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All of Hang's Comments + Replies

A wild theist platonist appears, to ask about the path
Hang10

Dear Mr. RolfAndreassen.

Maybe I should have said that I believe in a deity in the same way I believe in mathematical entities. Natural language is tricky.

I question the assumption that something needs to do something else in order to exist. Take, for example, mathematical facts. They just "are" if you want. Some of them (but not all) are accessible trough our formal systems of mathematics. Some are not (certainly you are familiar with Godel's proof).

You may assert that the number two has its uses and thus assert the existence of number two. Bu... (read more)

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3RolfAndreassen
If you wish to be formal, it's "Dr". If you prefer informality that's fine. I can assert them as axioms and use them to generate new formal systems. Consider Euclid's fifth, for example, which two millennia of geometers have failed to prove from smaller axiomatic systems; but which yields any number of theorems when taken as an axiom, or when either of its negations are so taken. Again, I do not understand this usage of the word 'exists'. You cannot prove Euclid's fifth axiom, or at any rate nobody has succeeded in doing so. Is it true? But its negations yield equally fruitful formal systems. What then is the sense in which it exists? Do you just mean that you can write it down on paper? Then likewise the adventures of Frodo Baggins exist. Are we to take it that the competing facts "Exactly one parallel line through a point not on a line", "Exactly zero lines", and "An infinite number of lines" all exist at the same time? What does this mean? And even that aside, I object even more strongly to saying that a god exists in this same undefined sense. From an axiom you can at least derive theorems; an axiom is part of a formal system. Of what formal system is your god a part?
Normal_Anomaly130

There's no real way you could have known this if you just got here, but references to pickup artistry tend to rub people the wrong way. There was a flame war a couple years ago (before I joined the site) between people who thought studying PUA would be useful for romantic success, and people who thought PUA presents romance/dating as overly adversarial and therefore immoral or more harm than good. Other analogies that get your points across equivalently will be better received.

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3[anonymous]
It's a bad analogy.
A wild theist platonist appears, to ask about the path
Hang90

Dear Normal_Anomaly, I thank you for the kindness and tone of your answer. Could I upvote it I would. I'm aware of the existence of the sequences but it's still not quite what I mean. The sheer size of them detracts a lot from their usefulness and there seems to be no organization.

What I mean was some kind of page where one could self or externally assess and then based on his shortcomings be directed to adequate pages.

So something like: To Win you must:

-Add mindware -Fix corrupted mindware -Fix cognitive miserliness

Then adequate assessment of the state ... (read more)

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7Emile
It's true that LessWrong could have more focus on catering to newcomers as opposed to catering to people who've been here for months; which is to be expected when most content (posts and wiki) are made by long-timers. I guess the best approach for newcomers for now is just to show up and talk to people (like what you're doing now!) - not as smoothly organized as having a formal system, but at least it's a self-correcting process that adapts to the quirks and interests of people better than a pre-programmed self-assessment system could!
Welcome to Less Wrong! (2012)
Hang50

I'm a master's candidate to Logic at UvA. Rationality is one of my interests, altough I seem to come from the opposite side of the specter of everyone at LessWrong (from metaphysics and philosophy to rationality).

I am very interested in observing the reductionist approach, even more so after learning Eliezer values GEB so highly.

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