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TimFreeman comments on The elephant in the room, AMA - Less Wrong Discussion
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If you confuse dishonesty with confusion, you'll perceive a lot of ill-will that isn't really there.
I considered that hypothesis, but confused people generally aren't able to so specifically tailor their responses to be unhelpful. Confusion says, "Sure, let's find its shape by tossing flour at it!", not "Hah! Got that one covered -- the dragon in my garage is flour-permeable!"
I think Sam is confused in the sense that he believes that these pleasant feelings he gets in connection with Mormonism do lift it.
Actually, I tend to agree with the statement that I just speculated Sam might believe. For example, Sam's experiences seem to rule out the possibility that religious experience leads you to Truth and Hinduism is the One True Religion. If that possibility is ruled out, the probability that religious experience leads you to Truth and Mormonism is the One True Religion is slightly increased.
The possibility that you can feel anything if you pray enough is lifted even more, and should have been high to start with since there are so many reports of prayer getting that sort of result, but perhaps Sam didn't consider that hypothesis. I could imagine human-looking creatures and a contrived universe for which feelings during prayer are a reliable means of investigating the truth.
Hmm, this seems to demolish the idea that DavidM's reported meditation experiences are evidence of anything interesting, since DavidM has probably meditated much more than Sam prayed, and they're essentially the same process. Damn, I was hoping there was something there.