Unclear thesis, some vague injunction to think of the way we divvy up the world to process it; I even seem unsure of myself, which means I shouldn’t have published anything in the first place, in this form
The “concrete” part was rushed and uncertain, a last-ditch attempt to make this writing useful. There are no real lessons in that part, nothing to be gleaned, really.
The ideas discussed are of gigantic scope, and yet are spoken of with certainty and with little speculation. You can’t devote just one paragraph to “consciousness” like that! The whole thing looks like some awkward amalgamation of ideas that lightly touch on huge concepts.
This was the third draft. Had I written a fourth draft, I think I would have gotten rid of the numbers and attempted to find a clearer thesis, or not published anything at all. More drafts are necessary. Speed lets you get rapid feedback but comes with costs on quality.
Costs on quality come at the expense of LessWrong, not me: posting this was a selfish bid for feedback.
Generalizing “what LessWrong does” is a bad idea unless one has spent a while here. There are so many smart people on here that one must tread carefully: most ideas already put in place are there for very good reasons!
As far as I can tell those are the main reasons why this post has negative karma.
I really enjoyed the parts of the post that weren’t related to consciousness, and it helped me think more about the assumptions I have about how the universe works. The Feynman quote was new for me, so thank you for sharing that!
However, when you brought consciousness into the post, it brought along additional assumptions that the rest of the post wasn’t relying on, weakening the post as a whole. Additionally, LessWrong has a long history of debating whether consciousness is “emergent” or not. Most readers here already hold fixed positions on the debate and would need substantial evidence to be convinced to change their position. Simply stating that “that idea feels wrong” doesn’t suffice, especially when many people often feel otherwise (notably, people who have spent time meditating and feel that they have become “one with the universe”).
That makes sense, thanks a lot for the feedback! I will be much more careful next time and try to keep sweeping assumptions out. Some ideas in here could definitely have worked without bringing in one of the most fundamental and notoriously hardest questions to answer.
Oops. Reasons this post failed:
Unclear thesis, some vague injunction to think of the way we divvy up the world to process it; I even seem unsure of myself, which means I shouldn’t have published anything in the first place, in this form
The “concrete” part was rushed and uncertain, a last-ditch attempt to make this writing useful. There are no real lessons in that part, nothing to be gleaned, really.
The ideas discussed are of gigantic scope, and yet are spoken of with certainty and with little speculation. You can’t devote just one paragraph to “consciousness” like that! The whole thing looks like some awkward amalgamation of ideas that lightly touch on huge concepts.
This was the third draft. Had I written a fourth draft, I think I would have gotten rid of the numbers and attempted to find a clearer thesis, or not published anything at all. More drafts are necessary. Speed lets you get rapid feedback but comes with costs on quality.
Costs on quality come at the expense of LessWrong, not me: posting this was a selfish bid for feedback.
Generalizing “what LessWrong does” is a bad idea unless one has spent a while here. There are so many smart people on here that one must tread carefully: most ideas already put in place are there for very good reasons!
As far as I can tell those are the main reasons why this post has negative karma.
I really enjoyed the parts of the post that weren’t related to consciousness, and it helped me think more about the assumptions I have about how the universe works. The Feynman quote was new for me, so thank you for sharing that!
However, when you brought consciousness into the post, it brought along additional assumptions that the rest of the post wasn’t relying on, weakening the post as a whole. Additionally, LessWrong has a long history of debating whether consciousness is “emergent” or not. Most readers here already hold fixed positions on the debate and would need substantial evidence to be convinced to change their position. Simply stating that “that idea feels wrong” doesn’t suffice, especially when many people often feel otherwise (notably, people who have spent time meditating and feel that they have become “one with the universe”).
That makes sense, thanks a lot for the feedback! I will be much more careful next time and try to keep sweeping assumptions out. Some ideas in here could definitely have worked without bringing in one of the most fundamental and notoriously hardest questions to answer.
Good day!