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ktismael comments on The scourge of perverse-mindedness - Less Wrong
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Yeah, I suppose his understanding is not consistent, like most of us he has (had) blindspots in which emotion takes over. I, too, found him interesting and frustrating as a writer.
Mostly, I wanted to bring up the distinction between nihilism and what I guess I'll refer to as the buddhist doctrine of "acceptance". I'm not sure how that distinction is to be drawn, since they look quite similar.
Perhaps I could compare it to the difference between agnosticism (or skepticism) and "hard" atheism. The first, here from Dawkins says "There's probably no god, so quit worrying and enjoy your life." The second, a la Penn Jillette says "There is no God". Nihilism seems to make a claim to knowledge closer to the first, as "Nothing matters". Acceptance seems closer to the first, "It probably doesn't matter whether or not it matters." But I could be full of crap with this whole line of argument.
Anyway, your paraphrase here makes it pretty clear that at least part of the time he suffered from the "mechanism = despair" fallacy, so I suppose it doesn't especially matter here.
I think I get the distinction. I suspect Watts would say something like "all of these things - materialism, spiritualism, etc. are just concepts. Reality is reality." Which sounds nice until you realize he means subjectively experienced reality. Elevating the latter to some sort of superior status is a big mistake imo, although the distinction between reality and our conceptions of it is well founded.
Well, I hesitate to challenge your reading of Watts, as you've definitely retained more than I have, but I would say that subjectively experienced reality isn't the goal of understanding, rather an attempt to bring once perception closer to actual reality. So I suspect that the doctrine of acceptance would say that if your eyes and ears contradict what appears to be actually happening, then you should let your eyes and ears go.
But of course there is always perception bias, and I'm sure the subject is well covered on LW elsewhere. And, in buddhism all of this is weighted down with a lot of mysticism and even with that this is a highly idealized version anyway. For FSM's sake, the majority of buddhists are sending their prayers up to heaven with incense. So perhaps I should just let it go, eh? :) Anyway, thanks for your comments, it may be helping me set some of my thoughts on all this.