Hey Everyone,
So I've been lurking around this community for a while, but to be honest, I was/am rather intimidated by the sheer level of intellectual prowess of many of the bloggers here, so I have hesitated to post. But I've been feeling a bit overconfident lately, so here goes nothing.
Anyway, a little about myself, I'm a Master's student at a university in Canada. I did my undergrad in Computing specializing in Cognitive Science, and am currently doing a Masters in Computer Science, with a particular interest in the field of Machine Learning. I'm currently working on a thesis involving Neural Networks and Object Recognition.
I've been interested in rationality for a very long time, though I grew up in a charismatic Christian family and so it took some time in university to deprogram myself from fundamentalist beliefs. These days I would call myself a Christian Agnostic, to the extent that to be intellectually honest, I am agnostic about the existence of God and the supernatural, however, I still lean towards Christian values and ideals to the extent that I was influenced by them growing up, and it is my preferred religion to take, as Kierkegaard suggested, a Leap of Faith towards.
Nevertheless, I went through a recent phase of being more strongly Agnostic, and during that time, I rediscovered Utilitarianism as a possible moral philosophy to base my life around. I am, somewhat, obsessed with things like finding the meaning of life, justifying existence, and having a coherent moral philosophy with which one can justify all actions. Right now I am of the opinion that Utilitarianism does a better job of this than, say Kantianism, or Virtue Ethics, and also that Utilitarianism is actually compatible with a very liberal interpretation of Christianity that sees religion as a means of God/Benevolent A.I. time travellers to create the best of all possible worlds. Yes, I am suggesting that Christianity and all successful religions could be in part, Noble Lies created to further Utilitarian ends by the powers that be. Or they might be true, albeit as metaphors for primitive humans who could never understand a more literal explanation of reality. As an Agnostic, I don't pretend to know. I can only conjecture at the possibilities.
Regardless, I am of the opinion that if God exists, He actually serves the Greatest Good, the morality separate from God. And this morality is probably some kind of Eudaimonic Utilitarianism. And thus, I am interested also in serving this Greatest Good morality, if for no other reason that it would be doing the right thing, serving the interests of God if He exists, and serving the interests of the Greatest Good, regardless.
Note that this is not the reason why I ended up studying Cognitive Science and moving into a field of research that involves Artificial Intelligence. I actually chose Cognitive Science for silly reasons, such as the fact I didn't have to take first-year calculus if I switched from Software Design into Cognitive Science (a reasoning I would later regret when I ended up needing calculus to understand Probability Theory in Machine Learning >_>). But also because Cognitive Science is inherently more interesting and cool. And I decided in my final years of undergrad that I wanted to do research in some field that would really make a big difference in the world, and so I decided to focus my efforts on becoming a researcher in the field of Artificial Neural Networks. That is my current hope, my grand mission, to try to change the world through the research and development of this technology that most closely resembles the human mind, and which I am confident will lead the A.I. field in the future. Yes, I am a connectionist, who believes that duplicating the way the human brain generates perception and cognition are the key to an A.I. enabled future.
I suppose that will do for an introduction. I hope I haven't alienated anyone with my eccentric views. Cheers to my fellow computer scientists, A.I. researchers, and rationalists! :D
A few notes about the site mechanics
A few notes about the community
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A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site!
Once a post gets over 500 comments, the site stops showing them all by default. If this post has 500 comments and you have 20 karma, please do start the next welcome post; a new post is a good perennial way to encourage newcomers and lurkers to introduce themselves. (Step-by-step, foolproof instructions here; takes <180seconds.)
If there's anything I should add or update on this post (especially broken links), please send me a private message—I may not notice a comment on the post.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone that helped write this post via its predecessors!