I usually do philosophy first when I wake up, when I'm fresh. This works for me because I'm not sleep deprived. Lots of people have a hard time in the mornings because they are chronically sleep deprived. Getting enough sleep is important to being a good thinker. I wake up without caffeine, an alarm, a shower, or anything to wake me up. I don't keep track, but I'd guess that I average over 8 hours of sleep per day (including naps).

I don't eat until after doing philosophy. (I find I'm not hungry for at least 4 hours after waking up.) When convenient, I use eating, exercising or showering as a break after doing morning philosophy.

Happily, I do contract software work from home and can choose my own hours to work. So I can do philosophy first regardless of what time I wake up, then do software work or whatever else later on. My sleep and wake times vary significantly and sometimes I take naps. I sleep when I'm tired, not on a schedule.

I avoid scheduling many activities. And I get a lot of stuff delivered, including lots of my groceries, so I don't need to go places during business hours much. This improves my sleep and gives me the flexibility to do what I want when I want to.

If I worked a 9-5 job, I would go to sleep by 8pm so I could wake up by 4am and do philosophy in the morning before work.

If you work a regular job, and you want to be a better thinker, I recommend you try something like this. Don't wake up for work. Sleep after work and then wake up long before work. Then you can do your own thing (e.g. study critical thinking skills and read philosophy books) when you're fresh. This can also work with anything intellectual, e.g. if you're writing a novel. It's really hard to do your best thinking after an 8 hour workday.

There are some problems you may run into:

1) Missing new TV shows. You should record your shows for watching later, or buy or torrent them online. You don't have to watch TV shows when they air. If people at work will discuss the show the next day and you want to join the discussions and avoid spoilers, consider watching in the morning. E.g. do philosophy from 4-7:30am, then watch the TV show (while eating breakfast) then go to work.

2) Social life. If you care more about socializing than thinking, you'll want to be available in the evenings when our culture prefers to do social activities. You've gotta choose. You can't be a productive, great thinker; work a regular job; deal with life (load the dishwasher, go to the dentist, etc); and also keep up a conventional social life. There isn't time for all that.

3) Family time. If you need to stay up until midnight to have enough time with your kids and spouse after work, then you aren't going to have enough time for intellectual activities regardless of your sleep schedule. That's your choice. Good luck trying to squeeze in some thinking on weekends, I guess, but that's when you'll be busy going places and doing family and/or social activities that don't fit on weekdays.

4) I need to be at my best at work. If you're especially smart (like most people interested in my blog who want to be intellectually productive outside of work) then you can do most jobs just fine without being at your very sharpest. You aren't being paid extra to work right after sleeping (actually lots of people come in tired in the morning because they're sleep deprived, and that's perfectly acceptable at most jobs). If you're struggling at work, then OK focus on that but don't expect to be very productive on an intellectual side project. But don't give up your own stuff to try extra super hard at work when you're already doing fine, that'll just get you exploited more than rewarded.

Real talk: If you work full time and have a family life and a social life, you're probably sleep deprived already. You've chosen how to spend your time. On the other hand, if you want to do some kind of thinking or creative pursuit, and you're willing to allocate time for it, then try changing your sleep cycle so you can do it in the morning before work, while fresh, instead of trying to do it after work.

All of this applies if you go to school rather than work. And if you don't work, then try getting enough sleep and doing your most intellectually demanding activity first thing after waking, when you're the freshest.

I'm asked lots of questions. Writing great answers for all of them would take too long.

I prioritize writing answers I consider interesting or important.

Sometimes I give a short answers or a link. Sometimes I suggest that a friend answer a question. But I still don't answer some questions at all.

My first priority is what I want to answer. Secondarily, I'd like to answer questions that the asker cares more about, puts more effort into, and gets more value from.

Sometimes people ask careless questions. Sometimes they barely care what the answer is. Sometimes they lose interest in the topic a couple days later but don't share this fact. Sometimes they could have easily found the answer with Google, but they don't respect my time. Some questions are dead ends where they have no comment on the answer and no followup questions.

