RobinZ comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! - Less Wrong

48 Post author: MBlume 16 April 2009 09:06AM

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Comment author: Gigi 04 June 2010 04:59:57AM 2 points [-]

Hah, the relative lack of discussion on art was exactly why it seemed to me as if the physics was more useful here. But who knows, I may be able to start up some discussion once I've gotten into the swing of things.

Comment author: RobinZ 04 June 2010 06:54:00PM 1 point [-]

There was Rationality and the English Language and Human Evil and Muddled Thinking a while ago that brought in a literary angle (George Orwell, to be specific) - but I think Yudkowsky talked about how people talk about wanting "an artist's perspective" disingenously before. That there is a relative lack of discussion on art is not a reflection of the particular lack of interest in art, but the fact that we do not know what to say about art that is relevant to rationality.

(Although commentary spinning off of the drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain insight into failure modes of illustration could be illuminating...)

Comment author: Gigi 05 June 2010 06:01:06PM 0 points [-]

I've been thinking on that, actually. So far all I've come up with is the fact that learning to exercise your creativity and think more abstractly can help very much with finding new ways of approaching problems and looking at your universe, thereby helping to shed new light on certain subjects. The obvious flaw is, of course, that you can learn to be creative without art; there are legions of scientists who show it to be so.

If I happen to come up with something that I think is particularly relevant or interesting I will definitely show it to the community, though.