Many of the refutations offered didn't actually contradict what I had in mind at all. For instance, I could come up with a (wrong) theory vaguely similar to general relativity, and showing how that's wrong =/= showing general relativity is wrong, similarly, the link about La Sage's theory is not some iron-clad refutation of this one.
However, I wasn't exactly confident that it was right; it actually bothered me that I couldn't come up with why I was wrong. I was mostly expecting to find out why my idea was wrong by running it by others who might already know more than me on the subject. I... (read 375 more words →)
Yes. Why would scaling it down more than I did make it disappear?
The only predictive difference I can think of is that with this model there would be regions in the universe where greater dark energy flow would result in a greater gravitational constant.
I would want to be more confident that it was meaningful before taking on a whole other branch of science at a professional level. And if I was already approaching it on that level, I would take it to a physics journal and not a blog.
Or inversely, they could be less likely to correct you in a larger group because they assume someone else will do it.
Sorry about the very lengthy delay in response.
In my experiences there has always been (at minimum) a surface layer of magical nonsense, but it has always seemed that the real point was just bonding with other individuals; sharing the aggrandized experience with them for the sake of feeling like you're part of the same thing.
That sort of thing was (I imagine) a relatively ubiquitous feature of ancestral tribes, and I suspect that that led to our neural pathways evolving in such a way that sharing in ritualized experiences is a vital part of how we come to feel like we are truly a part of the group/tribe/etc.... (read more)
It always seems to me that any little disclaimer about my degree of certainty seems to disproportionately skew the way others interpret my statements.
For instance, if I'm 90% sure of something, and carefully state it in a way that illustrates my level of confidence (as distinct from 100%), people seem to react as if I'm substantially less than 90% confident. In other words, any acknowledgement of less-than-100%-confidence seems to be interpreted as not-very-confident-at-all.
I sometimes go digging for quartz. This includes camping out with friends the night before, then getting dirty, digging in the mud, and finding neat little things all day. All in all, I really enjoy the experience. But then I bring home pounds and pounds of the stuff and really only enjoy having a few of the pieces that really jump out to me as being exceptional.
Most people have never gone to dig for quartz, and don't have nearly the amount of it that I do. On top of that, many of my friends attribute all sorts of magical nonsense to the stones. So, the... (read more)
I suspect that making it about rationality might be kind of a mixing utilitons with warm fuzzies situation, where you end up doing both poorly. However the person(s) leading the thing damn well better be rationalists. Probably everyone else involved as well.
I exist within a subculture where rituals are kind of normal, and other things I would expect to make this audience cringe. I violently rejected it all while reading the sequences because the value I had perceived in it was insane. Around the time I finished them I began to understand the actual value of it, and I really think the sequences provide more than enough to safely engage in this sort of thing.
My first few attempts at commenting on this turned into giant walls of text and I think I might have some things to contribute to the discussions in that mailing list.
another emerging issue is that degrees can have a negative utility these days. if your degree can't land you a "real" job, and employers who would otherwise take you now see you as 'overqualified', your options are more limited than if you never went to college in the first place.