LauraABJ comments on That other kind of status - Less Wrong

71 Post author: Yvain 29 December 2009 02:45AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 December 2009 11:53:39PM 2 points [-]

Seemed to me like confused thinking, not confused writing, or I would've acted otherwise. You can tell people to write better. Thinking better is a matter of years if it gets done at all.

Comment author: LauraABJ 30 December 2009 12:03:34AM 1 point [-]

I had hoped that by asking him to write clearly, he would need to have a point to make clear. You are probably right that this is not the case.

Comment author: happyseaurchin 30 December 2009 10:30:12PM 2 points [-]

Thank you, LauraABJ. My language is not precise enough to match the level of eg Eliezer. My experience has mostly been with children. My experience justifies a rather extreme position: objectification of conscious experience, especially in the form of writing, is inherently misleading if our objective is to comprehend the human condition. That is, although I respect linguistic control, there are strict limits that prevent words from carrying the levels of comprehension we are seeking. Hence, the adoption of maths. I was so enthused by the articles here, I got carried away...

Thank you, Eliezer; in the balance between writing and thinking, my writing is worse. I do apologise, but in the same way I have been premature with my commentary to the LW site, you may have been premature with your judgement of my thinking. I have thought and rethought my words here, and the best I can come up with is this. This community, and especially you, have had the time to explore your ideas and develop a system of thinking. This is clearly very powerful, and it attracts bright minds (even as non-verbal as my own). I have also developed a system of thinking, and it mostly relies on dynamics that are not based entirely on the mechanics of words -- hence my disadvantage here. There is an overlap, thankfully: mathematics. With further reading into the application of bayes' theorem on this site, I hope to contribute something useful, in a manner acceptable, such that our goals are brought closer.