I have limited information about how important a question is to you. You can help with this problem by writing better questions. Here are some things you can do to get more attention:

• Ask on the Fallible Ideas discussion group or curi forum (this website). Those are my preferred places to take questions and I give them priority. But don't use FI unless you read the guidelines and format your post correctly.
• State steps you already took to find the answer yourself, and why they didn't work.
• Write well. Use short, simple words, sentences and paragraphs. Clearly mark quotes. Emphasize key points. Do an editing pass to make it clearer and easier to understand. Keep things organized and limit repetition.
• Make it really clear what the question actually is.
• Give specifics. I don't have a solution to "I am sad". That describes millions of different problems. (If you want a very general purpose answer like "Then do problem solving." you can state that you want a general case answer with no specifics.)
• Mention relevant background knowledge you have. If you ask about altruism, I may suggest you read Ayn Rand. If you've already read her, you should have told me!
• Say what kind of answer you're looking for. What are you looking for? What sort of information would you consider an adequate answer?
• Say why you want an answer to this question and what problem it will solve for you. Say why the question is important.
• Use relevant quotes and make sure they are 100% accurate (use copy/paste) and give the source. E.g. if the question has to do with something I've written, link and quote it.
• Keep it short. If some detailed information is important for reference, put it in a footnote after the question.
• If you refer to something, and it's important to your question, then provide a link. For books you generally want to give the Amazon link. If it's long, say which section is relevant and explain what information the reference has and how it relates to the question.
• Sending money, even just $5, sets your question apart from others.
• I strongly prefer ebooks over paper. They don't have page numbers and do allow searching for quotes. And if you really want me to look at a book and can't find a free link, then buy me the ebook. But it's usually better to just quote a lot instead.
• If your question isn't answered, look at it from another angle or make some progress on it, then ask another question. Having a question unanswered is no big deal. It's not a negative response or a rebuke. No answer is neutral. If it's important, just reread this guide and try again after a few days.
• If you have followup questions or arguments that depend on my answer to the question, especially criticism of my ideas, let me know.
• If you think I need to address this question for Paths Forward reasons, explain that.
• If you want me personally to answer, say why. Otherwise write your question in a generic way that other people could answer, too.
• If you think I'll get value from the question or a followup, tell me what's in it for me.
• Don't be or act helpless or needy, don't act like you deserve free answers, and don't rush and write carelessly.

If this sounds like too much effort to you, then understand that answering your questions is not my problem. But note that you will benefit from these steps too because they'll guide you to do better thinking. They'll help you understand your problem better, make some problem solving progress, and sometimes answer your own question.

How do you judge (ASAP) when someone is talking to you because they are triggered or reactive instead of out of interest?

People usually respond because they are reacting to something. They feel pressured, they don't like something, or even they do like something. Positive reactions are still reactions, instead of the person being a self-starter who controls their own life. Being passive and reacting to stuff is different than deciding what to do yourself. It's only people who decide to pursue something, because they're interested, who learn much.

There are degrees. More reactive people are worse people.

People do chain reactions. E.g. first they react to an event or situation with an emotion. Then they react to their emotion.

If you ask people, they frequently don't understand the question and give an answer anyway (lie they understand the question and know the answer) or lie (lie they're not being reactive/triggered when they are).

If you interact with someone over time, you can see patterns like they don't bring a topic up themselves, they only talk about it when you bring it up.

This is adapted from a Fallible Ideas discussion called "How to help someone find their motor".

How do you tell the difference between genuine vs. cargo culting interests? You don’t give up / lose interest in a genuine interest just because it gets hard or when some passing
distraction comes up and catches your attention.

that describes a big, strong interest.

lots of interests are genuine but small and/or weak.

it's good to have lots of small interests where you finish quickly. you should have more small interests than big ones. that's part of creating lots of interests. not everything has to be or should be a giant quest.

