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s_r_constantin's profile
Sarah Constantin
Sarah Constantin
Sarah Constantin
@s_r_constantin

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Sarah Constantin

@s_r_constantin

Math/ML/data-science person now working on solving aging...and helping with COVID19?! Founder, LRI and Daphnia Labs. Married to @oscredwin

Be
srconstantin.posthaven.com
Joined February 2019

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    1. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      If X is literally a single motion, like lifting your arm, you can feel this representation as sort of a “ghost motion.” Before you move your arm, you have a kinaesthetic simulation of what it would feel like to move your arm.

      2 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
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    2. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      I claim it is *literally impossible* to move your arm without such a simulation. (The simulation may happen so soon before the motion that you don’t notice, but meditation makes it more noticeable.)

      1 reply 0 retweets 16 likes
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    3. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      I also claim that the “ghost motion” before moving your arm, and the “how WOULD I go on this diet” simulation are two instances of the same kind of thing.

      1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes
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    4. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      Both of these claims come from personal introspection, but the “simulated movement precedes movement” iirc has support from neuroscience. Also, studies show athletes improve performance from *mentally simulating* doing sports, and iirc pro athletes actually do visualize.

      2 replies 0 retweets 17 likes
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    5. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      The implication is that it is also literally impossible to go on a diet without mentally simulating *how* you would go on a diet *should* you wish to.

      1 reply 1 retweet 13 likes
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    6. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      It is obviously true, but not at all controversial, that you can’t go on a diet if you literally don’t know how. That’s not the point I’m making.

      1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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    7. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      The point is, since humans are not logically omniscient, that just because you know the declarative fact “Intermittent fasting consists of only eating in an 8-hour window” doesn’t mean you have *created the plan*

      1 reply 1 retweet 10 likes
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    8. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      “If I were to do intermittent fasting, when I woke up I would make myself coffee but not breakfast.” + whatever nonverbal simulation is necessary to “prepare to do it.”

      1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
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    9. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      In the psychological literature these are called implementation intentions, and lots of studies claim they work better than baseline for forming new habits.

      2 replies 0 retweets 14 likes
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    10. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      When thinking “I should do X” actually causes you to do X, my hypothesis is that the “should” doesn’t cause action directly; it’s the prompt to *think about X*.

      3 replies 0 retweets 12 likes
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      Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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      I’ve noticed that often I don’t want to open my terminal window to start writing code. But if I ask myself, “If I *did* code the next part of this project, where would I start?” And once I answer the question, I *do* want to start.

      10:02 AM - 4 Feb 2020
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        2. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Simulating what you *would* do, *if* you chose to, creates a menu of available actions that you literally did not have queued up in your conscious mind before.

          1 reply 1 retweet 19 likes
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        3. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          And now that you have the menu in front of you, your (fast, intuitive, maybe-dopaminergic) reward-seeking mechanism *is drawn to one of these options*, which enables you to take them.

          1 reply 0 retweets 14 likes
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        4. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          It is literally impossible to *override* an algorithm’s reward function; that’s tautological! What an algorithm *can* do is certain internal modeling processes that change its perceived menu of available options.

          1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
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        5. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Now, what happens if you have the thought “I should do X” (or hear someone else say “You should do X”) and you *don’t* simulate what that would mean if you were to do it?

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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        6. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          At best, it remains a mere verbal phrase that you can recite but you do nothing further with it. “In one ear and out the other.”

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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        7. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          At worst, you interpret “You should do X” to mean “Instantaneously cause it to already be the case that you are doing X.”

          3 replies 0 retweets 8 likes
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        8. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          This is literally impossible. You can obey a “should” quickly in clock time *if you do the simulation*. Musicians following a conductor’s baton can follow instructions virtually in real time.

          1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
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        9. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          (Actually, musicians probably don’t calculate the “egocentric coordinates” on the fly; they probably built the map from “sight of conductor” to “hand motions” through practice, and have a special-case cached map they can retrieve near-instantaneously.)

