You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

buybuydandavis comments on How to deal with non-realism? - Less Wrong Discussion

12 Post author: loup-vaillant 22 May 2012 01:58PM

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

Article Navigation

Comments (168)

Comments (168)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 22 May 2012 02:53:11PM 7 points [-]

Dobzhansky said "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", and I would borrow that expression and say, "Nothing anywhere makes sense except in the light of realism".

Yet it elicited an impression of being forced to believe.

An accurate one, except that the forcing is not being done by any agent, human or divine. The world ineluctably is, whether we like it or not: we have no freedom at all to choose what is true, only to choose what to do about it.

Now I'm relieved to know that in near mode, she's a complete realist. This craziness only shows up in far mode.

Stick to near mode, then. Point out in some concrete instance of what she does in everyday life, that she can choose only actions, not truths.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 23 May 2012 01:00:34AM *  1 point [-]

I would borrow that expression and say, "Nothing anywhere makes sense except in the light of realism".

You know, I found that quite nice. Then I had a laugh at my expense yet again for mistakenly projecting my outlook on others - most people find a lot of sense in unreal nonsense. And I just did for a bit too. The universe scores another hit on my vanity of sanity.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit