Argument Lab
A open world quest to look for opportunities to increase the diversity of conversations we can have from all people, regardless of worldview, identity, mental state, belief systems, information habits, or anything else.
Q. What is the future I want to create?
I don’t want to create a future, the future creates itself. I want to dig deeper in terms of appreciating the present world as it is, grieving the loss of wishful thinking about how we wanted the world to be (past, present, and future). Most of all I want to enthusiastically participate in the tiny patch of the universe that we find ourselves in, while we last. Maybe on a small island with monkeys. Maybe we’re already there.
Q. How do I track progress?
By constantly doubting that I’m making progress, and double, triple, quadruple checking the data, the responses, the mirror, and the feeling. And always being paranoid of not doubting enough, and always looking for new ways to check. It’s not really about progress, it’s about… what is it about? Shit.
Q. How am I doing so far?
No clue.
Q. What am I NOT doing?
Almost everything.
Q. What have I learned so far?
I’ve learned that I don’t do enough to combat my own motivated reasoning to find the easy, desired answer. I’ve learned that most of us don’t. I’ve also learned that that’s okay, because it’s an impossible dream.
I’ve learned that the universe has a shape that fits us in a weird way that’s tough to wrap our brains around. There’s too much information to process it all, so we always leave almost all important information out. There’s not enough meaning in the universe, but our brains really want meaning and so conjure it out of meaningless for our convenience. Because there’s also not enough time to really get anything done or figure anything out, so we might as well make something up and run with it. And finally, there’s no way to remember even the stuff we did do, or figured out, but so what little does stick is going to impact the information we receive, the meaning we derive, and the conclusions we reach, until it gets pushed out by something else.
I’ve learned to re-visit my own beliefs frequently, and read them as if for the first time, and update things if I feel like it.
My top 5 list of the most far-reaching concepts humans have come up with so far is:
- Abstraction / measurement, units of time, space, concepts, inductive reasoning
- The self / theory of mind, agency, experience, story
- Systems thinking / natural selection, prisoner’s dilemma, interdependence
- The scientific method / unmotivated reasoning
- Acceptance, forgiveness, grief / jnana
I only include that here because I tweeted it recently, so it can still be considered learned until I forget it again.
Q. How can I help others?
No idea. Thoughts?
Q. What help do I need?
I need the most help with the things I don’t know I need help with. But I do want to find people who want to talk about talking about a greater diversity of topics with a greater diversity of people, especially the things we don’t currently feel like we can, and the people we don’t currently feel like we want to.
Q. How do you connect if you have or want to help?
I’m in the dark blue shirt with the cats on it. You can DM me on Twitter @buster and Medium also.
