There’s a lot of discussion in the comments about whether or not it’s rationally ok to feel less happy in a reductive world.
Eliezer doesn’t emphasize this in his post, but in retrospect it seems that what’s wrong with Keats’ line of thinking isn’t the actual feeling sad about rainbows being explained, it’s the mind projection fallacy of thinking that this must be true for everyone. Hence we get arguments like, if atoms are all that there is then nothing means anything and everything is miserable oh woe are us! Which is poppycock. Maybe it makes you feel that way, but it certainly doesn’t make me feel that way. I think being made of starstuff is absolutely wondrous.
There’s a lot of discussion in the comments about whether or not it’s rationally ok to feel less happy in a reductive world.
Eliezer doesn’t emphasize this in his post, but in retrospect it seems that what’s wrong with Keats’ line of thinking isn’t the actual feeling sad about rainbows being explained, it’s the mind projection fallacy of thinking that this must be true for everyone. Hence we get arguments like, if atoms are all that there is then nothing means anything and everything is miserable oh woe are us! Which is poppycock. Maybe it makes you feel that way, but it certainly doesn’t make me feel that way. I think being made of starstuff is absolutely wondrous.