fully agree with this.
I think lot of people indirectly follow the things written in the post--I certainly do. What we actually try to do all the time is: Not try to control things which cannot be, we have to accept certain things are beyond us, and we deal with things which we think we can deal with, isn't it?
Comes a day, when a creationist is hell bent on having a debate to prove how rationalists/biologists are ignorant, and that day, we will send a college-student-rationalist--there is no need to go out there and bat for Darwin, but we would act in defense if required to.
got it
Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality.
--Eliezer (http://lesswrong.com/lw/if/your_strength_as_a_rationalist/)
Few quotes from the article:
"Bananas were created by God for human enjoyment, for why else would they come in such convenient cases?"
"...Am I to hope that, in the hereafter, a rationalist God will reward me for having the intellectual integrity not to believe in Him?".....
...Right, but if the only reason it works is that you believe it works, then how can it work if you know it only works because you believe it works?"...
..."Richard Dawkins, the biologist, was once asked about a study claiming that the devout live longer on av...
Yes webcast would be heaven; a chance to catch all the best at one place
Is there a webcast of the same for the people around the world?
I don't know if it is appropriate to even post this thing, but I didn't find a single thread which talks about the kind of music people in this forum listen to. Has it ever happened that you have used rationality to decide the kind of music you should be listening to? Like all the other things, even listening to music needs "training" (the ears in this case). Music is art-form, so can it be quantified? One might get the same satisfaction listen to MJ or Pat Metheny. But if it happens that you have to choose only two records to listen to for the rest of your life, can rationality help there?
yeah, just totally missed it...edited now
This is one of those posts where I think "I wish I could understand the post". Way to technical for me right now. I sometimes wish that someone can do a "Non-Technical" and Non-mathematical version of posts like these ones. (but I guess it will take too much time and effort). But then I get away saying, I don't need to understand everything, do I?
“To rationalize their lies, people -- and the governments, churches, or terrorist cells they compose -- are apt to regard their private interests and desires as just.”
--Wendy Kaminer (A woman social activist)
What is wrong with that?
Whenever, then, anything in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd or evil, it is because we have but a partial knowledge of things, and are in the main ignorant of order and coherence of nature as a whole, and because we want everything to be arranged according to dictates of our own reason; although in fact, what our reason pronounces bad is not as bad as regards the order and laws of universal nature, but only as regards the order and laws of our own nature taken separately.... As for the terms good and bad, they indicate nothing positive considered in t...
Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter." ~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. ~Andre Gide
I don't get you
yeah, very well put, every reason to give the art of rationality a chance
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it” --I tried to find where I read it, but unsucessfully
EDIT: Googled, it's by Kurt Vonnegut
so rationality doesn't always mean "win-win" ? In a chicken situation, the best thing for "both" the persons is to remain alive, which can be done by one of them (or both) "swerving", right? There is a good chance that one of them is called chicken.
Oops!! thanks for correcting ( good i din write Vendetta!!)
So what happens in the broken radio example if both the persons have already read schellings book? Nobody gets the prize? I mean how does such a situation is resolved? If everybody perfects the art of rationality, who wins? and who loses?
Very interesting!! Isn't it similar to people saying something and then citing some reference as evidence, when, in reality, the evidence is far from the people's "distorted views".
An example:- In Indian Philosophy, "Maya" is often translated as "illusion", and we see people quoting Maya in in popular cultures in India, but the actual psychological, epistemological, and ontological meaning is defined in "Vendanta", which people rarely cite as an "evidence" for saying what they say.
Hi
I am Ajay from India. I am 23. I was a highly rebellious person(still am i think), flunked out college, but completed it to become a programmer. But as soon as i finished college, i had severe depression because of a woman. I than thought of doing Masters degree in US, and applied, but then dropped the idea.Then i recaptured a long gone passion to make music, so i started drumming. I got accepted to berklee college of music, but then i lost interest to make a career out of it, i have some reasons for it. Then i started reading a lot(parallel to some pr...
fantastic !!!
yes, i am stumped!! the thing is clear from one of the comments. actually i was a bit sleepy (still am) and skimmed thru it, and missed the part after the cut. Fantastic post though.
I have a question: I am a real beginner here in this forum. Although i read a lot, the language used by you and many others in this forum is very high quality. The sentences are huge, which have to be re-read sometimes to understand what is being said. Although i know i will feel more comfortable with time, is it really simple english that is used in this forum? simple is relat...
Orthonormal, can you please post a link to blog that you quoted?
Out of the 23 comments so far, none has actually properly handled the question[1] raised by orthonormal.
Would love to see eliezer reply to this one
Please do that if possible.
thanks for tellin that. I should have looked up before saying that
I realise it should be basic "math". For some strange reason almost 99% of people here in india say maths. We are taught by teachers as maths. People invariably say I like maths, not math. Its just so ingrained by now that i wrote that in spite of knowing that its "math". Probably a thing like your comment is what my brain was waiting for, it would be more "brainy" before writing maths again :)
Yes, and probably a detailed probability lesson. I was very good at maths in high school, but now after 10 years after highschool, i have totally lost touch. Though i still know the concepts, i get a bit lost when people start talking in "p" terms out of nowhere. I would like to follow everything.
i totally second this!!! Eliezer posts very few articles. I usually come back from work and sit down to read on LW for 2-3 hours. I was fighting myself and telling myself to make a bit of effort to vote, as it is helpful as pointed out by eliezer. But, bcos the number of posts is so less, it really doesn't matter. Eliezer can almost assume that we like the post, unless theres something negative about it written in the comments section. As pointed out by eirenicon, comment votes are very important and they certainly should be given more attention. yesterday i was reading the "alcohol thread" and it really helped to skim thru few and get past 250 comments!!!!
A page named "basic maths", explaining "essential" concepts would be great. I don't know if it is possible, but i would want the explanations to be theoretical-- the way eliezer explains bayes, basically something for the generalists who can't learn maths by looking at equations!!
when the small projects upon the great, it can only come up with a small answer
--JD krishnamurthy
From what i've read and able to understand(a little) after spending 3 months reading this blog is that rationality is (just to put what has already been said lot of times by eliezer) "something that helps us getting more of what we want", please correct me if i have got it dead wrong, else i might be "de-rationalised" in a rational way. Im a pathalogical liar, i have little to hide (nobody who knows me visits this blog, i think, and if somebody does and happens to read this, then he wouldn't mind it i'm sure).
"........- the theory ...
Are you a meat-eater?