take longer trying to get them right. Hmm. Maybe treat something as I’m always learning. That I’ll never “get it”?

If you need to spend extra time to get it right, then you clearly weren’t done learning and mastering it. You still need practice.

And yes an “always learning” attitude can be good in some ways. But I don’t still view myself as learning addition and I think it’s OK to believe I “get it” about addition. I think a lot of problems come when e.g. your grammar tree knowledge is way below your addition knowledge but you think you should be done.

@Eternity

I think I tell myself that this mistake could have been avoided/doesn’t actually reflect my skill so I restart.

You can finish flawed runs by viewing them as practice. You can view them that way the whole time, too.

Also your mistakes do reflect your skill.

[Eternity]

@Elliot

But you didn’t you say stuff about perfectionism about posting stuff and wanting it to meet high standards?

Similar. I said I wanted it to be good enough. Yes.

@Elliot

But you aren’t already done learning to write and post.

I agree. This part is less of a conscious choice I make. I just feel like after I do something for a while that I got it even if I’m not objectively good at it. At least that’s part of it. The point is that I didn’t one day think that I figured out learning to write and post. Its just that one day I just subconsciously felt like I “got it” and start wanting to be perfectionist. Hmm. Maybe in my head I confuse comfortable with got it.

@Elliot

If you need to spend extra time to get it right, then you clearly weren’t done learning and mastering it. You still need practice.

I agree. Hmm. Something else that comes to mind (I think you’ve talked about this before): I also confuse getting something right a few times/doing something correctly with a lot of conscious effort as knowing it well. Because I got grammar trees right a few times with a lot of conscious effort I’ve mistakenly assumed that I know grammar trees and then proceed to get annoyed when I make mistakes.

@Elliot

You can finish flawed runs by viewing them as practice. You can view them that way the whole time, too.

Thats what I tell myself. That and bad runs can end up good. Most bad runs I kill at the beginning. I rarely kill a run that gets bad midway through. I feel like I can achieve that “perfect” beginning and then do the rest of the game ok. I think it’s because in certain roguelike games I’ve played (like Dead Cells) its very easy to reset to the beginning and the beginning is relatively short (or at least what I define as the beginning).

@Elliot

Also your mistakes do reflect your skill.

Yes

[LMD]

@Elliot

You’re presenting it as asymmetric again.

Ah yes. I think I’ve had some misunderstandings. I misunderstood your initial reply:

@Elliot

You present it as asymmetric but it sounds symmetric to me. Doesn’t avoiding it take willpower too? If the coercive conflict were about gambling, I don’t think you’d tell me that avoidance takes less willpower than action.

I think at first I read your response carelessly, but I’m still a bit confused about it. I thought that contra me you were saying that sometimes you prefer to do than not do an activity that you were conflicted about. I also mistook your point about gambling being about gambling addiction. I’m actually still not clear about your point with your question about gambling.

I think for some tasks that I get conflicted about, one option seems easier than another. There doesn’t appear to be an exact symmetry to the sides to the conflict. Procrastination seems like this. You have a conflict over doing a task, and so you put off doing it. You choose to do other things or avoid that particular task because the other things or avoidance seems easier or preferable (?) (at least in the short term?). Is that just not the kind of conflict that you mean by a coercive conflict? That kind of asymmetry seems different to the kind of asymmetric conflict you gave and example of.

@Elliot

You present it as asymmetric but it sounds symmetric to me. Doesn’t avoiding it take willpower too?

Does avoiding it take willpower? I’m not sure. I think with procrastination it manifests itself as a guilt or disappointment when you avoid something, but it doesn’t feel like how using willpower might feel when you try to get started on the thing you’re procrastinating.

I feel a bit confused but I’m going to post this anyway.

[LMD]

@Elliot

Can you make a flowchart of what CF generically says to do for problem solving? Brainstorming, IGC charts, etc.

