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Drahflow comments on The ideas you're not ready to post - Less Wrong
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Buddhism.
What it gets wrong. Supernatural stuff - rebirth, karma in the magic sense, prayer. Thinking Buddha's cosmology was ever meant as anything more than an illustrative fable. Renunciation. Equating positive and negative emotions with grasping. Equating the mind with the chatty mind.
What it gets right. Meditation. Karma as consequences. There is no self, consciousness is a brain subsystem, emphasis on the "sub" (Cf. Drescher's "Cartesian Camcorder" and psychology's "system two"). The chatty mind is full of crap and a huge waste of time, unless used correctly. Correct usage includes noticing mostly-subconscious thought loops (Cf. cognitive behavioral therapy). A lot of everyday unreason does stem from grasping, which roughly equates to "magical thinking" or the idea that non-acknowledgment of reality can change it. This includes various vices and dark emotions, including the ones that screw up attempted rationality.
What rationalists should do. Meditate. Notice themselves thinking. Recognize grasping as a mechanism. Look for useful stuff in Buddhism.
Why I can't post. Not enough of an expert. Not able to meditate myself yet.
I'd be similarly interested in covering philosophical Daoism, the path to wisdom I follow, and believe to be mostly correct.
Things they get wrong: Some of them believe in rebirth, too much reverence for "ancient masters" without good reevaluation, some believe in weird miracles.
Things they get right: Meditation, purely causal view of the world, free will as local illusion, relaxed attitude to pretty much everything (-> less bias from social influence and fear of humiliation), the insight that akrasia is overcome best not by willpower but by adjusting yourself to feel that what you need to do is right, apparently ways to actually help you (at least me) with that, a decent way accept death as something natural.
I kept waiting for 'alchemy' and immortality to show up in your list!
I recently read through an anthology of Taoist texts, and essentially every single thing postdating the Lieh Tzu or the Huai-nan Tzu (-200s) was absolute rubbish, but the preceding texts were great. I've always found this abrupt disintegration very odd.
Know what alchemy's good for? Art and its production. Terrible chemistry, great for creation of art.
Know what's actually a good text for this angle on alchemy? Promethea by Alan Moore, in which he sets out his entire system. (Not only educational, but a fantastic book that is at least as good as his famous '80s stuff.)
Respectfully disagree. I found Promethea to be poorly executed. There was a decent idea somewhere in there, but I think he was too distracted by the magic system to find it.
One exception -- the aside about how the Christian and Muslim Prometheas fought during the Crusades. That was nicely done.
Yeah, the plot suffers bits falling off the end. Not the sides, thankfully. I think it's at least as coherent as Miracleman, and nevertheless remains an excellent exposition of alchemy and art.
Daoism flunks badly on nature-worship.