and it's fine to have lots of weak interests where, if you realize the price is higher than you initially estimated, you drop the project. that's efficient. most of your interests should be sensitive to the time/effort/money/resources involved in a project. you can have a few things where you're like "whatever it takes, i wanna do this" but you shouldn't have that attitude all the time (also you should always be willing to reconsider goals, change interests, etc). it often makes sense to have some weak interest in 20 projects and then actually do the 3 you find to be most cost efficient and drop the other 17. (don't lose track of what you actually like looking for what's cost efficient, though! use cost efficient as a tiebreaker between different things you like about equally.)

small projects often lead to new problems and projects, which are often small themselves, and lead to even more.

people should be interested in problems more than topics. topics are only an approximation of rational interests. super dedicated chess players don't actually like everything about chess, they are more interested in some aspects than others. some chess problems interest them and some don't. saying they are interested in the topic of chess is a reasonable approximation because they are interested in a wide variety and large number of chess problems.

even a very broad problem like being interested in winning chess games is more of a specific problem than chess as a topic. winning chess games covers a lot of material, but chess as a topic includes even more stuff that doesn't actually help you win games.

looking at it abstractly, out of all possible information related to chess in some way, most is not useful to any problem a human cares about. most information about all topics is boring. selecting interesting problems to guide you is crucial to making good decisions about which information to focus on and which to ignore.

anyway, one doesn't just sit down and "study chess". that's either an approximate statement (no big deal normally, but imprecise) or wrong. one studies a chess related problem, e.g. on a particular day one sits down and studies how to win games against the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian defense, which fits into one's broader interest of being prepared to play aggressive e4 openings in order to win rather than draw more games with white and play to one's strengths of fast, open positions. which will help solve the problem of winning chess tournaments, not the problem of knowing every fact, no matter how pointless, about chess just b/c "i'm interested in chess" (no you're not, you're interested in lots of chess stuff, but not all of it!). people often do this is a semi-reasonable way in practice, but don't understand it in words very well, and could make some improvements if they knew what was going on more accurately.

so: find projects to solve problems, preferably usually small ones you can finish. do them successfully. do more. don't look for a whole huge quest from the start if you don't have one. bigger projects may develop naturally as you do lots of small projects successfully and develop various skills and gradually increase the size of project you can confidently complete and handle. those skills include time organization and resource management skills, understanding your interests and what you'll actually do or finish, general purpose get-shit-done skills, and much more.

it's better if small problems you work on relate to a larger interest, even if it's one you're unsure about. e.g. you might find a chess opening interesting to learn about on its own, and it'd also have the additional big-picture benefit of helping your chess game. or if you think you might potentially like to learn some physics stuff, then you could look for little projects with some connection to physics. like anything to do with science, learning, writing or computer skills could come in handy later for learning physics.

What if my interest leads to a dead end?

suppose theoretically you did follow an interest to a dead-end. dead-ends are bad so that means you made a mistake. that leads somewhere: you could investigate why you made that mistake, what went wrong, how to find, fix and avoid mistakes in the future, what kinds of methods and ideas that requires, what errors and error correction are, etc... so it's led to lots of great stuff. so it wasn't actually a dead-end in the bigger picture.

broadly: solutions lead to new problems. in the alternative, lack of solutions is a problem. there's always more problems to work on. there are no dead ends except irrationality (which shouldn't be blamed on the interest/topic, irrationality is about how people approach stuff badly and e.g. create dead ends).

i recommend getting a sous vide machine for cooking steaks. it cooks other things too.

a sous vide machine heats a pot of water and circulates the water with a small pump. it has a very accurate thermometer and keeps the water the desired temperature.

you put the steak in a ziploc bag (or use a vacuum sealer, but that's unnecessary).

you put seasoning on the steak in the bag. i used salt, pepper, dried minced onions (sold like a spice), tiny garlic bits (i used a metal presser) and butter.

they are great because you set the exact temperature and it cooks the steak perfectly.

it cooks the whole steak the same amount, instead of cooking the outside more and the inside less.

cooking isn't time sensitive. it's hard to fuck up. i read you can stop cooking your steak up to around 4 hours after it's done and it doesn't matter.

you can't overcook the steak on temperature because it can't get hotter then the water. if you overcook on cooking duration (which takes hours) then it gets mushier apparently.

