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Comment by xyzzy4 | Hacker News Reader

Well the problem with the growth mindset is that ultimately you die, so your growth does a nosedive eventually.

If something excites or intrigues you, then do it. But don't delude yourself that your personal growth really matters.

That's sorta the ultimate in fixed mindsets, right? That eventually we'll all be dead, and so none of it matters.

It's true, but also irrelevant. Focus on what you can do & experience while you're alive, because who cares what happens once we're dead? The scale of granularity that you use to look at life is as arbitrary as the emotional tenor of it, so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?

Well what makes growing more interesting than not growing?

Surely the opportunity to experience more is more interesting than the one which has you firmly planted where you are?

I guess so but as a human you will naturally seek new experiences. I don't see why you need to adopt a growth mindset to try to expedite what already happens.

Even if a growth mindset leads you to double the amount of experiences, on a logarithmic scale that is inconsequential.

I agree, a "grow mindset" cannot be coerced. You can't believe you can grow when you really believe you are fixed. Perhaps all you can do is add "at this point in time" at the end of all your sentences, and hope for the best.

I’m one of the people who’s not good at math at this point in time.

The alternative is the pursuit of pleasure, because why not enjoy it rather than suffer if you're just going to die?

to experience more is more interesting

It depends. In some ways by choosing what NOT to do, you are choosing what to do and have more time, effort and money to invest in them as a result of being conservative with your resources.

Perhaps the Exclusionist Mindset?

Sure, you'll have to exclude things by necessity, but what I was getting at was rather the not doing things because one believes it is actually impossible, while still actually wanting to do that thing for some reason (desire).

It replaces suffering with relief.

> experience while you're alive, because who cares what happens once we're dead?

> so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?

By that logic, it would follow that you should spend all of your money on hookers and blow tonight and shoot yourself come morning. Then the rest of your life will be 100% interesting and enjoyable and the part afterwards is irrelevant.

Edit: I mean the general 'you' not the personal 'you'. Just pointing out that happy growth-minded people don't really believe those quotes or they would live very differently.

"Happy" in this context means satisfied over time, not instantaneously ecstatic. Think of it as the integral of happiness over lifespan. Few people care about how happy they'll be when they're dead; that seems like optimizing for something pointless. Similarly, few people want to be really happy and then be dead the next instant.

Think of Jeff Bezos's regret minimization framework. You want to be able look back on your life from some point many years in the future and say "I lived it the best way that I could". You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think "Man, my whole life, I knew that this day would come and render it all pointless, and now I've proved myself right!" Nor do you want to look back on your life tomorrow and think "Oh shit, this is it!"

> You want to be able look back on your life from some point many years in the future and say "I lived it the best way that I could". You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think "Man, my whole life, I knew that this day would come and render it all pointless, and now I've proved myself right!"

I don't see how these statements are mutually exclusive.

> Few people care about how happy they'll be when they're dead; that seems like optimizing for something pointless.

> You don't want to look back on your life on your deathbed and think...

These statements are rather contradictory. On one hand you acknowledge that my happiness upon death is irrelevant, on the other I'm supposed to care about my life retrospective moments before death.

No, you demonstrated that you would have a very visceral set of goals. You proved nothing about minds which you do not occupy.

Unless you die a meaningful death, like the heroes of yore. Use your life and death to inspire others, and your "honor" will live on.

But if you live only for yourself, then of course, you won't matter after you die.

But on a long enough timeline, everything you do is pointless. Eventually the universe will be destroyed by entropy.

Damn, did you forget to eat your cornflakes this morning?

Yes, everything is pointless and we'll eventually burn in the sun. But on the other hand, maybe that's not true. If we live as if there is a point, life will be more fun and more interesting, and that's good enough for me.

You don't know that we won't escape the solar system and go on to colonize other planets outside of it. We've been nuclear for less than 100 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_from_Big_Ba...

I find actually find the pointlessness liberating - it's easier to not get stressed out or worked up when nothing actually matters. It's all just a ride.

Which is a fixed mindset again, no?

You can definitely fall into that because yes, the ride always ends up in the same place.

But if you think you can steer it, then you can still have the growth mindset. I don't think you need to convince yourself that there's a point in order to have that.

I think if it as, well, I'm on this ride, I'm not hopping off prematurely, which means I'm stuck here for a while, so why not see the interesting places the ride can take me?

Whenever I find myself starting to stress out, it's because I think I _need_ to be somewhere when I'm not, which is a result of being attached to the outcome of some part of the ride. But there's really no point in being attached to an outcome because even that part will be over soon anyways.

> If we live as if there is a point, life will be more fun and more interesting, and that's good enough for me.

How do you trick yourself into believing there is a point to life when you believe there is none and all the evidence, to you, appears to support it?

Reframe the question: how do you trick yourself into believing anything when you realize that "belief" is just the random firing of neurons?

I went through a similar existential crisis in high school when I became aware of the laws of physics, of thermodynamics, and of cosmology. After all, if we are all just random interactions of sub-atomic particles fated to intertwine in a certain way and then eventually disappear in the heat-death of the universe, what's the point of anything?

And then I turned that logic back on my own thought patterns, which are after all just random firings of neurons that happen to form patterns which the random firings of other neurons interpret as "me". Certain patterns lead to ennui, hopelessness, and the eventual suicide of the organism through chronic depression. Other patterns gratify the other circuits in the brain, leading to a life that would subjectively be described as happy and fulfilling.

I might not actually have a choice in the matter - after all, it's possible that the paths we follow through life were all pre-ordained at the birth of the universe. But I also know that the question is meaningless, because as we established before, there is no actual "I", only random firings of neurons with electrical impulses that happen to make up a pattern that I perceive as "my thoughts". So given the inherent contradiction in my existence - why not choose the belief system that continues to ensure I have a happy existence?

tl;dr: Prove that you don't exist. Then you can do anything and believe anything you want.

I don't trick myself into believing anything. I can use logic to convince myself that there is a point, or that there is no point, either one just as easily. Without more evidence I can't prove either one. Maybe you can, but I can't.

So try this: assume there is no point and we are going to burn in the sun. Everything is a waste of time. Now what do you do? Kill yourself? Well, I don't want to, so why should I?

Sit still in one spot and wait for death? I tried that, but I got bored after about 10 minutes so I went and made a sandwich. Then I continued doing what I wanted to do with my time. Which was the same stuff I had been doing before I decided that it was all pointless.

It doesn't bother me at all. Philosophy is great for Saturday nights and the third beer. The rest of the time it's boring and distracting.

Do you think you would be better off not knowing that everything is futile according to physics?

I'm pretty sure human beings won't make it anywhere close to that far. But either way is irrelevant to our lives now. All we have to worry about is living and making a good impact on the people in our lives - and hopefully leaving humanity slightly better off for having lived.

Who's to say we won't innovate our way out of heat death? Disrupt entropy!

Nobody inspires for ever. There might have been other Kings half as good as Alexander but nobody remembers them. People remember Mohammad Ali most people don't know who Joe foremon was. You great grand parents were probably very good people but they are likely forgotten as well.

Of course, but does it really matter?

Are we all driven by a desire to be remembered and having left our mark on a cosmic scale?

I'd say do your best to leave the place better than you came into it, and don't sweat too much :)

Of course people know who George Foreman was. He's the man behind those wonderful indoor grills. Who's Mohammad Ali?

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