Infotropism2 comments on Which Parts Are "Me"? - Less Wrong

30 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 October 2008 06:15PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (116)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Infotropism2 23 October 2008 08:10:00PM 3 points [-]

When I first came across Eliezer's writings, it struck me that what I read felt so true to me, that for the first time I felt like I had found someone I could relate to.

I have been avidly reading everything from him I could come across, as long as it "felt" right, which was often. With time I noticed that we didn't think in the same way, and it felt to me Eliezer was much more rational, scientifical, structured, than I was.

I immediately felt that the desirable thing to do would be to read even more of him, so as to "absorb" those traits in me, which would be an advantage; as if reading again and again his writings would slowly diffuse a part of his thinking into me. I know I'm that suggestible, especially if I don't put safeguards between people's ideas and me.

And with time I have felt like a part of me was changing, that I was losing a bit of what made the good old "intuitive", messy me, and gained some of what I identified as rationality, systematic reasoning.
Before I would be aloof, would oversimplify any problem, and would follow my any emotions knowing somehow they were right most of the time, and helped me win at what I did. With the knowledge I gained here, I couldn't ever have that much confidence in my own raw drives and intuitions.

It sometimes feels like plugging incompatible software into my self, and messing the whole for as long as I possess both ways of thinking/feeling. But I think it is worth it, else I wouldn't have done it.