Posts

You'd Want The Right Answer 2022-03-04T02:33:35.161Z
The Myth of the Blue Sunlight 2022-02-26T21:42:50.900Z
A Solution to the Desire-Action Conundrum 2022-02-07T18:00:30.953Z
Real Reality 2022-02-05T04:13:40.309Z
Flinches 2022-01-03T23:51:27.067Z

Comments

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on My attempt to explain Looking, insight meditation, and enlightenment in non-mysterious terms · 2024-04-23T07:06:45.281Z · LW · GW

Based on the link, it seems you follow the Theravada tradition. The ideas you give go against the Theravada ideas. You need to go study the Pali Canon. This information is all wrong I'm afraid. I won't talk more on the matter.

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on My attempt to explain Looking, insight meditation, and enlightenment in non-mysterious terms · 2024-04-22T15:17:34.050Z · LW · GW

I won't correct everything I find wrong, but I felt that the "Understanding Suffering" section was completely off. I will just mention one of the major points:


Remember, enlightenment means that you no longer experience emotional pain as aversive. In other words, you continue to have “negative” emotions like fear, anger, jealousy, and so on - you just don’t mind having them.

 

This is utterly wrong. Enlightenment in Buddhism means emotional pain cannot arise, period. In Buddhism, there are five "hindrances" or negative mental states: desire, aversion, compulsion/agitation, slothfulness and remorse. This list is said to encapsulate all possible negative feelings. In an enlightened person, these hindrances cannot arise. The "fetter", the bond which causes a person to experience these is uprooted. 

Secondly, in Buddhism, it's believed that negative mental states are always a bad and painful experience so it's impossible to not mind having them. If you think about it, you can't be sad and not mind it. You can't be angry but not mind it. There are a few Buddhist circles which believe you can be detached from anger or desire, but this doesn't make sense because in Buddhist theory, such mental states arise from attachment in the first place. 

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on Consciousness as a conflationary alliance term for intrinsically valued internal experiences · 2023-07-12T03:00:31.300Z · LW · GW

Small typos in Section: Purposefulness 

These is a sense that one's live has meaning

Consciousness is a deep the experience of that self-evident value

Interesting post!

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on A Solution to the Desire-Action Conundrum · 2022-08-07T04:24:06.431Z · LW · GW

I take back this comment

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on Belief in the Implied Invisible · 2022-05-27T18:58:25.137Z · LW · GW

"So does it boil down to, “I believe the photon goes on existing as it wings
off to nowhere, because my priors say it’s simpler for it to go on existing than
to disappear”?
This is what I thought at first, but on reflection, it’s not quite right. (And
not just because it opens the door to obvious abuses.)
I would boil it down to a distinction between belief in the implied invisible,
and belief in the additional invisible."

Eliezer, what are these obvious abuses?

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on Zombies! Zombies? · 2022-05-23T01:47:16.492Z · LW · GW

-Conceivability vs Actual Logical Possibility
-Mysteriousness is our projection of it/how we view it, nothing is inherently mysterious - reductionism

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on Brain Breakthrough! It's Made of Neurons! · 2022-05-19T18:58:02.730Z · LW · GW

I remember reading that Aristotle initially thought that the brain was meant for cooling the blood. That was my basis in physicalism, super humbling and it made me think about all this stuff in terms of how it would be discover something or formulate a theory for the first time, to get rid of the "conventionally known" fact realm for everything I knew and seeing how I would think out the problem. Made me feel like a caveman, but a rational one.

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on 37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong · 2022-03-11T21:08:28.953Z · LW · GW

Number 9, "dis ease" typo

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on You'd Want The Right Answer · 2022-03-07T02:12:04.219Z · LW · GW

My point was that we're talking about getting the best answer assuming the professors also know the best answer. I feel like it's nitpicking to go around diving deep in arguing about the assumptions. The point of the article still stands. 

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles · 2022-02-24T17:58:48.548Z · LW · GW

I don't have anything important to add but the inability to visualize is called Aphantasia and some people still have it today. 

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on Taboo Your Words · 2022-02-15T03:25:11.685Z · LW · GW

You missed the point. It's about 1) Getting two people to confess their true meanings of the word 'sound', because both of them have a different meaning in a forest-sound situation, 2) Getting rid of empty labels or their illusion of inference and to uphold the empirical weight of a definition, 3) Forget the 'common usage' idea, 4) other reasons that are not coming to mind yet

Edit: The next article after this discusses better why Taboo for rationalists helps

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on Real Reality · 2022-02-14T17:14:35.671Z · LW · GW

Thanks, edited it.

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on A Solution to the Desire-Action Conundrum · 2022-02-08T17:32:28.558Z · LW · GW

That's true, but only to the individual level. The problem lies in finding an optimal solution for the individual which still sufficiently benefits the collective. 

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on A Solution to the Desire-Action Conundrum · 2022-02-07T18:09:40.654Z · LW · GW

That's true. I've always thought that Buddhism's concepts were great but then the ideal Buddhist would be someone who spends his entire life meditating. I saw a documentary on it, and the monks would receive all of their food from donations. If everyone was a Buddhist, no one would have anything to receive as donations. There would be no donations because there's no one there to do any work. Therefore I believe Buddhism is flawed, but it's ideas are still useful and so they should be practiced to a certain degree. 

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on A Solution to the Desire-Action Conundrum · 2022-02-07T16:12:50.562Z · LW · GW

Omg I didn't realize that saved drafts were public. This is only my 3rd writing piece so I didn't know :)

Yes I plan to show a possible solution

I'm going to finish it today

Edit: I've finished it. I see you're saying the answer seems obvious. Can you explain that? It's not obvious to me at all, so I'm curious about what you think :)

Comment by ship_shlap (Bluestorm_321) on On Changing Minds That Aren't Mine, and The Instinct to Surrender. · 2021-03-13T19:06:03.180Z · LW · GW

I agree to some degree. What has been hardwired into people’s minds since they were small is difficult. For example, a man born a Christian is likely to be a Christian his whole life. I will live my life thinking that Starbucks coffee is the best because it’s the one I’ve been drinking every morning. But this is the way that you have anticipated it.

There are many people that turn from a theist to an atheist after several debates. There are subreddits dedicated to this. My friend may introduce coffee from a place different from Starbucks and I may begin to prefer coffee from the new place.

People who only believe that it is righteous to believe in their belief will soon change their beliefs overtime. The hardest to deal with are those that believe in anything unconditionally, without any regard to sensory experience.

Everyone experiences a change of opinion forwards many things as they grow older. Everyone can relate to this. This itself is another example that people can be subject to change.