ChristianKl comments on Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (301)
One way of looking at the failure mode of Scientology is that they lead with genuinely useful material, which hooks people and establishes them as a credible source of wisdom. They then have a progressive structure that convinces you new epiphanies are just around the corner, you just need to put in a little more effort / time / cash--but there is no epiphany waiting that will be as useful as the original epiphanies.
This happens lots of places. I recall reading about some Alexander Technique expert, who continued doing lessons in the hopes of recapturing the first moment when he experienced lightness in his body. He never could, because the thing that was shocking about the first time was the surprise, not the lightness, and no matter how light he got, he could not become as surprised by it.
The healthy approach is to have a purpose, to pursue a well of knowledge for as long as doing so enhances that purpose, and then to abandon that well of knowledge as soon as it no longer enhances that purpose.
But here we run into the issue that, while rationality may be the common interest of many causes, the "something new" is unlikely to be a specifically rationality thing. It's more likely to be something that some people find interesting and some people find boring, and so the people split into different taskforces to solve different problems. (That is, the Craft and the Community sequence really does anticipate lots of these issues.)
I think "epiphany" isn't a good way to think about scientology. The advantages you get by not being emotionally reactive to triggers, aren't about "epiphanies".
Could you source that story? To me that sound like someone not practicing "beginners mind" and as a result getting things wrong.
Eliezer mostly wrote about his own thoughts on rationality and at the beginning of LW, I think there reason to assume that it covers everything meaningful there to say about rationality.
If I recall correctly (60%?), it was Frank Pierce Jones. I'll have to do some digging to find the initial quote, and I remember reading him as healthily noticing that desire and acknowledging that it was impossible, rather than misspending his life in pursuit of it.
(I've also stuck an "as" in the quoted text to make it a little clearer what claim I'm making.)
I agree there are more ways out there than just Eliezer's way, and people should be encouraged to discover theirs and post about it here. My hope was more to convey that some fruits can only be picked once.