This is my first post in Less Wrong — I discovered rationalism very recently (like, during Less Online recent) and am still learning the LW vocab/exploring concepts etc so please bear with me!
In fact, my comment is more of a question: I'd like to contribute a viewpoint coming from personal anecdote rather than factual evidence. Most of the discourse I'm reading is references to studies or statistical analysis. There are some impersonal anecdotes, eg people bringing up neighbours and friends-of-friends, so it does look like there's some leeway.
However the perspective I want to share is a very emotional, rather than factual analysis — a lot of the comments I'm reading bring up material references to things that I've personally felt: am I making this up? How do I know if this is a false memory or if I'm re-experiencing something that truly happened to me? Are these memories just a symptom of drug-induced psychosis? If some of my memories are false, does that invalidate all of them? etcetcetc — and I'm not sure if that kind of analysis is something that the community considers productive to discussion.
This is my first post in Less Wrong — I discovered rationalism very recently (like, during Less Online recent) and am still learning the LW vocab/exploring concepts etc so please bear with me!
In fact, my comment is more of a question: I'd like to contribute a viewpoint coming from personal anecdote rather than factual evidence. Most of the discourse I'm reading is references to studies or statistical analysis. There are some impersonal anecdotes, eg people bringing up neighbours and friends-of-friends, so it does look like there's some leeway.
However the perspective I want to share is a very emotional, rather than factual analysis — a lot of the comments I'm reading bring up material references to things that I've personally felt: am I making this up? How do I know if this is a false memory or if I'm re-experiencing something that truly happened to me? Are these memories just a symptom of drug-induced psychosis? If some of my memories are false, does that invalidate all of them? etcetcetc — and I'm not sure if that kind of analysis is something that the community considers productive to discussion.
Would love your feedback :)