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DataPacRat comments on Open thread, 7-14 July 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: David_Gerard 07 July 2014 07:14AM

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Comment author: DataPacRat 07 July 2014 08:11:00AM 5 points [-]

Merging traditional Western occultism with Bayesian ideas seems to produce some interesting parallels, which may be useful psychologically/motivationally. Anyone care to riff on the theme?

Eg: "The Great Work" is the Most Important Thing that you can possibly be doing.

Eg, tests to pass and gates to go through in which a student has to realize certain things for themselves, as opposed to simply being taught them, from pre-membership ones of learning basic arithmetic and physics, to the initial initiation of joining the Bayesian Conspiracy, to an early gate of becoming a full atheist, to a higher gate of, say, making arrangements to be brought back from the dead. (Possibly the highest level would be to have arrangements to be brought back from the dead /without/ anyone else's help...)

Comment author: DataPacRat 07 July 2014 08:11:53AM 3 points [-]

Additional idea: "DataPacRat's Lower Bound" for the Great Work: "If what you're doing isn't at /least/ as important as ensuring that you will keep being able to read comics for the foreseeable future, then you should work on the comic thing instead."