i read you can put in frozen steak without defrosting.

you don't lose any juices to the pan or grill. they are in the bag for you to pour out after.

sous vide can do some other stuff too. there are recipies where you cook something for days. however all i've done is cook steaks which only takes like 90 minutes.

a downside is no sear unless you briefly sear the steak in a pan after which is an extra step. even with the sear step, sous vide still compares well to other cooking methods in terms of effort.

the main reason i highly recommend sous vide is cooking the steak correctly without fucking it up. i often cooked steaks poorly when using other methods (like pan or grill) that didn't have a computer controlling the temperature for me. sous vide makes it really easy to cook it really well. plus even if you grill a steak perfectly it still cooks the outside more than the inside. and you don't have to worry about going and doing something else and getting distracted, the cook timing is very lenient.

i recently got the Anova Bluetooth Model. the one i almost bought instead is the Joule.

the Joule has a magnet on the bottom, is smaller, costs more, and has more watts (doesn't really matter if you start with hot water from the tap, but saves time if you start with a pot of cold water). but you can only use it with your smartphone. the Anova works with your smartphone (which i haven't actually tried) but also has a display, an on/off button and a physical wheel you spin to set the temperature. i chose the Anova so my iPhone wouldn't be required. other than that issue i would have gotten the Joule.

i have also pre-ordered a Cinder which is a computer-controlled grill that's also supposed to make it easy to cook steaks (and other foods) really well and hard to fuck them up.

i also have an instant pot pressure cooker which i would also recommend.

(btw if you use my amazon links above and buy a sous vide cooker – or anything else – amazon will give me money. also in general if you go to the Fallible Ideas website and click the Popper or Rand link at the bottom before buying on Amazon then i will get money. thanks!)

i had to stand in front of a cashier to read the menu at mcdonalds b/c i didn't have my glasses. when you walk up to them they think you're gonna order. so i had to explain.

i believe a lot of ppl find things like that so socially awkward they would prefer to just not read the menu and order something from memory, or even look at online menu on phone. and a lot of people don't talk about this kind of thing, either, because they find it embarrassing or shameful, so you may underestimate how common it is.

i usually don't wear my glasses b/c i can see fine to get around and do stuff. reading menus i can't hold in my hand (the kind behind the counter) is actually the only problem i run into much when walking around without glasses, and i don't want to wear glasses in general just for that one thing.

i might have looked online on my iphone if it was reliable b/c even standing at the closest point in the store to the menu it was still somewhat difficult to read. and the menu is computer displays that keep changing instead of static text. it's also very badly organized. i find it strange that mcdonalds uses technology to make their menu way worse than a regular menu. they could have some regular menus available you could hold, or just post one on the wall somewhere, but they don't. if it's because they want to change their menu often and feel they need computer screens instead of just printing out updates, they could put a computer screen on the wall with menu text that doesn't changing during the day so people could actually browse their entire menu (it could even be a touchscreen where you can flip through the pages if they want to be fancy and their menu is very long). however, i don't think you can reliably look up the exact menu of a particular mcdonalds location online so i didn't try that even though the store menus suck.

the reason i wanted to read the menu is i ordered jalapeno doubles from postmates (delivery people service) from mcdonalds a couple days ago. and they said mcdonalds doesn't carry them anymore. so i was trying to check the menu for them. i didn't see them on the menu but the menu is so confusing i didn't think i'd actually viewed a complete list. so i asked the cashier. they do have them. yay! but what the fuck is with the incompetence of the postmates person who said they were at mcdonalds and they no longer carry jalapeno doubles? they just do. :/

in addition to jalapeno doubles, which are great and i recommend them, i also ordered the daily double which i hadn't had before and didn't see on the menu, but had seen online. it was pretty good. i only knew about the daily double item because i saw it on the mcdonalds menu on the postmates website when ordering there, which shows menus are useful! i like to read menus sometimes to browse. similarly i occasionally like to visit grocery stores to browse. (when not browsing, it's mostly better to order stuff online and have it delivered, which saves time and effort. safeway will deliver large orders for cheap or free. and walmart will deliver non-perishables for free if you order $50 and they also have generally have better prices than stores around here. amazon also sells some foods with free delivery.)