          3 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
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        10. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          But you can at least *relatively quickly* transition from being told “please take the garbage out” to taking the garbage out. It can be a few seconds. It just has to include actually simulating *how* one takes the garbage out.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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        11. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Trying to believe a logical contradiction, I think, is *the* source of suffering.

          1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes
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        12. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          (This is a standard psychologization of Buddhism, it’s a tenet of Critical Rationality, and it also matches my introspective experience.)

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        13. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          An untranslated “should” introduces a logical contradiction! It is saying “(cause it to be true that) you are doing X” when observably you are not doing X!

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        14. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          This is why people can sometimes see criticism/feedback as an attack. Literally *all* criticism, if untranslated, is a commandment to do the literally impossible.

          1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
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        15. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          But why would you ever fail to translate feedback? Most people, if they ask you to take out the garbage, don’t mean to say “do it literally instantaneously in a physically impossible fashion.” So why get defensive as *if* they meant that?

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        16. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          One hypothesis: we have bad memories of people who expected obedience faster than we literally could obey at the time, or of demands that were literally impossible to fulfill even *after* simulating them.

          1 reply 0 retweets 16 likes
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        17. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          I usually use religious commandments as what feel like clear cut examples of instructions that are definitely impossible to obey and yet intended to be obeyed; but other people claim that’s not true, so I’m not sure.

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        18. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          I’m very confident that the Talmud (which i’m trying to learn cover to cover) describes behaviors as admirable which would be impossible or unwise to attempt (like sleeping 0 hours per night)

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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        19. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Anyhow, I’m inclined to believe that there are, or have been, *any* people who demand the impossible, and actually meant that, not something more reasonable.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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        20. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          But okay, if there *are* people who ask the impossible or unreasonable, why should that cause suffering? Why not just reject all impossible demands?

          2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
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        21. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          To explain this, I have to posit some inherent limitation in what thoughts are possible, and that makes my model more complicated & so less credible, for occam’s razor reasons. Hmm. I’m stuck.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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        22. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          “Some people demand the impossible” should lead to the update “demanding the impossible is a thing people sometimes do”, but I don’t see why it overcorrects to “all feedback should be interpreted as a demand to do the impossible.”

          4 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
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        23. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Hypothesis 1: there is an incredibly prevalent, all-pervading meme, that instantaneous obedience is possible, and even that the function of language is literally to *cause* (with no intervening thought) behavior in another person. This is literally what B.F. Skinner said.

          1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
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        24. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Likewise there are things like Bernays’ Propaganda that claim that we can literally be manipulated directly by outside forces. There are popular Evangelical parenting books that say “delayed obedience is disobedience.”

          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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        25. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Perhaps, lots and lots of people believe (erroneously) that instantaneous obedience is possible, and tell you this SO MUCH that it outweighs the evidence of your own experience that it’s impossible.

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        26. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          This causes you to be another person who believes instantaneous obedience is possible, so you perpetuate the meme yourself, and the cycle continues.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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        27. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          (Here I’m using the assumption that you assume “someone said X” is weak evidence for X.)

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        28. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Hypothesis 2: as in 1, perhaps you’re getting an overwhelming number of signals starting from birth that teach you that instantaneous obedience is possible, but it’s *not* because lots of people hold that (false) belief.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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        29. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          Rather, you’re seeing signals all the time that are like the conductor’s baton: they’re meant to be obeyed instantaneously based on a cached, pre-trained “ghost motion” or “implementation intention.”

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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        30. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          The people sending these signals are not mostly deluded; they correctly anticipate that their intended audience knows how to obey. Actual conductors aren’t *wrong* to use batons.

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        31. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin Feb 4
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          The problem is that you see tons of signals for which you are not the intended audience! So *from your perspective*, the world is full of people making incomprehensible demands of the world at large, which necessarily includes you.

          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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