Rationality promoted by the American Humanist Association

post by Gleb_Tsipursky · 2015-02-21T19:28:41.696Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 2 comments

Happy to share that I got to discuss rationality-informed thinking strategies on the American Humanist Association's well-known and popular podcast, the Humanist Hour (here's the link to the interview). Now, this was aimed at secular audiences, so even before the interview the hosts steered me to orient specifically toward what they thought the audience would find valuable. Thus, the interview focused more on secular issues, such as finding meaning and purpose from a science-based perspective. Still, I got to talk about map and territory and other rationality strategies, as well as cognitive biases such as planning fallacy and sunken costs. So I'd call that a win. I'd appreciate any feedback from you all on how to optimize the way I present rationality-informed strategies in future media appearances.

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comment by advancedatheist · 2015-02-21T22:52:31.566Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Gleb’s passion for helping people use science to find purpose and meaning,

I look forward to listening to that podcast when I have time.

Though I notice that discussions of purpose and meaning, along with the related concepts of morality and the self, seem to polarize into "X is supernatural" versus "X is an illusion," with many rationalists advocating the latter. For example, Alex Rosenberg sides radically with the Illusionist camp in his book, The Atheist's Guide to Reality.

I can see why the self would seem illusory, though I consider the self an evolutionary kludge that doesn't work very well. Some intelligent redesign might turn the self into something arguably "real."

Replies from: Gleb_Tsipursky
↑ comment by Gleb_Tsipursky · 2015-02-21T23:02:52.960Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yeah, I hear you about discussions of meaning and purpose becoming polarized. This is why the podcast, as you'll hear, focuses on the recent research on how to find a sense of meaning and purpose, without giving explicit and predefined answers. Here's a blog post I wrote with references.