Alejandro1 comments on Rationality Quotes October 2012 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: MBlume 02 October 2012 06:50PM

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Comment author: Alejandro1 01 October 2012 08:15:38PM 8 points [-]

From the leavings of memory and forgetfulness we could create a nearly complete map, I think, of a person's values. What you don't even see -- the subtle sadness in a colleague's face? -- and what you might briefly see but don't react to or retain, is in some sense not part of the world shaped for you by your interests and values. Others with different values will remember a very different series of events.

Michelangelo is widely quoted as having said that to make David he simply removed from the stone everything that was not David. Remove from your life everything you forget; what is left is you.

Eric Schwitzgebel

Comment author: RomeoStevens 02 October 2012 01:16:40AM 6 points [-]

Remove from your life everything you forget;

what is left are the data points that align with your narrative about yourself.

Comment author: Alejandro1 02 October 2012 01:43:21AM 1 point [-]

Indeed, which together with the quote implies "you" = "your narrative about yourself". See also Dennett's "The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity".

Comment author: PhilGoetz 01 November 2012 09:09:14PM *  4 points [-]

I resent this attitude. People often assume that I don't care about the things that I forget. Really, I am tired of a whole host of prejudices against people with poor memories. People assume that I am just like them, and that if I fail to remember something they would have remembered, it was deliberate.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 02 November 2012 09:30:15PM 2 points [-]

Nevertheless; for any given person, the more he cares about something, the less likely he is to forget about it.

Comment author: Ezekiel 03 October 2012 08:40:35AM 3 points [-]

Remove from your life everything you forget; what is left is you.

Can we just agree that English doesn't have a working definition for "self", and that different definitions are helpful in different contexts? I don't think there's anything profound in proposing definitions for words that fuzzy.

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