Hmm. I felt bad at this. No wonder I have trouble problem solving. This is what I came up with to start:

0. Notice a problem
1. Don’t be judgemental, be neutral and gather information about the problem
2. Brainstorm solutions to the problem
3. Criticise solutions
4. When you’ve found a single uncriticised solution you’re done

I feel like between steps 1 and 2 there should be some part about trying to formulate the problem.

Also what happens if you don’t find a single uncriticised solution? You need to go back somewhere. Brainstorming is the obvious place but you might need to go back earlier? But maybe how you’re formulated your problem is at fault. You kind of need to return to the whole thing.

I don’t know how to fit IGCs in there.

[Elliot]

@LMD

Hmm. I felt bad at this. No wonder I have trouble problem solving.

You feel bad about not already knowing more stuff? Do you have any idea why? Can you figure out why you (just part of you, I imagine) think that or more detail about how you’re looking at it?

@LMD

I don’t know how to fit IGCs in there.

OK try a separate IGC flowchart. See what you can come up with for using IGCs.

[Elliot]

@LMD

@Elliot

You present it as asymmetric but it sounds symmetric to me. Doesn’t avoiding it take willpower too? If the coercive conflict were about gambling, I don’t think you’d tell me that avoidance takes less willpower than action.

I think at first I read your response carelessly, but I’m still a bit confused about it. I thought that contra me you were saying that sometimes you prefer to do than not do an activity that you were conflicted about. I also mistook your point about gambling being about gambling addiction. I’m actually still not clear about your point with your question about gambling.

I thought bringing up gambling would illustrate that non-action isn’t necessarily easier.

@LMD

I think for some tasks that I get conflicted about, one option seems easier than another. There doesn’t appear to be an exact symmetry to the sides to the conflict. Procrastination seems like this. You have a conflict over doing a task, and so you put off doing it. You choose to do other things or avoid that particular task because the other things or avoidance seems easier or preferable (?) (at least in the short term?). Is that just not the kind of conflict that you mean by a coercive conflict? That kind of asymmetry seems different to the kind of asymmetric conflict you gave and example of.

I said

@Elliot

There can be asymmetries that favor action or non-action, but you didn’t present one.

Symmetric is the default. It doesn’t have to be symmetric.

A common asymmetry with procrastination is you think “if i don’t do it now, i can still do it later”. If the choice were between doing it now or never doing it, then you might find it pretty symmetric, or might prefer action, depending on what it is.

[Eternity]

@Elliot

So what’s wrong with your analysis? And what’s right with it? Can you critically analyze it now?

Hmm. I think I’ve been avoiding this because I was asked to analyze it and to do it critically too. I think there may be some overthinking here at play too, but I don’t really know how to analyze. At least in school when I would be asked to analyze I would have a rubric to go by (typically) and I can judge if my analysis is done right. Just being told to freely analyze confuses me a bit. The critical part is also throwing me off. Again probably just overthinking?

So here’s just an attempt:

So the original part said:

If you find you procrastinate on something, or partly feel like procrastinating on it, then part of you doesn’t want to do it . That is a conflict. If you were unconflicted, you wouldn’t even be tempted to procrastinate.

I took doesn’t want you to do it as shouldn’t do it. That’s wrong. Also part of you does want to do it. So it’s wrong to decide on the side of not doing it because you’re conflicted. Inaction is a decision in this context (though I guess it’s always a decision).

I said you are forcing yourself to do it when you’re conflicted. I think that’s still correct. Depends on the context maybe, but if you don’t want to do your homework you may force yourself to do it. I think force may have a differentish meaning from CF/FI stuff but idk. I feel like saying your forcing yourself to do homework, or work out, or eat healthy is quite common.

I said you should only do stuff you’re unconflicted about. I do think that would be an ideal goal, but I think I was still wrong to say that. People are conflicted about many things. My solution would lead to people doing nothing. Or, hmm. I guess ask them to resolve the conflict? but that can be hard.

[Elliot]

@Eternity

I took doesn’t want you to do it as shouldn’t do it.

