(romankogan.net/adhd/#Not Completing My Sentences)

#ADHD

While I often complete other people's sentences, I frequently don't complete my own.

My brain goes, there is sufficient information in the words you already said for the other person to figure out what you wanted to say, no further work is necessary, and my mind just goes blank.

(romankogan.net/adhd/#Homework)

The only time I didn't struggle with homework was in elementary school, when we had after-school sessions for doing homework. I'd do it there and be free.

On my own, it was always a challenge due to:

• Perfectionism resulting in me taking too much time on assignments, and going as far as refusing to turn them in unless I thought I'll get a full score on them, preferring a failing grade;
• Being Late, either because starting too close to the deadline or due to perfectionism;
• Forgetting about homework;
• Getting hyperfixated on one class at the expense of everything else;
• Running out of spoons
• Executive Dysfunction

(www.greaterwrong.com/tag/alief)

Example: I spent most of the last year being subject to aliefs along the lines of “if X happens then that means I’m bad, which means that nobody will ever love me,”

–www.lesswrong.com/posts/mELQFMi9egPn5EAjK/my-attempt-to-explain-looking-insight-meditation-and?commentId=ddSQExZAiHEkLrrtY

The point of working with this alief in a circle was 1) to get exposed to situations that might trigger the alief, 2) to notice when other people started being confused about what I was saying because it no longer made sense to them, and 3) possibly to get actual experiences that contradict the alief (people still loving me even though X had happened). I was gradually able to take this alief as object but it took awhile; it had a very, very strong grip on me.

In other comments when I’ve talked about thorny emotional bugs, this is the sort of thing I was talking about. My experience is that most people come to CFAR workshops with at least one bug like this (edit: which they don’t know they have! Blindspots!), which is seriously holding them back; I don’t think it’s uncommon at all.

Aliefs control you and can be very destructive.

For example, take someone with severe jealousy issues. I wouldn't be surprised if they're carrying an alief along the lines of "Someone like me doesn't deserve a partner". That means a part of them honestly believes that their partner would leave them if only they knew the full truth, so of course they act accordingly.

Another example. "If I can't find a job, I'm not worth anything". Things like that… You can absolutely see people's aliefs reflected in their behavior. The thought you cannot think controls you more than the thought you can think.

Being able to find outs for a theory that doesn't fit evidence is anti-knowledge, and the more practice you get at it the crazier you become.

Anti-epistemology refers to bad explicit beliefs about rules of reasoning, usually developed in the course of protecting an existing false belief—false beliefs are opposed not only by true beliefs (that must then be obscured in turn), but also by good rules of systematic reasoning (which must then be denied).

From Yudkowsky's 2008 post www.greaterwrong.com/posts/XTWkjCJScy2GFAgDt/dark-side-epistemology :

A single lie you tell yourself may seem plausible enough, when you don’t know any of the rules governing thoughts, or even that there are rules; and the choice seems as arbitrary as choosing a flavor of ice cream, as isolated as a pebble on the shore . . .

. . . but then someone calls you on your belief, using the rules of reasoning that they’ve learned. They say, “Where’s your evidence?”

And you say, “What? Why do I need evidence?”

So they say, “In general, beliefs require evidence.”

This argument, clearly, is a soldier fighting on the other side, which you must defeat. So you say: “I disagree! Not all beliefs require evidence. In particular, beliefs about dragons don’t require evidence. When it comes to dragons, you’re allowed to believe anything you like. So I don’t need evidence to believe there’s a dragon in my garage.”

And the one says, “Eh? You can’t just exclude dragons like that. There’s a reason for the rule that beliefs require evidence. To draw a correct map of the city, you have to walk through the streets and make lines on paper that correspond to what you see. That’s not an arbitrary legal requirement—if you sit in your living room and draw lines on the paper at random, the map’s going to be wrong. With extremely high probability. That’s as true of a map of a dragon as it is of anything.”

So now this, the explanation of why beliefs require evidence, is also an opposing soldier. So you say: “Wrong with extremely high probability? Then there’s still a chance, right? I don’t have to believe if it’s not absolutely certain.”

Or maybe you even begin to suspect, yourself, that “beliefs require evidence.” But this threatens a lie you hold precious; so you reject the dawn inside you, push the Sun back under the horizon.

Or you’ve previously heard the proverb “beliefs require evidence,” and it sounded wise enough, and you endorsed it in public. But it never quite occurred to you, until someone else brought it to your attention, that this proverb could apply to your belief that there’s a dragon in your garage. So you think fast and say, “The dragon is in a separate magisterium.”

Having false beliefs isn’t a good thing, but it doesn’t have to be permanently crippling—if, when you discover your mistake, you get over it. The dangerous thing is to have a false belief that you believe should be protected as a belief—a belief-in-belief, whether or not accompanied by actual belief.

A single Lie That Must Be Protected can block someone’s progress into advanced rationality. No, it’s not harmless fun.

Just as the world itself is more tangled by far than it appears on the surface, so too there are stricter rules of reasoning, constraining belief more strongly, than the untrained would suspect. The world is woven tightly, governed by general laws, and so are rational beliefs.

Think of what it would take to deny evolution or heliocentrism—all the connected truths and governing laws you wouldn’t be allowed to know. Then you can imagine how a single act of self-deception can block off the whole meta level of truth-seeking, once your mind begins to be threatened by seeing the connections.

Topoi

• Rules of reasoning
• Protecting a false belief
• A false belief opposed by true beliefs, which must be obscured
• Those true beliefs are supported by good rules of systematic reasoning, which must then be denied