anyway my main point was about the social awkwardness of going and standing by a cashier and explaining about not having glasses. i think a lot of people wouldn't do that, or would really dislike doing it. i think a lot of people put substantial effort into avoiding that kind of thing and don't realize they have a problem. but it's really no big deal. you should learn to do it. it's not hard. i grew up very shy, and i can do it just fine. just try it, no one is going to hurt you for wanting to read their menu and making a short, reasonable statement about where you're standing in the zone of the store for customers.

In a previous post I wrote:

you have a problem. e.g. you want an answer to a question like whether the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is true.

Further quotes are PAS's reply. PAS is a pseudonym meaning "problems are soluble".

How do you effectively generate and resolve criticism of ideas about what you want? How do you figure out what you actually want from a discussion, instead of just going with the first idea about what you want that you become consciously aware of?

Look for problems with wanting it. Look for bad things about it. Stuff that'll go wrong.

A good place to look for problems, if you haven't developed anything better (and still worth checking even if you have) is looking at ways it clashes with your culture's idea of a good, normal life. As a first pass, if pursuing this want/preference/interest is compatible with having a life your society thinks is good, (and you don't see any other problem), then it's alright. And if you do see a way it'll screw up your life (by normal cultural standards), then there's a problem to consider and don't proceed with it unless you come up with some solutions (e.g. ways to adjust the interest and pursue it better so it doesn't screw up life by normal cultural standards, and/or some criticisms of why those standards are bad in general, or wrong for you personally, and you don't need them in this case.)

As you live a life using traditional knowledge, if you're thoughtful you'll notice some other problems (things go wrong when living traditionally), and learn about some problems from non-traditional sources, and you'll work on solving those problems and learn other things besides your culture's standard, default ideas.

All the while you should try to get advice, criticism, insight, etc, from others. They will know things you don't about your culture's standard ideas (which no one has a perfect conception of, and everyone's conception of it varies some). They will see some things as bad you don't realize. They will notice some things about life you don't (b/c life has so much information and everyone rightfully pays selective attention to what they deem important, and different people have different ideas about what's important even if they are similar.) and they'll have different specialities, areas they've studied more than you, skillsets, etc

When you raise the concern of people using the first idea they are consciously aware of ... you're right. You've identified a problem (i don't mean that it's original, just that you see it yourself, which is good). You have a criticism of many possible actions because they rush into things when thinking a bit longer first would have been worthwhile. Great. This will be very useful when using the general pattern of acting on your ideas barring knowing bad things, but not acting on ideas you know bad things with.

(The English word "problem" is ambiguous between referring only to bad stuff, or including stuff that isn't bad too. I changed the last sentence of the previous paragraph to use the term "bad things" for clarity".)

In the example above, it’s possible you want just what was said (an answer to a question like whether the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is true). But there are alternate explanations for the idea that you want that - you might actually want something else. Such as:

• You want an intellectual self-image, so you are lying to yourself about wanting to know MWI because wanting that fits the image you’re after.
• You want to be able to impress people, so you just want to know arguments about MWI that will impress people.
• You want to be entertained, and you find discussing MWI entertaining even if the discussion never resolves.
• You want to defeat a particular person in an argument, and you know the person you want to defeat is an MWI skeptic, so you want to know arguments he can’t answer.
• You want to participate in an FI discussion, and MWI is just a topic that you think FI will highly approve of discussing.
• etc.

All of those are good problems to be aware of. In addition to what you say here, it's important to have some understanding of how to identify when these problems are and aren't happening. That can start simple and crude, and be refined as you learn more and get better at stuff.

High level, I think resolving this to figure out what you actually want from the discussion fits in the general category of introspection.

But how should the lower level details of it work?

Being mistaken about what you want, or lying to yourself or others about what you want, is a common problem. Dealing with this problem occurs in the general context explained above. It also occurs in the general context of using conjectures and refutations to think. And some other general contexts.

