Pretty interesting take, I especially liked your mind-shape idea.
Another way to view faith is an attempt to find "God's will" which is like a vector pointing toward an undefined point (God) which represents an idealized version of the best possible outcome of things. Ideally, a person of faith is always adjusting the vector of the direction of their lives (based on the outcomes of things), and not intentionally taking a vector known to point away from God (sin).
Some people think religion is useless, but actually, this approach is similar to the proce...
A meta question to the question of "how to most accurately measure intelligence" is "how is accurately measuring intelligence actually useful?"
Just from my experience it seems that an accurate relative intelligence value of some sort, for example iq score, has surprisingly few useful applications. I think this is mostly because making claims about superior intelligence, accurate or not, is considered socially repulsive (as you acknowledged). Without accounting for social factors, I would expect an intelligence rating to be a very useful thing t...
While in a conversation tracking how the other person is trying to interpret the motives behind what I'm saying and trying to control that by what I say. This can get multiple levels of complex fast. I recently had a really important conversation and I ended up saying things like "I mean exactly what I'm saying" and "I'm not anxious, I just can't afford to let you misunderstand me". Unfortunately this made it seem like I was definitely anxious, and meant something other than I was saying.
I think some of the commentary about religion on LessWrong could use some more genuine humble curiosity. Not the kind of curiosity of "how can someone so intelligent be so mistaken?", but rather "what are the effects of religious faith and practice on individuals and societies that go beyond simple self deception mechanisms?", or "Is the persistent belief in god(s) in human history only explainable by ignorance, or does it tell us something important about ourselves?". I could start to hypothesize about some of these questions if I had time, bu...
Haha, funny post because its so relatable.
I think of operating productively without drama as playing the long game. Its a lot easier to control critical factors without other people stepping in because they think something's wrong. Eventually when people see the results, the attention you missed out on during the process is paid off.
I think strategizing over how to present the end result so that it's valued is an important key to reaping the benefits of productivity.
Thank you for the post. A creative and substantive contribution from your world to mine.
We humans each have a different incredibly complex experience of the world. However, we can share a slice of this experience that maps onto another person's experience through music, art, or language. This seems innately beautiful.
I know this doesn't help much if you are losing your job to emerging ai capabilities.
But I guess my point is human creativity will always be more inherently valuable because it is generated from the messy, tragic, delightful, monotonous, thrilling experience of being a human, rather than a simple optimization function meant to mimic humans.
So basically, don't give up.
I love the book of Ecclesiastes, an ancient poetical text that wrestles with the problem of meaning. Especially Chapter 3:9-13