- [x] note-make 🆔 nq1fgj 🔼 📅 2024-12-04 ## Notes Super Sophrosyne - dude that was an amazing episode, the connections it has with the personal knowledge management ideas I've been learning about like writing original works, and being a specialist, and periodic reviews, wow I'm really excited to see where and how I can integrate these ideas into the rest of my vault, I just how it connects deeply with the idea of financial transcendence in a personal sense, is much nicer and grasp compare compared to the external oriented version - Internal family systems - Focused vs diffused thinking - for helping reframe - certainty is the death of relevance realization, uncertainty is natural For some reason I thought I had already written notes for this episode and that Obsidian had lost them. But after finishing today's note-making session, wow. This was a highly meaningful episode for me throughout the series — the deep connection with a lot of other interests like AI, cognitive neuroscience, productivity, and PKM, all converged into this point, all viewed in a new way through philosophy. This shows me how important connectedness is for meaning-making, without all these personal significances it would be easy to treat it as another episode. The goal is to relate, relate with people's psyche and interests, to make an unforgettable video. [[Going jogging in -6 weather]] [[Daimonion]] [[The Socratic Shift]] [[Generative AI's predictive qualities are on par with our own cognition]] [[Get unstuck in reframing by switching thinking styles]] [[Insight]] [[Mutual modelling]] Inner dimension of [[Finite Transcendence]] [[Meditative Questioning Practice]] ## Summary In this episode, Dr. John Vervaeke explores Socrates' inner life and his method of dialectic, which involves deep conversations and self-reflection. He emphasizes the importance of inner speech and how it helps us gain insights and articulate meaning. Vervaeke also discusses the concept of a dialogical self, where our understanding evolves through interactions with others and ourselves. ## Highlights And then he says the fact that Socrates stood motionless in the snow for 24 hours without suffering any harm, there's a clear signal that Socrates' mind and his body were in an altered state. It is more reasonable to think that Socrates had entered a meditative trance of complete detachment from normal sensory awareness. And then, indeed, the normal self. So it's not just that he has sort of He can decide for himself what to do, or he can steal it himself. The percentage is making a very clear case after reviewing the evidence: no, no, that he has the capacity to enter into a profound altered state of consciousness. This is very analogous to what many people can achieve through significant meditative practice. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd36ghzemqzjz2yb1rs8p3bk)) ^cpw6ax - 💭 reminds me of the mindset i used to have when i was able to just walk or run in the snow with only a tank top and shorts, doing it because it was enjoyable I’d like to emphasize that if you read the article "Socrates and Religious Experience" in this companion of Socrates, I would also recommend reading his article in the Bloomsbury Companion to Socrates, which is also excellent. That article is entitled "Socrates' Religious Experiences," ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd36hweaq08dqca7vf072bdd)) - Tags: #toread a divine sign or a divine voice within him. Here's a voice, or he hears something that is like a sign to him that has significance, that alters his course of action and how he is, uh, in how he's engaging in perspectival knowing what he is noticing in his salience landscaping. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd36pb1tpxbtnwkc7bm6s65f)) ^yz6bbu - 💭 daimonion think of it as something like a perspectival presence. There's a perspective other than his current one that makes itself present to him in a way that he finds analogous to seeing a sign of something. Remember tracking, seeing signs, finding significant and hearing a voice foreign. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd36qb455ncx24j1p6s4xb72)) ^996sbc The Voice within Socrates: his daimonion. I propose that Socrates is actually acting for us; he doesn't intend to do so, but he's acting for us to provoke a shift within it, within us, and I want to call this the Socratic shift. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd371s28dgnb8rs694exg7m0)) - 💭 in comparison to traditional rationality: polyepistemic (4 types of knowing) versus purely logical polyphasic (altered states of consciousness) versus just one Socratic rationality is inherently dialogical, and I'm extending that now; not only dialogical without, but dialogical within. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3726xcct9qrv2k0zwg4csm)) It causes his capacity for rational self-control and mastery over his passions. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd376y33sq8h5z290taydwmd)) ^n32smj - 💭 so you're not wise if you are a slave to your desires? So, when we're talking about inner speech, you have to think about it as this combination of sort of a wordless noticing and realizing through attentional shifting and remembering. Inner speech is where you're actually doing inner vocalization. It's often paired with inner imagery, so we're talking about a very multimodal experience. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd37bnkz1bhzqb33avssxe8r)) ^jurww7 - 💭 speech as in dialogue, not verbal I think it would be good if I married Susan. We say that, but if we say it, we're in a state where we're not quite convinced of it. Why do we do this? Like, why do that? He gives the very plausible answer: the party doing the proposing has information different from the party doing the disposing or the criticizing. So we do this because some other part of We will respond to it in some fashion with information that was not present to mind when we took the stance of the proposer. