= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
brilee comments on Rationality Quotes December 2011 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (577)
“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” - Zen saying
A warning that not all hyperrationality is beneficial.
Or a warning that the Zen notion of enlightenment won't let you automate menial tasks you dislike.
...or another way of saying "it all adds up to normal."
Or at least, that at some point, if you want to improve your lot, you need to leave off thinking long enough to build, buy, or improve some gadget or agreement that will actually help. Labor-saving tech really does equal progress.
How strange; I live in an Enlightened civilization and I haven't chopped wood or carried water in a good long while. It would seem that someone has, once again, underestimated the potential of the mind because their own method did not suffice to achieve it.
This is obviously a different sense of the word "enlightenment", and a different intended connotation of "chop wood, carry water". Downvoted.
(I always thought that, like TheOtherDave said below, this quote means "it all adds up to normality".)
I disagree; I think that the saying is straightforwardly mistaken in exactly the way Eliezer states.
I read it as something like "enlightened or not, you're still made of atoms".
... and you still have the same evolutionary history and basic urges, all of which significantly constrain your preferences and capabilities.