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Lumifer comments on Open Thread, Aug 29. - Sept 5. 2016 - Less Wrong
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Comments (119)
But what you go on to present is not an alternative.
Do you really imagine that those of us who attempt to be rational think that reality would disappear without our attachment to maps? This is real Strawy McStrawface stuff.
"Maps" are how human beings think about the world. So, are you (1) suggesting that we not think about the world any more, or (2) claiming to have a way of doing it that doesn't rely on maps? If #1 then, well, good luck to you but I don't think it can be done. If #2 then I don't believe you. Like it or not, you think (and feel, and experience "awareness", and everything else) with your brain and all its interactions with the world are mediated by "maps", and if you think you've escaped that then I guarantee all you have actually done is to fool yourself into not noticing the maps you're using. That does not, I'm afraid, count as higher "awareness".
But maybe you're making a more modest claim, namely that we should be aware of our map-using. Yup, we should. What makes you think we aren't?
The world is rational enough that application of rational techniques enables us, e.g., to make machines that can take us from one continent to another in less than a day. So any notion of "arationality" that could possibly describe the actual world needs to be compatible with that.
Then "the point" is bullshit, because some arguments lead to demonstrable real-world benefits and some don't.
Take a look somewhere around 32:00 in the video (I am just going on the times I listed above; I am not going to sit through it again to check the exact time) and see whether you can tell me with a straight face that the reason I think the person making the video is thinking in patterns of being superior is because I do it.
From what I can (barely) understand, reguru is advocating the notion of enlightenment as understood in the East, if in a very confusing way. Abandoning the reliance on rationality is a major idea in Zen Buddhism, for example, and koans are one of the ways to move in that direction.
I think that the territory might be the experience of enlightenment. I wonder what gjm, yudkowsky, Lumifer, reguru or some other rationalist would say after becoming enlightened.
Yeah, I think s/he's aiming for something of the sort. I don't think s/he's doing it very well, though.