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ChristianKl comments on Emotional tools for the beginner rationalist - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gleb_Tsipursky 09 October 2015 05:01AM

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Tags: intentionalinsights wordspreading raisingsanitywaterline rationality

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Comment author: ChristianKl 10 October 2015 03:01:18PM 0 points [-]

In the past (before finding LW) I have repeatedly experimented with belief in belief (because I wanted the placebo effects or social approval), but those experiments were always half-assed and very short-termed; they felt incompatible with my personality. I couldn't stop being aware that I am merely acting.

Normal people don't experiment with belief in belief. They just have it.

Wikipedia writes for Athenian slaves:

Slaves could not own property, but their masters often let them save up to purchase their freedom,[97] and records survive of slaves operating businesses by themselves, making only a fixed tax-payment to their masters.

Comment author: Viliam 11 October 2015 10:28:23AM *  0 points [-]

Normal people don't experiment with belief in belief. They just have it.

Yes... and I envied them. :D

I suspect that if there is a parallel universe where I got religious, the proper strategy was to find a sufficiently intelligent clever arguer (someone like Chesterton, but with 50 more IQ points), or more likely, a group of Chesterton-level clever arguers I could spend a lot of time with, and thus have a social proof for their rationalizations. (Something like Dark CFAR.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 11 October 2015 11:25:18AM 1 point [-]

If I wanted to make someone religious I would give them experiences that aren't easily reconciled with their previous world view and then provide a religious belief system that can explain those experiences.

It's not easy to sustain being an atheist when you have a vision of Jesus rising from the cross. It not that hard to theoretically accept that the human mind can produce visions at random but it's another issue not to take one's own experience too seriously.

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