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd37fe2ej73fqd013ktsnt0a)) ^okdnbu - 💭 this is what is meant by proposing over propositional - propositional you already assume with the fact, but by proposing, you open up dialogue between your different parts. proposing is to wonder, not to be curious The husband has formed a model of his wife and the wife has formed a model of her husband. Now, this is a particular kind of model; it's called a generative model. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd37qd005b356sq61stwqbps)) ^nx5g69 - 💭 the predictive nature of LLMs is also present in our own mental models that we use to make decisions they don't have to talk to each other, but because they have these internal Models, generative models, their behavior is highly coordinated, so they keep their communication costs low, but they get the benefit of coordination because they have mutual modeling going on. They’re mutually modeling each other. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd37vw2taaez45kq07skz6c5)) ^p5jyul the area of the brain for sight, right? In the area of the brain for hearing, for example, right? They’re not only modeling the world; they’re modeling each other. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd37wf6bxt6qdh6pqs9szrb2)) ^5d35cc left hemisphere evolved basically to deal with well-defined problems ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd38200ppywsyqq1y3pxef2j)) - 💭 did i ever make this connection with specialists vs generalists and left vs right brain thinking? book is called the Eureka Factor: Aha Moments — Creative Insights in the Brain by John Kounios and Mark Beeman ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd387zeym6f53px1eagsbbjf)) - Tags: #toread So activities shift from the left hemisphere to the right hemisphere as you're searching not for a solution; you're searching for a new way to frame the problem. You're doing this thing where you're opening up attention and trying to see if anything becomes relevant for you. When you get the alternative framing, you come back and reframe your problem. Now you turn it into an appropriately framed, well-defined problem, and you can solve it. That's your aha moment. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3893tvvm7ee4da401bvn77)) ^u1htxw - 💭 i just got goosebumps as it reminds me a lot of the switching between [[Thinking Styles]], you stay in flow and generate insight by switching between the two. insight comes from a new reframe Insight is a dialogical process between the hemispheres that you participate in. You don't do it; it's not an action time for insight. Insight, you know, it just doesn't just happen to you like a feeling or a perception. You participate in it the way you participate in a conversation. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd38b65tpn9ew0je2a4fhdxp)) ^bpznsh - 💭 this is why writing and note-making leads to insights. tools for thoughts give us mental scaffolding to achieve this process. But if you are fitted to those, you actually cannot solve your problem. You have to throw noise in to break that up, to disrupt that, to break that frame, and then what that allows is it allows you to explore and find other important information that more correctly generalizes to the problem at hand. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd38drsbzvhe6mnjyb3bkpef)) ^txf91w - 💭 reminds me of cluster to collide and the power of Maps of Content if the husband and the wife never talk to each other, their generative models are progressively going to become out of sync. If they always talk to each other, then their generative models are not needed. What do they need to do? This isn’t in Montague; this is an argument that I’ve made. They need to cycle between these two in an opponent. In processing fashion, they need to have time where they're working independently, not talking to each other; they could even be in different places in the house. They’re relying on their generative models and their mutual modeling to coordinate their behavior. But they also need to have another phase where they come back, talk to each other, get in sync with each other and make sure their models are lining up with reality. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd38mez2nnpe3pg8z5r9mr14)) ^d3va7g - 💭 if we look at this from the perspective of our inner parts in dialogue, then it supports the idea of having various selves, and part of participatory knowing is also knowing not just when to adopt a certain part, but to also adopt a mind wandering approach to have them communicate with each other? this is why reviews are so critical, if you were to only do and do and work and work you would lose the chance to re-evaluate to adapt and iterate Mind wandering is almost always self-referential, and what does self-reference do? It binds the parts together. So we're going into the default mode to make sure the two parts are actually modeling each other well, and then we go back to focused on the world. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd38qw2y7cgt0kek40bfqvjc)) ^84xqay - 💭 this is why it's CRUCIAL to have a reflection process when you want to live a complex, self-actualized, high-performing, balanced life. otherwise, you can fall to hyperfixation, you don't have a way to integrate your efforts into one cohesive vision and self that you want to aspire towards. wow. What I do is, okay, from this perspective, I basically I’m seeing things in a certain way. I’m present within this perspective, and my eye is shining towards the you that is the future version of me. Then I move and it becomes the present. I take up this eye position and I’m shining my perspective from where I am, present in this eye position. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd39zgwhsn7tf8ht38f9wd9q)) ^c2p7hn - 💭 finite transcendence through inner dialogue, recursive realization, left vs right brain, poem-writing style of intelligibility, could be akin to periodic reviews, your actionable shining is the efforts you put into realizing the ideal self through what you want to do in a timeframe, and then your future self will end up looking back at the efforts to engage in reciprocal correction, to make sure that the past efforts are intelligible and are in essence the right direction, until it fits Poetry, but poetry in the original sense of poesis — the making of new meaning that is nevertheless intelligible to others. