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MarkL comments on LSD, Meditation, Enlightenment, and Ego Death - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (31)
Motivating, appreciated.
Do you mind my asking how your identity interacts with rationality memes? You say that your earlier posts are often from a rationalist perspective. How has your perspective changed over time?
I just mean, in the beginning, I made more of an effort to simulate an LW-rationalist perspective and write accessibly or intriguingly to people who knew that memeplex. I've gotten lazier in later posts, just writing about what interests me, from my perspective. I don't really consider myself a rationalist. A "transrationalist" maybe. But maybe it's all semantics--non-straw-vulcan, Keith Stanovich's reflective rationality, etc.. I am fascinated by phenomenology, metacognition, and evolutionary psychology, and "rationality" is only one interacting, interweaving component for living the good life and changing the world. It's also a trap if considered in isolation:
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Valley_of_bad_rationality
Some people get permanently stuck in that valley. I feel like I bypassed it because of my philosophical background, practices, and interests, but maybe I'm Dunning-Krugering.
My feeling is that the valley of bad rationality is mostly using it as a tool to identify poor reasoning in others instead of in oneself.
I look at it as an empowering concept, apologetic, or an explanation of how "rationality" can go awry. I think Mitchell Porter says it best:
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/aq5/anyone_have_any_questions_for_david_chalmers/5zxw
Rather, grasping at easily available ontologies and attempting to reason with them will not get you very far when you're trying to do that with your life (at least at first). But some people, I think, don't learn how to go below easily available ontologies to create new ontologies (or comfortably rest in uncomputable but navigable ambiguity) that are closer to "what's actually going on," to move forward in their lives and projects. Hence "rationality" doesn't work for them.