Meet ups are great and all, but a lot of us live far away from the large masses of LW-participants. I live in the Toledo, Ohio area, and I'm also one of those people who are looking for people who I can relate to. Most people I can't relate to, intellectual conversation makes most people I know uncomfortable. Even people who are intelligent are often too timid to speak their minds (this could be because of the before mentioned people). Nothing against people who are more ordinary than I am, but I have this sense that the people I read here are people I have more in common with than most people I will ever meet by chance.
I'm not looking for a date (well, I am, but not in this case), just people who I can relate to better than people I will meet by chance. This isn't my personal ad, but I was wondering what would be the best place to put such an ad, to see if there are people in my area who are the kind of people who would read this website? I'm not a transhumanist, but I'm not religious either. I've been an atheist since I was 12. I'm not autistic, but I have ADHD which I've only recently been treated for. This is also the main reason why I never finished college, which probably would have been *the* best way to meet people. So I'm looking for second or third best.
After reading the recent post about the LW user who committed suicide, I realized that I could lose a lot by not making the effort of trying to reach out and meet people.
It just depends on if "should" is interpreted as "what would best fulfill my wants now" or "what would best fulfill your wants now" (or as something else entirely).
We can't make sense of ethical language until we realize different people mean different things by it.
And that's what morality always was in the first place. It's a way of getting other people to do otherwise than what they wanted to do. No one would be convinced by "I don't want you to kill people", but if you can convince someone that "It is wrong to kill people", then you've created conflict in that person's desires.
I wonder, in the end, if people here truly want to "be rational" about morality. Myself, I'm not rational about morality, I go along with it. I don't critique it in my personal life. For instance, I refuse to murder someone, no matter how rational it might be to murder someone.
Stick to epistemic rationality, and instrumental rationality, but avoid at all costs normative rationality, is my opinion.
Oddly, a "sense of belonging" usually makes me feel alienated and uncomfortable.
This sounds very odd. In fact, it sounds oxymoronic. Can you explain?
I somewhat relate to his comment, and for me it's because of how much persona, holding myself back, and not letting myself go it requires to be accepted by others. When, and if, it actually does work, it feels like here all I was trying to do was be a nice guy, and now the ruse worked? Now it's like you've committed yourself to it.
Also, what was your reasoning for doubting that you exist? How was Descartes proof insufficient?
It's essentially circular. It assumes an "I" from the start. If you get rid of that assumption, you have to start with "something is thinking."
That's been acknowledged in philosophical circles for some time now, but I don't think many philosophers regard it as an important problem anymore. It's about as safe an assumption as you can possibly make.
Seconding your main request, I've heard more people than I care to recall claim inspiration from altered states of consciousness, but it would be a first to have anyone present one that's novel and demonstrably true.
Let the people suppose that knowledge means knowing things entirely; the philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, "I think," I find a whole series of daring assertions that would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove; for example that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an "ego," and, finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking--that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps "willing" or "feeling"?
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 16
Just a brief inquiry, I've been thinking about myself, and what many people here talk about akrasia and "not getting crap done", and one of the vectors that this can be thought of is in terms of what I would call spiritedness versus docility. At least this is how I would describe it, maybe you guys know of a better approach.
I would call these different ends of a continuum, like hot and cold: the more spirited you are, the less docile; and the more docile you are, the less spirited. I suspect that many of those who come here are often on the docile end of the spectrum, and this has everything to do with the sort of society we live in. A spirited/highly energetic person just doesn't work that well in our kind of society where standing in one place, waiting our turn, reading directions, and so on, are standard staples of life.
Now being docile sounds bad, but the alternative is a lot of frustration--being irritable, impatient, easily angered and annoyed by those around you; at least, this is the way I see it. But I was thinking in terms of what I would call "rational spiritedness", because this is the condition under which I think best. That is, rather than passively waiting for the answers, but actively seeking them. There was a post a little while ago about what was called "learned blankness", and I think this is very close to what I call docility. For the spirited person, inquiry is naturally active, physical, and empirical.