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3aazj6z5rskxs56f0tnph3)) ^yfkp84 - 💭 shouldn't educational content be poetic then? Mercier, and Sperber's Enigma of Reason ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3aegtyg3p5gfj8ryrxhxh6)) #toread as we start talking about this inner dimension, we are extending the vertical dimension of dialectic. It's not only above us contemplatively; it's within us in how we are communing with our own souls. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3ahtc2vewke07y6nzckjkr)) ^fwewf8 - 💭 is this related to having an imaginal bridge to connect the essence of who we are to what is most real? Maybe do this practice a few times so you can get a sense of a different way of being. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3akw663a7rm5ym4p3n2enc)) ^tcnzj7 - 💭 meditative questioning So normally when we ask a question, we ask it from a framework of curiosity, and there's a hole and we want to fill it in because we've discovered a gap in our knowledge. Curiosity is a good thing, and it's a powerful motivator, and filling in those holes improves our knowledge, so I'm not here to in any way disparage that. But sometimes we don't ask a question from curiosity; we ask it from a framework of wonder. The stance of wonder is, I wonder if my life has any deep meaning. Perhaps we're not asking a question because There's a gap in our knowledge we're calling the self and its world into question. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3anr4w5380d2pqqjcd209t)) ^ptylum - 💭 curiosity vs wonder The point about the parables is to get you into a place where you think you're in a story and you know who to identify with, and then it unwraps from you and you are put into a state of Wonder and you are called into question. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3arafag0m2va0ctmavjg8v)) ^gelnqs - 💭 this is the ideal mindset i want to have when engaging in fiction, to put myself in a contemplative state as i explore things from new perspectives put yourself into question, especially the set of presuppositions that we have been given to us by modernity and therefore get you to wonder into the Socratic shift. So please make sure you're very well Centered, you're rooted. You go through the humble Wonder exercise to be properly prepared ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3asz1yj5s75wpm06n40kk6)) ^kxrknv you're going to ask, "Who am I?" You're going to first ask it, and these are all imaginal positions. You're going to ask it from your mind, your head space: "Who am I?" and you'll get answers. You'll get some answers and for a bit, do a bit of movement within that. Any answer that comes up, treat it with gratitude and appreciation. Thank you, but who am I? Where did that answer come from? What's behind it? What happens if I go through it? Use the answer; you're not throwing away the answer. The answer is a doorway. You pass through it; it affords you and you go a little bit deeper. Do a few rounds of that, maybe two, three, or four, and hold that for a moment. Savor it, then come back now to your heart. Eye positioning here: who am I? When words come up, just let them float away. What feelings, what emotions, what affect, what motivation, what incohate. Sensations come up and now try to understand how it’s very much like engines focusing. You’re proposing to yourself, "What am I feeling? Is it this?" And it doesn’t now. Is it this? Now is it there? Yes. And as Gandalin says in focusing, there’s that felt shift that "Who I am." Keep that. Move into—I needed another "h" word from the Zen tradition that came to mind: the Hara, this part of you. And for those of you who know Plato, here’s the man; here’s the lion, and there’s the Beast from your horror, from that part of you — the visceral parts of you in your guts. You have lots of neurons there, right? In "Who am I?" and "What’s the energy that comes up?" And now, again, doing that labeling, that’s resonant. Proposed: Is it this? Is it this? Is it this? This? And now you have all three of these: the deeper mental, the heart, the Hara. And like in lectio Divina, where you have the different texts talk to each other, now let them do that reciprocal correction between each other until you let them play with each other. How do they go together? What's the logos? How can I follow the logos, practice the logos until I see the through line, until they all resolve? Until you get a Gestalt of its own, and then deeply appreciate this answer: that's who I am. And then go through it like a portal and do the whole thing again anew, start from where you had the mental answer. But who am I even deeper? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3av9an640qfqf6mkc307zs)) ^dpe6z7 appreciate in the sense of understanding and valuing both where you have arrived in your quest and the quest. And then slowly come out of your practice, trying as best you can to integrate what you cultivated in your practice with your everyday consciousness and cognition. Let it challenge the modernity, the modern framework. Let it provoke you to the real possibility of the Socratic shift. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd3azgftnzs5pdd3rce3yg04)) ^mz84q9 Am I violating the syntax too much? Am I bending the semantics too much? I don't want to lose syntactic and semantic clarities. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd39kmv2kx88vr8cqtyc1979)) ^p1e07l - 💭 switching in thinking styles, writing original works, why dumping should come first if you want to stay authentic the surprise of creating new meaning, conveying it to you, and the other of getting confirmation, getting it to have enough coherent structure that it's intelligible to you ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jd39p0q9y4szyynvaycgtve7)) ^ac1fak