Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Zen and the Art of Rationality - Less Wrong

27 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 December 2007 04:36AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 December 2007 07:01:01AM 2 points [-]

Many Western philosophers have claimed that such-and-such is the overarching goal. I am not asking for someone waving truth as a banner, there have been many such. I am asking for the equivalent of Musashi's focus and purposefulness: "Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement... If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him."

This idea of carrying through in the same movement, is what I would identify as the key. Descartes would simply seem to be calling for his goal of truth to take precedence over other goals, even commendable ones. Precedence is not the same as cutting through in the same movement.

And let me relax the seventeenth-century constraint - I'll ask for any Western philosopher not inspired by Eastern philosophy.