All of UnderTruth's Comments + Replies

I am reminded of this paper, on the equivalence of information-theoretic formalisms and those of physics. I am linking the paper here not as an endorsement, but because it may provide some unusual, but useful, lines of thought.

You mention both "local" and "cosmic" unfairness, but the body of the post appears to focus solely on the "cosmic", to its detriment. The challenges of Dostoevsky (or Qureshi-Hurst, but I am not familiar with her work) are not about whether "cosmic" unfairness can have some rationale, but about this suffering person here -- and for that person, notions of some "Divine Plan" (in whatever terms we may conceive of such) do not provide any relief. Religions that include belief in such things as angels or Divine incarnations face an even more stark problem from the lack of intervention; or rather, the lack of inconsistent intervention, by those spiritual powers.

1Jonah Wilberg
Thanks for the comment - the reason I focus on cosmic unfairness here is because I addressed local unfairness in a previous post in the sequence - apologies this wasn't clear, I've now added a hyperlink to clarify.  I don't agree that the challenges of Dostoevsky etc are only about local unfairness though: as I say I think it's typically a mixture of local and cosmic unfairness that are not clearly distinguished.  The 'problem from the lack of intervention' that you mention is much discussed by people in this context, so presumably they think it is relevant to the challenges they are considering, even if there is no easy solution.

A thought for a possible "version 2" would be to make them capable of reporting a push via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, to track the action the button represents.

6Shankar Sivarajan
I think this would be missing the point. If it were "smart" like you describe, I definitely wouldn't buy it, and I wouldn't use it even if got it for free: I'd just get an app on my phone. What I want from such an object is infallibility, and the dumber it is, the closer it's likely to get to that ideal.

It seems one is missing: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness".

And it is worth noting that there are, of course, many previous expositions on the Beatitudes, which, along with the expected focus on eternal rewards as outranking earthly ones, often provide additional insights, like how the "pure in heart" merit to "see God" because "purity" here means something like "singular focus", which has analogical application to being single-mindedly devoted to a cause, etc.

1robotelvis
As you say (and I alluded to as a footnote) there are a lot of interpretations of what the beatitudes mean.  My personal feeling is that those who emphasize the "spiritual" interpretations are often doing it as a dodge, to avoid the challenge of having to follow the non-spiritual interpretations.  That said, I make no claim that my interpretations are what most Christians believe. They are definitely what some Christians believe, and they are the interpretation of the Beatitudes that I find personally valuable today, as a non-Christian.
1robotelvis
Urgh. So you are right. Not sure how I missed that one. Probably because I counted to eight and the last one isn't always included in the list. I'll do a revision.

It is worth noting that, in the religious tradition from which the story originates, it is Moses who commits these previously-oral stories to writing, and does so in the context of a continued oral tradition which is intended to exist in parallel with the writings. On their own, the writings are not meant to be complete, both in order to limit more advanced teachings to those deemed ready for them, as well as to provide occasion to seek out the deeper meanings, for those with the right sort of character to do so.

2lemonhope
What? Nobody told me. Where did you learn this
4tailcalled
This makes sense. The context I'm thinking of is my own life, where I come from a secular society with atheist parents, and merely had brief introductions to the stories from bible reading with parents and Christian education in school. (Denmark is a weird society - few people are actually Christian or religious, so it's basically secular, but legally speaking we are Christian and do not have separation between Church and state, so there are random fragments of Christianity we run into.)

This would seem related to the notion that "Nature abhors a vacuum", and to the thesis of 'Meditations on Moloch', and to Ilya Prigogine's concept of "Dissipative Structures"... Perhaps one could simply say that it is a natural result of the interplay between entropy and various systems which 'fight' against it. 

2Viliam
Yeah, "Moloch consumes your slack" seems to be the common pattern. It is not a strict law; Moloch doesn't eat all existing slack, but there seems to be such thing as "too much slack" that Moloch notices and starts doing something about it. A new tool increasing your productivity by 10% might go unnoticed for a long time, but a tool increasing your productivity by 100% overnight will get noticed. (Just guessing here.)

It may be worth noting that traditionally, Jesus is depicted as being in agreement with Siddhartha here, having emptied Hades before exiting the tomb alive again. This is further emphasized in a sermon preached ~1600 years ago by John Chrysostom, and repeated every Easter in Orthodox (& some Catholic) churches, which includes the line "Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave." Though in combination with other beliefs about Hades/Hell, it seems the intended meaning is that everyone was/is given the option to "ascend", but perhaps not everyone chooses to take it.

2jmh
Shaw's "Man Superman" play is an interesting take on that last bit.
Answer by UnderTruth50

You seem to have arrived at the classical concept of "the four loves", referring to the four Greek words commonly translated as "love" in English:

  • στοργή :: natural, familial affinity
  • φιλία :: interest/enjoyment as coming from a free & rational agent
  • ἔρως :: craving for unity with what is "beloved"
  • ἀγάπη :: "to will the good of the other"

Somewhere I have old notes that link them together in a reasonable way, but I would have to dig that up later, if you would be interested.

