Posts
Comments
"the commenter got +30 points."
I set a threshold of say +15 points, to reduce my reading.
It took me some time, until I found out that this is a self-reinforcing system of evaluation of a belief-set. Right?
The 'tribe' reinforces its own beliefs.
The more contentious the issue is, the more effective the filter is. 300 comments--filter out the 30 most highly rated, read them, then here You are.
This is very LessWrong, and is basically is a reflection of a herd-mentality.
On the downside, where I solidly rest, are the bad guys of Dante’s Divina comedia. They get a minus, and the more they gather, the deeper in rational hell they are.
So give me more minuses, to expose your fundamental hypocrisy.
This is exactly what I expected.
The tribe closes the circle.
Angloamerican 'rationality' nowadays is located in a set of islands: California, Washington area, NY, and Greater London. Just look at the location of Your 'meetups. Do you really believe that there is the peak of human thinking?
Thank's folks, for the proof. You -as a tribe- must be deluded in a most 'rational' manner.
And please restrain to enter the (European) continent, South America or the rest of the world.
You're probably welcome in Australia and New Zealand.
I am quite astonished, that here is a nearly unanonimous rejection of cultural relativism. Which is problematic, to be sure. Besides some moaning of the good swimmer.
But on the other hand: It is symptomatic of any cult, to reject alternative views. Does not matter if it calls himself 'rational'.
In case You have not noticed: There is a war going on.
My take-home-message is, that the American mind is in DEEP trouble, because, even in its more insightful expression, it feels endangered, and flees to some elusive belief, where it hopes to rescue itself.
Externalization of the 'brain'.
Be careful with that.
some snippets from this thread:
...It felt like my brain would turn to mush by being forced to...
...Cognitive biases and poor introspection and "mystical" experiences, due to certain circuits being triggered in the human brain by singing/meditation/prayer, are actually a simpler explanation. ...
...but a part of my brain always screams that ...
... my brains turns irritation on very fast when I'm hearing or reading something that contradicts my beliefs ...
The curious matter about that is, that materialists -the predominant lot here- externalize their 'brain', thinking about their 'thinking'.
So who/what exactly does the 'thinking' think here? To Infinity or Nothingness?
Is this some recursive process? And where does it lead to, exactly?
Or is it something genuinely dualistic?
Horror, horror.
Someone smelling a problem here?
Make up your minds, dear LW'ers.
interesting post. The good swimmer admits to swimming.
Disclaimer. I do NOT belong to the lesswrong community, and do not intend to.
Why? 1st: Too many atheists here. One cannot disprove the existence of 'god'. At least nobody ever did. only a) be indifferent, i.e. Agnostic, b) pondering the attributes of 'god', which are indeed rather inconsistent.
2nd: To 'believe' something, means to have an axiomatic base of sorts. Eg 'believing' that the world is perfect, guided along mathematical rules (which ones exactly?) This is, to my knowledge, never questioned in the community.
3rd: The acceptance that there -is/should- be something rather than nothing. (Books >800p have been written about that, but not recognized in the US. Buddhist/continental European.
The lesswrong base-belief seems to be: i) there is no god ii) the world is structured by mathematics and is causally closed iii) it is better that there is something rather than nothing. (change the priorites at Your pleasure)
As it seems: Anglo-American rationalists are very much in a defensive against the >80% lunatics, who believe in a god-entity, or aliens, or ghosts. Where they tend to adopt their specific anti-craziness craziness. (cf Dawkins)
Actually none of these premises (axioms) can be proved or disproved. It -is/shoud be- even in the very conception of the LW belief-system, that it cannot.
But, no, it is denied. It is predominatly considered a 'fact', whereas it is a 'belief'. It CANNOT be a fact, because every Axiom is always a constituent of belief. The most You can do is bet Your life on it.
As an exercise You can identify eg Schopenhauer's 'belief' along (i-iii). It is different.
As to Homeopathy and such, I must say that the rational mind easyly dismisses the empirical fact that H. often is more effective than 'rational medicine'. Why? Because of 'belief'. So the bitter finding is, that 'belief' actually can trump evidence at times.
To be clear: Most beliefs are terribly misguided, but there is a vector of unknown strength, where belief is a component. And 'belief' is a multidimensional issue.
I have just recently denounced the LW community as a deeply disturbed community of american nerds, fighting the windmills of life. Somehow I understand this, because the homeland of insanity nowadays seems to be the US of A.