Yvain comments on Rationality Quotes October 2011 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: MinibearRex 03 October 2011 06:41AM

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Comment author: Yvain 22 October 2011 05:18:58PM *  26 points [-]

Don't you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?'

'No,' said Father Brown.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 October 2011 04:14:33PM 11 points [-]

I so adore cliches. They create an expectation to subvert.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 23 October 2011 07:05:16PM 4 points [-]

Do that too much and you'll end up with a "high brow" piece that's incomprehensible to anyone not familiar with the cliches you're subverting.

Comment author: RobinZ 22 October 2011 06:01:19PM 1 point [-]

The short story in question is "The Dagger with Wings", originally published in The Incredulity of Father Brown.

That said, I don't quite understand why this constitutes a Rationality Quote.

Comment author: gwern 22 October 2011 08:35:29PM *  23 points [-]

That said, I don't quite understand why this constitutes a Rationality Quote.

To me, the lesson is that when someone appeals to your intuitions - you can just say no.

"Don't you feel there must be a supreme being, that everything has a purpose and a place in the grand order of things?"

"No."

(Fun story, incidentally.)

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