4Gordon Seidoh Worley
Worth noting that English does try to get at these distinctions, but often by using phrases or context: * motherly love, fatherly love, brotherly love, sisterly love, etc. * "I love [X]" where X is clearly a non-person so there's no real confusion in context * "I love them" vs. "I'm in love with them" * "God/Jesus/etc. loves me" is clear to people who feel this that it's by analogy to the simple feeling of love, like one feels loved by one's parent when a small child I basically reject the premise of the OP that there's any real confusion when "love" is read on context (except in cases of intentional ambiguity). It's only lacking context that "love" seems like it's a confused concept.
Answer by UnderTruth20

As someone diagnosed with ADHD only recently, as an adult, I can relate to having mental energy that is highly variable, and to having intellectual pursuits which are largely dependent on this energy. It would seem the vast majority of active participants on this website have no kids, so I thought it would be worthwhile to add my perspective, having 3 of my own, in my early 30s. Prior to having kids, I would often stay up until ~2am, deep in some sort of research, and occasionally stay up all night, tracking down and reading articles pertinent to my topic.... (read more)

Thank you for your reply and further explanation. Your examples are helpful, and on thinking about them, I'm led to wonder how these & other "techniques" serve the distinct goals of "Trying to arrive at The True Answer", "Trying to show this person that they have incoherent beliefs, because they have failed to properly examine them", and "Trying to converse in a manner that will engage this person, so that it has some real, hopefully positive, effect for them" -- and possibly others.

I think I am unclear on whether this approach differs from a more traditional "Socratic" style dialogue, and if so, in what ways. Could you clarify?

Another thought that this post brings out, is that while I think techniques of this sort are useful in a number of ways, even beyond the direct dialogue itself (for example, in practicing the kind of lateral and analogy-based thinking required to fluidly keep up with the conversation while maintaining this style), there is clearly a limited set of opportunities for which they are suitable. Do you know of any existing "taxonomy" of conversational methods, classified with respect to the circumstances in which they are most effective?

7lsusr
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to ask these questions. I will paraphrase a little. How does rhetorical aikido differ from well-established Socratic-style dialogue? Socratic-style dialogue is a very broad umbrella. Pretty much any question-focused dialogue qualifies. A public schoolteacher asking a class of students "What do you think?" is both "Socratic" and ineffective at penetrating delusion. The approach gestured at here is entirely within the domain of "Socratic"-style dialogue. However, it is far more specific. The techniques I practice and teach are laser-focused on improving rationality. Here are a few examples of techniques I use and train, but which are not mandatory for a dialogue to be "Socratic": * If, while asking questions, you are asked "what do you believe" in return, you must state exactly what you believe. * You yield as much overt frame to the other person as possible. This is especially the case with definitions. In all but the most egregious situations, you let the other person define terms. * There are basic principles about how minds work that I'm trying to gesture at. One of my primary objectives in the foundational stages is to get students to understand how the human mind lazily [in the computational sense of the word "lazily"] evaluates beliefs and explanations. Socrates himself was likely aware of these mechanics but, in my experience, most teachers using Socratic methods are not aware of them. * I use specific conversational techniques to draw attention to specific errors. Which brings us to…. Is there any existing "taxonomy" of conversational methods, classified with respect to the circumstances in which they are most effective? It depends on your goal. There are established techniques for selling things, seducing people, telling stories, telling jokes, negotiating, and getting your paper accepted into an academic journal. Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation is a peerless manual for improvisatio

As a parent of young children, I often consider this very dilemma. In addition, as the other comments describe, there are several other dimensions along which a parent must optimize:

  • Things that may broadly "give" to oneself (Sleep, exercise, fulfillment of "vocation", hobbies, etc) vs Things that may broadly "take" from oneself (Basic care for kids, the kinds of play that may not interest the parent, drudgery of "work", chores, etc)
  • Disciplinary style & social environment within the family (A two-dimensional area ranging from Harsh to Permissive on one
... (read more)
1Sable
This was very well said, and I'd be interested in reading a post fleshing more of it out.

One note, based on my experience in across a variety of organizations, including holding a leadership role in a small political party, is that when a debate is "Free Flowing", if it is taking place verbally (usually in-person or over video-call) the lack of definite structure and time-boxing can often lead to domination by whoever of the two or more interlocutors has either greater prowess in rhetorical skill, or is more willing to simply steamroll over the opportunity for the other to speak, or both. I think a balance may be struck by having structured ro... (read more)

1Robert Miles
Structured time boxes seem very suboptimal, steamrollering is easy enough to deal with by a moderator "Ok let's pause there for X to respond to that point"

Rot13: V gubhtug vg jbhyq or Znaan ol Znefunyy Oenva