Another catcher for the why
Some ways of viewing and interpreting reality (or certain parts of it) can make you much more productive and happy than others, although they are not less accurate than other, more “pessimistic stances” of viewing and interpreting the world 1. In this post, I’m going to outline two such stances of viewing and reacting to life events, particularly stressful
Previously: In the first two parts I mainly described cognitive habits on how to become happier. In this last installment of my “Happiness Sequence” I will talk about stuff of a more “behavioral” nature like exercise, diet, sleep and social relationships.
[Previously: Happy by Habit, Thoughts on Happiness (1)] 9. Seeing the positive Stupid and/or irrational people can really annoy me. Someone just has to say that “evolutionary psychology is biologistic” and my day is ruined. The fact is that the irrationality, overconfidence and ignorance of some people boggles the mind. If this sad fact is brought home to
[Previously: Happy by Habit] This is a collection of thoughts on how to become happier. The first 2 parts are mostly focused on cognitive habits that I’ve found useful. That means I’m not talking about obvious stuff like regular exercise, good diet, enough sleep, socializing with friends, having healthy relationships and keeping the cocaine to a
Many of you will probably think: “Come on, Nietzsche?!” I know, I know. But I have holidays and a pretty smart, rational person recommended Nietzsche to me in order to overcome my existential angst. I won’t bore you with the obvious shortcomings of Nietzsche. Not surprisingly, 90% of what he writes is either completely wrong,
First of all, I don’t want to teach rationality, because I’m an emotion-hating guy with a number-fetish. No, one of the main reasons (among many other altruistic motivations) is that I wish people would understand me and what I am living for. A prerequisite for this is knowing the epistemological operating principles of my mind, i.e. how
I wrote my bachelor thesis about modafinil. Although it’s only a literature review I decided to publish some of its core findings on this blog. Here are some relevant quotes: Introduction: The subject of this bachelor thesis is, broadly speaking, cognitive enhancement. Bostrom and Roache (2010, p. 1) define cognitive enhancement as “the amplification or
Summary: Becoming happier is a learnable skill, just like becoming more rational. Likewise, the best method to practice happiness is similar to the best method to train rationality: Practice only a few basic techniques very often, instead of trying hundreds of advanced techniques only a few times. This is the best way to install new cognitive habits that make you happier.
“Ausweitung der Kampfzone” von Michel Houellebecq ist zweifellos ein Buch, das vor Nihilismus und Zynismus nur so trieft. Trotzdem – oder wahrscheinlich gerade deshalb – beschreibt es viele grausame Wahrheiten. Houellebecq vermag den Geisteszustand apathischer Hoffnungslosigkeit und Anhedonie wie kein Zweiter zu beschreiben: “Die Schwierigkeit ist, daß es nicht genügt, wenn Sie genau den Regeln
It’s old news that our medical system isn’t the most reliable truth-finding enterprise ever invented. Recently I stumbled over a concrete example that even surprised me. I searched on google scholar for side effects of zopiclone, a supposedly safe, relatively new hypnotic. With 123 citations on google scholar, one of the most promising hits was