There are lots of useful more-specific approaches to this problem such as:

• Seeking out information about what's wrong with our culture from questioning type people who have already worked lots of things out. Such as TCS, PUA, the anti-superstition stuff like James Randi, various criticism of religion, Szasz's criticisms regarding "mental illness" and medicalization of everyday life, and Ayn Rand's criticism of altruism.
• Living normally but being on the lookout for problems. And when you find problems, try to understand what went wrong, figure out what mistakes led to it. This can lead to introspection.
• Learning to think, argue, judge ideas, etc, very well and objectively (non-introspectively). The better you get at it, including catching lies, the easier it will be to use apply to yourself. This can be approached many ways, one is reading and discussing Popper.
• Learning to spot other people's common flaws and lies in our culture. Get better at this and it's easier to see some of the same mistakes in yourself. An example way to approach this is to take advice articles and stories (movies, books, tv show plots, etc) about romance and criticize flaws. like fisking it or like this critical post: 23 Ways To Keep Your Romance Alive (and part 2).

if you develop your skill to the point it's really easy for you to write something like that about a wide variety of articles and stories -- you can just rattle off lots of criticisms quickly without much effort -- then that'll go a long way towards dealing with such problems in yourself. but be warned, many people have found developing the skill more modestly isn't very effective though. that is, by an effort they manage to write a couple critical pieces like that which are broadly pretty decent (though worse, more simplistic, more naive, etc, in many subtle ways). and then they find they are still a romantic at heart, and nothing much has changed besides adding a little inner conflict to deal with (though that usually doesn't last too long, they come up with some rationalizations and shut their mind closed).

this gets into a common theme: people really skimp on skill development. if they'd develop skills to much higher expertise -- until they have the skill for things to be pretty easy -- instead of stopping the moment they think they have enough skill to maybe barely succeed -- their life would be far more efficient and successful.

you have a problem. e.g. you want an answer to a question like whether the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is true. or you want to know how to build a submarine. or you want to know how to win Overwatch games. or you want to know how to treat your children.

this leads to other problems:

• how do you ask a question?
• how do you read the answer to a question from someone else and understand it?
• how do you judge if an answer is good or bad?

and working on this leads to other problems, e.g.:

• how do you take one or more answers with some value, but some flaws, and improve them into one good answer?
• how do you know if you understood an answer well enough or should ask clarifying questions?

and working on those leads to other problems, e.g.:

• how do you communicate effectively instead of ineffectively?
• what info should you include or not include in communications?
• what are examples useful for?
• how and when should you use examples, and how do you make them effective?
• what topics should i be interested in and talk about and ask questions about?
• how do you use abstract ideas in your life? what do you do with them besides remember them and occasionally mention them in conversations?

(and you need to be able to come up with questions like these on your own, and come up with more detailed ones and come up with your own thoughts about it, not just ask a really broad generic question with none of your own thinking in it. don't use my list. make your own list. this is a demo, not something you should copy. pursue your own questions, not my questions.)

lots of these problems involve basic stuff that comes up over and over when dealing with many different problems.

things like asking questions and communicating are skills that you'll use over and over. that's why they are basic. they are so important to so many things that people figure you need to learn them early on so you can be reasonably effective in life. everyone is expected to know them.

but most people are awful at lots of basic stuff like this.

and then they keep trying to have discussions while fucking up the basics, and so the discussions fail.

and they never find their way from the discussions to the basics. they don't, on wanting to ask a question, wonder about how to ask questions. they don't, on wanting to communicate something, wonder about how to communicate. they don't take an interest in the skills they are trying to use.

this is horribly broken and is a huge part of how people suck so much and stay so shitty.

you need to learn basic skills. you need an understanding of how to discuss, how to communicate, how to ask and answer questions, how to judge ideas, etc.

if you aren't interested in this, you should become interested in it by seeing how it's needed for dealing with more or less all of your actual interests. your interests lead to these basics (this needs to be an active process of you finding and following leads, not a passive process of being led). unless you're blocking and sabotaging, or passive and helpless.