Rationality Quotes November 2009

Eliezer Yudkowsky

A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Fair comment. The books is not perfect - I think it gets a bit tedious in the examples. Maybe my recommendation was a bit too strong.

Nevertheless, I do think it's special in the way it promotes the naturalistic worldview, and how it applies this all across the board - from consciousness to the sense of time to quantum physics to ethics. There's indeed quite some overlap with topics discussed here, but it's nice to read it in a book with all the themes connected. Those are the 'good bits' for me.

Talking about books, it'd be great if there were some LW Books Top-10 for 2009.