Why did you take it that way? Did you think the text literally said that? Did you think it was a logical implication of the text?

[LMD]

@Elliot

@LMD

Hmm. I felt bad at this. No wonder I have trouble problem solving.

You feel bad about not already knowing more stuff? Do you have any idea why? Can you figure out why you (just part of you, I imagine) think that or more detail about how you’re looking at it?

Maybe this is helpful? Here are some notes/journalling I did on it:

---

I think part of me felt foolish or embarrassed for not knowing this in particular. Why? Like it’s something I should know. But why should I know it?

Because it’s an important thing emphasised a lot in CF? (?)
Because I’ve been having problems with problem solving well, and I think I should’ve learned to problem solve myself already? (?)
Because I know that it’s important? (?)

Brainstorm: Under what circumstances should one know something?

• When you’re (implicitly or explicitly) claiming to know the thing.
• When you’re getting paid to know the thing. Like when you’ve been given clear instructions on a few occasions for how to do a particular process at work, and you’ve been there for a while.
• When there are culturally expected things to know about your friends and family, like their last names, and maybe their birthdays (for close family/friends or intimate relationship). (?)
• Social norms by a certain age (?) (don’t know about this one; they are rarely explained to people)

I agree with the first one. The other ones have issues, but I also don’t think they’re what’s going on here.

So am I implicitly or explicitly claiming to know something? I don’t think I’m explicitly claiming to know how problem solving works. In fact I’ve explicitly said that I don’t know what to do with problem solving.

So do I feel like I’m implicitly claiming to know something? Well I am a student of CF. And that’s because I don’t know CF. So if anything it’s implicit that I don’t know CF yet; I’m learning. Problem solving is something that we haven’t directly covered in tutoring yet.

Problem solving is a concept from Popper though, which I have spent more time with than CF (actually not sure about this?) (?).

It might be that I feel like I should know stuff about this because it’s a central part of Popper.

I think part of it has to do with the foolishness (?) of knowing that on one hand, I don’t know problem solving steps well, and knowing that knowing them would help me with my problem of resolving conflicts. Like: why don’t you go and learn about problem solving then if problem solving is your problem?

[Elliot]

Something I’d consider is what concrete steps you already took to learn it, and if you had evaluated them as successful.

[Eternity]

@Elliot

Why did you take it that way? Did you think the text literally said that? Did you think it was a logical implication of the text?

Hmm. I think more of a logical implication but idk? My thinking went: part of you doesn’t want to something, I then dropped the part “of you” part leaving me with “doesn’t want to do something”, well if you fully don’t want to do something you don’t do it. People are conflicted about exercising because it may be good for them but they don’t like how they feel doing it. I think these are the kinds of thing the article was talking about. I was thinking more of a scenario along the lines of doing something with no benefits that you don’t want to do. Like, idk, give $100 dollars to a charity you hate. Since you don’t want to do it in that cause. Don’t do it.

[Elliot]

OK. Do you think you often drop/ignore some of the words when interpreting text? I think that’s a common thing people do which is an important problem for philosophy.

[Eternity]

@Elliot

OK. Do you think you often drop/ignore some of the words when interpreting text? I think that’s a common thing people do which is an important problem for philosophy.

Hmm. Probably? I can tell you for sure that when reading fiction I developed a habit of skimming and skipping a lot. Over the past few months I’ve been forcing myself to read every word (when I remember too, its not like a project I have noted down or something) because I think this is kinda bad.

I say probably because the thought process I shared in dropping/ignoring some of the words was done subconsciously. Consciously I don’t think so. Also I never really had my interpretations criticized so I’m unaware of doing that. Hmm yeah that’s a good way to put it. Its not a conscious choice that I do that, but I probably do do that often,

[Elliot]

This is something you can practice. Read text normally, write down what you think it said, then read carefully, write down what it says, compare. For harder practice, you can add time delays between reading and writing down what it says. For the careful reading, or when comparing/analyzing, you could do a tree.