A few notes about the site mechanics
A few notes about the community
If English is not your first language, don't let that make you afraid to post or comment. You can get English help on Discussion- or Main-level posts by sending a PM to one of the following users (use the "send message" link on the upper right of their user page). Either put the text of the post in the PM, or just say that you'd like English help and you'll get a response with an email address.
* Normal_Anomaly
* Randaly
* shokwave
* Barry Cotter
A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
- Your Intuitions are Not Magic
- The Apologist and the Revolutionary
- How to Convince Me that 2 + 2 = 3
- Lawful Uncertainty
- The Planning Fallacy
- Scope Insensitivity
- The Allais Paradox (with two followups)
- We Change Our Minds Less Often Than We Think
- The Least Convenient Possible World
- The Third Alternative
- The Domain of Your Utility Function
- Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality
- The True Prisoner's Dilemma
- The Tragedy of Group Selectionism
- Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided
- That Alien Message
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site.
(Note from orthonormal: MBlume and other contributors wrote the original version of this welcome message, and I've stolen heavily from it.)
Hi Everyone,
I came across this website, LessWrong, from a philosophy forum. I'm new to this type of thing. I'm not a writer, nor a philosopher, but only someone that is interested in knowing the real truths, whether good, bad, or ugly. It appears to me that most people seem to believe in that which is most palatable to them, that which makes them feel best. I think I am different.
As I see it, all of reality exists ‘only’ from within my mind. All that I know about ‘anything’ come from the thoughts and feelings within my mind. Without thoughts and feelings, I don’t really exist, or at least I wouldn’t know it if I did. The only reference point to experience reality comes from only within my mind, and nowhere else. That is all I have to work with. There are very many things in life to ponder deeply upon, and many of which I have already jumped into. But now I must get out and relook at where I am jumping. Before jumping into any of these again, it makes sense that I back up, way back, to the pondering machine itself, my mind. If reality truly is a figment of my mind, then it makes sense to ‘first’ try to understand and validate my mind (thoughts and feelings) before jumping into the middle of trying to understand any of life’s big (or small) questions. How do they (thoughts and feelings) come about? Where do they come from? Can I trust them? If these cannot be trusted, then it would be truly senseless for me to try to understand anything. Should we just trust our thoughts and feelings without question? Why? Or are these fair-game to be studied? Since there are a large variety of views, understanding, and beliefs by many people, of many questions in life, it seems obvious to me that not everyone’s thoughts and feelings are valid. Whose are valid, whose are not?
Anyways, I'm hoping to learn lots from you all, --RogerG