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You cannot let those people to bring you down. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to complain and would just feel even worse for doing so.

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I agreeof course, but does the subjectivity really have anything to do with consciousness? You could taste something and have a totally different experience than i would because your taste buds are different.

Likewise, a non conscious agent like a software bot or simple organism can have a different subjective experience than an identical agent because of similar environmental differences.

If i just ate a giant meal and you didnt, and we both experience a day without food, then my subjective experience would be very different than yours for example. Regardless of whether we are conscious or not.

I dont think consciousness = subjective experience. I think consciousness is a thought process that happens in our brains, and subjective experience is a very abstract concept that can be influenced by many, many things but exists independently of consciousness.

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Play... otherwise known as figuring out the boundaries, the affective actions, and required behaviours to maximize gain within that limited field of engagement.

In other words, games allow us to deconstruct a complex environment with limitless variables into one that can be easily comprehended and navigated, which would provide significant evolutionary advantages!

The trick of life is to perceiving and choosing which games to play.

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Have you heard of "motivated reasoning"? Your "causal projection" sounds like a very similar idea.

Nicely written article, btw! I hadn't heard of Causal Loop Diagrams before, and will be adding that to my vocabulary :)

One critique: the crux of your argument seems to be that it's too hard to calculate counterfactual outcomes given complex CLDs. But isn't that what multi-input multi-output control systems do? Or, given the state of the world (or each of the variables in your graph at least) at some given time, couldn't you just let the model run from there?

A core part of Causal Inference is not just estimating the magnitude and polarity of the effects, but fitting a function to each effect. If you can quantify the effect each variable has on others, I don't see why you can't answer questions like "how much did the assassinations contribute to civil rights reform?".

I think admire is a strong word. Admire means that it holds extreme value. In my opinion extreme altruism is not something to admire as it means you have no sense of self. Also, we do good deeds because it makes US feel good. So, in some way is extreme altruism kind of self-serving ? I think that's why most philosophy's talk so much about balance and how that is the thing you should be seeking.

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Potentially sounds Buddhist. There is no beginning because there is no static thing. We are progressive but impermanent processes, mindstreams simply conscious at this moment. From this perspective—which could be characterized as anti-ontological—the study of being is fruitless because there is only becoming not being (Deleuze vs Heidegger). Things are constantly and perpetually changing.

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant posits that pure reason cannot capture certain things because one cannot infinitely pontificate in a room and understand everything—some level of empirical observations through experiential interactions with the world and others is necessary for knowledge development. I can say “red is red” with pure reason, but I can’t say “Roses are truly red and not blue” without seeing a rose.

The part where we might disagree, though, is with this idea that there are irrational things. If you just mean there are things that transcend reason, I agree. But If you mean things lack order, or are chaos—i.e. God is dead, metaphysics are dead, therefore the world is chaos we just manufacture organization onto—I would disagree. I think I side more with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave over Nietzsche. Sure, we may only see shadows, but the shadows emanate from something objectively real—we just can’t objectively perceive it. Since the things casting shadows are real, I still find order in the world. Physics consistently works because good studies are replicable. I just think reason alone can only, when done well and rigorously, get very close to a correct rationale explanation of how the world operates. I think this last bit we can’t get perfect on is just the limits of human cognition.

Thanks for the great list. I really appreciate it.

Look into Jaak Paksap's work on affective neuroscience. PLAY is one of the core brain systems he defined in his work.

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Primary and secondary isnt a value judgement, and Im not saying anger is not a justifiable emotion. But anytime you are angry, youre not REALLY angry, an emotion is triggering your fight, flight, or freeze response If someone is rude to you, the primary emotion you are likely feeling is shame, if someone is treating you unfairy it might be envy or jealousy, if someone is harming you then its fear. Anger exists to keep you safe, it just unfortunately loses a lot of effectiveness in modern society.

Again, its not a value judgement. Theres nothing wrong with, say, feeling envious of someone who isnt being bullied like you, who is innocent and unconnected to your current situation. It becomes wrong when you lash out at them.

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I started to hear Massimo Pigliucci reading this by the word eudaimonic.

>Anger" isnt a primary emotion,

Just to make clear, anger can be and often is a primary emotion. If someone is rude to you or treats you unfairly or harmfully, anger is a primary (and justifiable, within bounds) emotional response.

It's sometimes a secondary emotion, too, if it arises because you don't know how to handle a different primary emotion, as you point out.

I don’t think your comment was insensitive. It isn’t your fault what happened to other people. I promise I had no hard feelings beyond my initial “damn, I’m jealous” thoughts which I then put into words.

I don’t regret it. It was nice to hear your thoughts. Thanks for sharing

>While this a completely logical course, my argument is that the practice of constantly trying to subdue such feelings, in my experience, is in itself harmful.

It's not about "subduing" or "controlling" emotion. It's about accepting them. In other words, you don't stop your feelings - you let them run their course. BUT you grow your awareness of them so that your feelings don't immediately result in bad choices and harmful behavior. That's what stoics meant when they talk about the passions ruling you. It's not that the passions themselves (the feeling of them) rules you, it's that you let them dictate your behavior.

Instead of reacting to your feeling of anger by physically attacking something or someone, you pause and say to yourself "wow, I'm truly angry" and focus on processing that emotion. You acknowledge and analyze your feelings. The more you practice this, the more you're capable of riding the emotional roller coaster of life without jumping off or being paralyzed by fear.

No worries, I realized that my initial comment can be read as insensitive to those who may not be having a good time with life in general. That’s great to hear and I wish you happiness on your journey in self-discovery!

I didn’t mean for it to come across that salty. I am working with a great therapist and learning about who I am (: it’s just that I’m at the very beginning and have a long way to go. I’m also very impatient.

It is overwhelming sometimes knowing this is an arduous healing process. I’m lucky I met someone who treated me delicately enough to show me I needed the help