All of thre3e's Comments + Replies

Edit: It seems that thre3e is sort of trolling, given the four new user accounts that first commented under this article (tamara, mind, jozsef, gyorgy - come on, two new Hungarian names in one day) and whose writing style resembles that of thre3e. I leave what I have written so far, but refrain from further discussion. Thanks NMJablonski for pointing out. I didn't know how much serious you were and I suspected that not too much, either because the word you have chosen or because you have sort of denied that. But sometimes I dislike even writings which are not entirely serious. (In particular I don't like things which are difficult to tell whether they are serious or not.) When I hear (paraphrased) "there is a problem P; I have a possible solution S", it seems natural to interpret that as "S (possibly) solves P". If I hear "what if we successfully substituted", it seems natural to see it as a polite way to say "we should substitute". (I don't want to argue over it, only am trying to pinpoint from where the misunderstanding may stem.) But science is as close to the truth as one can get, and there are plenty of words which admit the possibility of error if there is a need (hypothesis, claim, conjecture, guess, model, theory). It is not clear what concept you want to introduce which is not already covered by those words. If I fail in communication, then that is reason to keep on explaining. You are free to give up if you want of course, and I can well understand it given the overall negative reaction which you haven't expected, but there is nothing dishonourable with continued explanation.

I think I now understand our main point of disagreement. Claims backed only by personal opinion are still assertions. (I should add that there's nothing wrong with posts in the discussion session relying on personal feelings and results, as long as you avoid generalizing from one example and other-optimizing.) For an article predicated so heavily on the assumption that religion is necessary and inevitable, a failure to explain how you reached that conclusion is confusing. Presenting a controversial premise without explaining how you arrived at it is likely to result in downvotes, which I urge you not to take personally. The rest of the downvotes likely come from the lack of clarity, which (I think) just makes it harder for people to realize that your article was "at least semi-jest". You seem a little shell-shocked at the reaction to this post; downvoting just means "I want less of this", not "I hate this" and certainly not "what an idiot". I hope this is helpful for understanding the LessWrong reaction to your post.

Most of the "negativity" consists of attempts to explain what problem we have. There were claims. At the very least you have claimed certainty about some desires of human minds. Also, this isn't a community of lawyers. If you decorate a claim with weasel phrases like "I can't imagine but" or "might", it doesn't make it a non-claim or extempt you from need to justify it. What is self-evident for one may not be so for other. Nature of human knowledge is certainly not self-evident. It is very probable that those positive commenters are your sockpuppets, as NMJablonski has pointed out. Please, don't troll.

Your piece isn't hated, it's just not good. If you are actually interested in participating in this community, read the sequences. Then read some of the current frontpage material. Then try engaging us again, with one (and only one) username.

I can't tell whether your epistemology is joking or serious, though; it seems like you're quite committed to a state of confessed ignorance about many things (which is preferable to one of hubristic certainty, but isn't the best you can do with your knowledge).

For example: This sentence is problematic both stylistically and in terms of substance. You make two assertions (some minds seek religious compulsions and some minds need to supply them) without providing any warrant beyond your own certainty. If it is indeed the case that some people are psychologically dependent on religion (not just because they think they are, or think they should be, or have never really considered the question) that would be of interest to most people on LessWrong. Link to studies that back this up. Stylistically, the sentence uses unnecessarily vague and wordy language. The line " some minds are susceptible to the seeking of such compulsions" requires the reader to figure out a lot by themself. Mind-design space is enormous; no one will contest that a mind could exist that requires religion. Assuming your assertion is specific to humans, try "some people" instead of "some minds". Next, what does it mean to be "susceptible to seeking compulsions"? Under my understanding, a compulsion is a strong desire or need to do something, not something you would seek in itself. "Some people feel compelled to seek religion, and other people feel compelled to spread religious memes" seems to get across the point of the sentence with fewer words and less ambiguity. If this accurately summarizes your intent, you could try going through the rest of the article and making similar changes.

Go into the editing screen for your article. In the dropdown menu labeled "Post To", select "LessWrong Discussion". (You don't seem to have enough karma to post to Main, but unless I misremember, 1 karma is enough for Discussion.) Then click "submit".

all people? some people? typical people?

You are basically asking to start with a=FALSE ("inherently opposed to derive such from rationality") and prove that a=TRUE ("invent a type of rationality that satisfies the need for the warm fuzzies"). I hope that asking to prove that TRUE=FALSE was not your intention.

I may misunderstand your meaning of "warm fuzzies", but I find I obtain significant emotional satisfaction from mathematics, music, and my social interactions with certain people. I see no reason to believe that people receive some important thing from the fundamental aspects of religion that cannot be obtained in less detrimental ways.

I think that, in general, there usually can't be an X that provides Y even to someone that is inherently opposed to get Y from X. However, there might be a type of rationality that satisfies the need for the warm fuzzies when presented to minds that are not inherently predisposed to derive such from rationality, that works for moderate-minded skeptics, for people who aren't actively trying to believe in it but also aren't actively trying not to believe in it.

Have you looked for a Third Alternative?

At the risk of repeating myself and no-one caring, I'd state the following: I get my divine kick out of occasional meditations on Gnosticism, sometimes slapping on consciously useless justifications for it, like "It's not dissimliar to the Simulation Argument, which is acceptable". Reading Philip K. Dick led me to it, so it's pretty much narrating fanfiction of my favourite science fantasy to myself. I guess you could call that religious masturbation. What do you think about this, huh? Also, see the Ecclesia Gnostica website for a whole lot of tasty, slippery, easily digestable woo.