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Comment by phaedrus on Open Thread: April 2010 · 2012-02-21T22:29:49.711Z · LW · GW

I find this paper to be a good resource to think about this subject: https://motherjones.com/files/emotional_dog_and_rational_tail.pdf

Comment by phaedrus on The AI in a box boxes you · 2012-02-14T20:35:29.581Z · LW · GW

Weakly related epiphany: Hannibal Lector is the original prototype of an intelligence-in-a-box wanting to be let out, in "The Silence of the Lambs"

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality Quotes: June 2011 · 2011-06-02T00:26:26.246Z · LW · GW

‎"We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself." --Chris Mooney

Comment by phaedrus on Something's Wrong · 2011-02-23T00:27:17.764Z · LW · GW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW6yeMj3ORE

Comment by phaedrus on Five-minute rationality techniques · 2011-02-11T22:20:55.516Z · LW · GW

This reminds me of "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -- Aristotle

To me, this uses "educated" in the sense it ought to be meant.

Comment by phaedrus on The Threat of Cryonics · 2011-02-10T23:57:28.630Z · LW · GW

Learned helplessness, perhaps? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Comment by phaedrus on Alien parasite technical guy · 2011-01-18T21:23:37.423Z · LW · GW

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/first-person-plural/7055/

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality Quotes: December 2010 · 2011-01-02T03:17:15.767Z · LW · GW

‎"Fine phrases are the last resource of those who have run out of arguments." -- Peter Singer

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: June 2010 · 2010-12-21T21:35:33.229Z · LW · GW

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/12/our-secret-attitude-changes.php

Comment by phaedrus on "Science" as Curiosity-Stopper · 2010-12-09T23:07:59.019Z · LW · GW

"If anyone is going to ask for a real-world example of someone who does not know how a light switch works, I can't provide one off the top of my head, but I'd suggest looking at this, which is even more dreadful."

--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV9gRFv5Kgc

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: April 2010 · 2010-11-22T23:51:17.634Z · LW · GW

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --- Aristotle

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality Quotes: November 2010 · 2010-11-16T00:03:27.756Z · LW · GW

"All of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them."

---George Eliot, "Middlemarch"

Comment by phaedrus on The many faces of status · 2010-06-29T08:22:33.324Z · LW · GW

I just realized today why they chose the name "GATTACA" for the eponymous movie.

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: June 2010 · 2010-06-29T08:20:26.474Z · LW · GW

"He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." -- Goethe

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: June 2010 · 2010-06-19T14:30:06.311Z · LW · GW

"We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance" - John Archibald Wheeler

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: June 2010 · 2010-06-16T22:47:51.635Z · LW · GW

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." -- Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

(This is not necessarily a rationalist quote, but yet, it kinda is :))

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: June 2010 · 2010-06-14T07:44:06.345Z · LW · GW

"Every conviction is a prison" ---- Nietzsche

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: April 2010 · 2010-05-28T22:21:28.586Z · LW · GW

Thanks RobinZ, The full quote is "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise, and everything precise is so remote from everything that we normally think, that you cannot for a moment suppose that is what we really mean when we say what we think."

But the partial quote is much more crisp.

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes: May 2010 · 2010-05-28T21:58:05.023Z · LW · GW

"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise"

  • Bertrand Russell, “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism” (Part of the full sentence)
Comment by phaedrus on Rationality Quotes November 2009 · 2010-05-26T00:45:58.403Z · LW · GW

"I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER."

Groucho Marx

Comment by phaedrus on Why Real Men Wear Pink · 2010-05-15T00:24:28.653Z · LW · GW

Real men wear Pinker (on their sleeve)

Comment by phaedrus on The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You · 2010-05-07T03:56:48.715Z · LW · GW

The dog does eat your homework

Comment by phaedrus on Least Signaling Activities? · 2010-04-27T07:57:36.197Z · LW · GW

"Meditation"

-- I think that even there, it sort of starts out as an endeavor to signal to self "non-status-seekingness". This is why I think that the "zen patriarchs" in the koan stories whoop the newbie wards and humble them initially to break down their status-seeking natures, so that they may move on to the next level of meditation where they are not competing and signaling to themselves (and other apprentices) that they are best at "not vainly scrounging to be the best".

Comment by phaedrus on Least Signaling Activities? · 2010-04-27T07:49:43.142Z · LW · GW

Yep, I would say behavior that you wouldn't want others to know about, but you have to engage in anyway. Such as overeating, or purging may be.

Comment by phaedrus on Religion, Mystery, and Warm, Soft Fuzzies · 2010-04-27T07:23:30.788Z · LW · GW

Hi Alicorn, Thanks for the response. But if we interpret that only she is offended by it, or any nonspecified group, then I think scotherns' examples such as

""The touch of another person's skin will still be wonderfully sensuous" - you can't say that - you are discriminating against those without a sense of touch!"

also are valid. It seems to me that we have to assume that she bases her case on some sizeable homogeneous group (that gets offended). Women? - perhaps she can clarify.

Comment by phaedrus on Rationality quotes - May 2009 · 2010-04-27T05:02:42.012Z · LW · GW

"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."

George Bernard Shaw, "Man and Superman"

Comment by phaedrus on Religion, Mystery, and Warm, Soft Fuzzies · 2010-04-27T03:12:58.509Z · LW · GW

"Do you realise just how disparaging that sounds, incidentally? Because women are obviously just a homogenous bunch..."

-- The original statement is offensive to women, doesn't that also mean that you assume that women are "just a homogenous bunch"? You seem to want to homogenise women for supporting points, but consider them heterogeneous for opposing points.