CuSithBell comments on Rationality Quotes June 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 02 June 2012 05:14PM

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Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 08 June 2012 07:58:58AM 2 points [-]

What's the significance of this?

Comment author: witzvo 08 June 2012 08:06:31AM *  1 point [-]

Intestinal bacteria have an effect on the nervous system: they affect how we think and how we feel and how our mind develops. This is pretty recent science written by scientists about the function of our mind (or murine minds, at least). That makes it an interesting rationality quote, in my opinion.

Comment author: Nornagest 08 June 2012 09:04:25AM 8 points [-]

It's interesting, all right, but I think it would likely be better received as a standalone Discussion post (ideally with some more context and expansion). The rationality quotes threads tend to be more for quotes directly about rationality or bias than quotes indirectly contributing to our potential understanding of the same.

Comment author: CuSithBell 08 June 2012 01:05:57PM 1 point [-]

I think it could make a pretty interesting Discussion post, and would pair well with some discussion of how becoming a cyborg supposedly makes you less empathic.

Comment author: witzvo 09 June 2012 02:47:35AM 1 point [-]

Serious question: is the cyborg part a joke? I can't tell around here.

Comment author: CuSithBell 09 June 2012 03:55:38AM 3 points [-]

Fair question! I phrased it a little flippantly, but it was a sincere sentiment - I've heard somewhere or other that receiving a prosthetic limb results in a decrease in empathy, something to do with becoming detached from the physical world, and this ties in intriguingly with the scifi trope about cyborging being dehumanizing.