I did an experiment the other day when I was in the park walking, and as I was walking I forced myself to constantly probe the environment around me, trying to discover as much I could. I'm talking about very basic things, the way a naturalist would, like what is the structure of the leaves on the grass (grass grows in bundles). I noticed, and then recalled, that this park was hit by a tornado last year, and I could see which trees are newly planted, and which are still there from the tornado. I even noticed the pattern in the trees, the way the old trees had fewer branches on one side, which indicated in which direction the wind blew in from. There were still some old stakes in the ground which were pointed in the same angle. But the idea wasn't to "learn about any particular thing" but to "learn about whatever I could around me".
But the impressive thing is that this "state of mind" that I somehow struck caused me to learn things, and even see the world around me in a way I never did before. I guess I'm a natural introvert, and I've walked this park many times before, and never noticed any of these details. My walks are usually spent inside my head, thinking about logical arguments, or what not. It never occurred to me to use my rationality to learn things about the world around me, to become a sort of empirical sleuth (Sherlock Holmes is certainly my inspiration here).
It's this idea of spiritedness that has caught my attention though, that day when I was walking at the park, I think I managed to become more spirited than I usually am. It helped that I was virtually alone at the park (it's a really small park, and still cold), but this spiritedness caused me to walk off the trail many times just to go look at something from a different angle, or to see something up close, or to count the number of something. This was all pretty easy stuff. There was one other guy there, and I hate to say that I felt a little ashamed at what I was doing everytime I saw him. Seeing another person seems to be an instant return to docility. Maybe this is why the best thinkers work alone.
Anyway, I thought this was interesting, and shared with the class. :)
This makes it sound more like a cult rather than a group of rational people working together.
...they "grew long mustaches which they would twirl with melodramatic flair as they savaged a programmer's code", for god's sake. This is just a group of people who decided to have fun with their identities, go about their jobs in a bit more theatrical a manner than usual, and make people's days more surreal, and managed to get their work done more effectively and more enjoyably in the process. (Rational doesn't mean boring.) I'm sort of used to random things in nearby memespace regions being accused of being cults, but this doesn't even seem to have the surface similarities that are usually brought up to support those accusations.
I agree entirely. I hate the idea that "rationality" is being identified with the way your dress and compose yourself. Also, I know there's a sequence post somewhere that basically says that being rational doesn't mean being dispassionate.
Get the green score-bubbles to cover the entire karma score, so that all the digits are visible.
Reason: I found myself less motivated to comment on LW after I got a fifth digit to my score. I think this is because it feels (to some low-level part of my brain) as though my karma now increases ten times as slowly. If this is true for others with five-digit karma scores, we might be pulling motivation from good contributors.
Maybe it would be useful to show a frequency score (karma points per week/day) on the main page next to your username, rather than your overall score. You can still get your overall score on your profile page.
I know you guys are all well-credentialed, pretty solidly middle class people; but I was wondering, what would be the rational thing to do for someone without any sort of educational credentials, and doesn't make a high wage? At what income does "investment" begin to make sense, lets say if you're upper lower class or lower middle class?
Not all heating methods would satisfactorily toast marshmallows. The microwave makes them blow up and boiling them would dissolve them. So merely being consciously aware that heat is involved in the roasting wouldn't be enough to make me think that not only one specific type of heat would do.
That's a good point, which means that heat is too general to function as the hypostatic object. I would guess that it's a particular way in which heat is applied. The heat has to be applied to the surface, and it has to be transmitted through the air. And, at least relative the reflexes of the cook, the temperature can't be too high.
Makes you wonder if a marshmallow can be toasted with a hair dryer :D
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"This X is awesome" communicates, minimally, that X inspires awe. It's a perfectly distinct and valid component of an aesthetic. I would own to its presence in my own (pseudo)utility function, although I'd probably say "Burkean sublimity" instead for the signalling value.
I think you're technically correct, but especially on the internet, the term "awesome" has been used more and more loosely such that it nearly does have the super-general meaning that STL is talking about. To say that X is awesome is usually just a strong, emphatic way of saying that "I like X".