Well then, you could also multiply gods by constants and add them together, producing a vector space over a divine basis.
Grounding morality works straightforwardly, I think: God said thou must not kill, love thy neighbour, etc.
Well, yes, I understand that various commands, preferences, etc. are ascribed to gods, and that followers of those gods attempt to obey those commands and satisfy those preferences.
I've just never understood what morality has to do with any of that.
I mean, sure, presumably a suitably knowledgable (let alone omniscient) god is capable of giving moral commands, in that it would know what the moral things to do are, in the same sense that it is capable of telling me what stocks to purchase in order to maximize my earnings, or how most efficiently to breed cow...
I recognize the title could be more informative. At the same time I believe it says what is important.
I believe in a deity, I believe in mathematical entities in the same way.
The community of LessWrong (from whenceforth: LessWrong) is deeply interesting to me, appearing as a semi-organized atheist, reductionist community.
LessWrong seems very interested in promoting rationality, which I applaud. The effort does seem scattered, though, and this is the reason I post.
One has Eliezer's website with some interesting posts. The same of this community. The community links to some posts when you are coming for the first time into it, and you also have a filter for top posts. One has the blog. And recently, the center for modern rationality (in the same page as harrypoter fanfiction about rationality).
The point being there is no defined roadmap to go from AIC (average irrational chump to make an analogy to Game - which also seems to come up around quite a bit) to RA (again, rationality artist).
I write this post as to maybe generate a discussion on how the efforts could be concentrated and a new direction taken.
Should the creation of the Center for Modern Rationality envision this same concentration, this post may and should be disregard.
If it does not, then I leave it to your consideration.
Hang.