Rationality Quotes February 2012

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I'm surprised that this got 32 upvotes in a community whose members in general believe that you are your brain. Do all 32 of you believe in some sort of dualism?

Steven and most of the people here (including me) do indeed believe that "you are your brain" in the sense that the mind is something that the brain does. But Steven's epigram is using "you" in a narrower sense, referring to just the conscious, internal-monologue part of the mind.

In the fable of the fox and the grapes, it's the fox's brain that is the proximate cause of him giving up the attempt to get the grapes, but it's the "creepy vizier" part of his mind that makes up the "I didn't want them anyway" story.

(Edit:... (read more)

5gwern14y

I don't see how this implies dualism, nor why materialism implies some sort of ultra-strong unified mind with no divisible components such that it makes no sense to analogize to a king and vizier.

0[anonymous]14y

Where's the dualism?

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Rationality Quotes February 2012

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Rationality Quotes February 2012

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