What would the corresponding female rationalist be like? I don’t know. I can’t say. Some woman has to pursue her art as far as I’ve pursued mine, far enough that the art she learned from others fails her, so that she must remake her shattered art in her own image and in the image of her own task. And then tell the rest of us about it.
I sometimes think of myself as being like the protagonist in a classic SF labyrinth story, wandering further and further into some alien artifact, trying to call into a radio my description of the bizarre things I’m seeing, so that I can be followed. But what I’m finding is not just the Way, the thing that lies at the center of the labyrinth; it is also my Way, the path that I would take to come closer to the center, from whatever place I started out.
When I first stumbled upon LessWrong, this is exactly what I expected it to become. I do not think it is there yet, but I do imagine this place as the place that the aspiring female rationalist can tell the rest of us about it. To use the SF labyrinth analogy, I see all of us wandering around in the same maze. Some of us are on connected paths and others are in completely different areas. But radioing our descriptions of these bizarre things back into a depository makes me feel like the journey is worth something more than simply finding a path and plodding along waiting for it to end. Personally, it makes me feel as if the path, my path, is valuable enough to actually look at and analyze and study.
As feel-goody as that sounds, it provides precious ammunition against the some of the horridly long hallways where everything starts looking the same and the feelings of traveling in circles is wearing me down. I will never see the entire maze. I find it highly unlikely that I will even find the end of the path I am on. (Does the end of this path reach the ultimate goal? Is it a dead-end?) I have come to realize that not seeing where this path leads is okay. My life is not about finding the end of the maze. My life is about studying the maze itself and the journey of documenting this particular path is valuable.
Is this ego-centric? Yes. But I think that this is pragmatically inevitable. I do not think it is realistically possible for me to eliminate all personal bias and all effects placed on me during my travels. I started at a gate labeled “male” and “American” and “middle-class.” The gate holds hundreds (infinite?) of other labels that define the beginning of my life (I am white; my name is Adam). Some of these factors will effect me the rest of my life and this is okay. It is impossible to cheat this. Even if I were somehow able to possess the ability to perfectly understand a woman’s perspective, there are impossible perspectives to encompass. Two rather blunt examples: my gate also held the labels “human” and “born in 1984.”
I built my art out of myself, and it became tied into every part of myself, and it happens to be a fact that I’m male. And if a woman were to pursue her art far enough, and tie it into every part of herself, she would, I think, find that her art came to resemble herself more and more, tied into her own motives and preferences; so that her art was, among other things, female
Does this mean that my art, my path, is now tainted by “male, American, middle-class, white, named Adam, human, born in 1984”? I think, in a nit-picky and causal sense, the answer is yes. The key phrase in the quote above is that this art becomes “tied into every part” of ourselves. But if our paths are nothing more than the lives we lead, what is the point of radioing it back to the rest of us? What about our observations and analysis is valuable? What we learn about our own paths is valuable because we share a common goal.
I say all this because I want to convey this important idea, that there is the Way and my Way, the pure (or perhaps shared) thing at the center, and the many paths we take there from wherever we started out.
Our paths converge. Our ways will cross and bump into each other and we will have the opportunity to walk each other’s paths. When I reach a section of my life that aligns itself with Eliezer’s path I can tune into his radio and listen. I know that his goal is my goal and that I happen to share this path.
The labyrinth is an analogy and I think this is where the analogy begins to break down. A more apt analogy would be one where I have more than one marble in the same labyrinth. I am controlling all of these marbles and am moving them simultaneously along the various turns and alleys. The path that each marble takes represents one aspect of my life or one way of thought or one belief I hold. These marbles are extremely difficult to maintain and control all at the same time. If I focus on one particular marble for too long the others may stray from the path I wanted them to follow. The laziest of all approaches is to simply let go of the controls and let the labyrinth itself guide the marbles. To beat the labyrinth, however, I cannot do that. To win I must learn how to control as many marbles as I can and to guide them the best I can.
Say that in my attempts at this, one marble touches a path that one of Eliezer’s has and Eliezer radioed the right information back to me. I can set that marble on Eliezer’s path and this allows me to move that portion of my life in a safer manner. The effort required to do this is significantly less than if I were to redo all of Eliezer’s experience on this same path. Even more so, once I have followed Eliezer’s path and know it to work, I can start asking about other paths that may be very near to where my other marbles are. I can guide those marbles toward other paths traveled by Eliezer. But I can never replicate Eliezer’s entire life. My way is not his way. I can never get all of my marbles lined up with his so as to essentially let him guide my every action and choice. There are some marbles that belong to me that are on a path so unique it will likely never see another marble’s history. This is what defines my path and my way. This is what I radio back for the person entering from a gate near my own gate who may have a marble on a path that I managed to conquer.
In this analogy, my way is not a singular path through the labyrinth. My way is the collective paths of each facet of my life as it progresses toward the common object we are trying to find. Even if we find it there is still the great task of getting all of our marbles into the proper little holes. Ideally, this will get easier the more people we have communicating in the maze. Ideally, this is what I see in LessWrong’s future.
Even so, you should be aware that I have radioed back my description of the single central shape and the path I took to get closer. If there are parts that are visibly male, then there are probably other parts—perhaps harder to identify—that are tightly bound to growing up with Orthodox Jewish parents, or (cough) certain other unusual features of my life.
I think there will not be a proper Art until many people have progressed to the point of remaking the Art in their own image, and then radioed back to describe their paths.
Does this mean that my art, my path, is now tainted by “male, American, middle-class, white, named Adam, human, born in 1984”? I think, in a nit-picky and causal sense, the answer is yes. The key phrase in the quote above is that this art becomes “tied into every part” of ourselves.
I think we need to remember the distinction between sex and gender. It is our identity (how we interpret our physical description and existence) that our art/path is tied to, not our physical description/existence itself. I’m glad curious brought it up, but this thread still seems to be using “sex” where it means “gender” (how we interpret our sex given social norms, etc).
So, my ability to build on Eliezer’s posted knowledge is not dependent on physical differences explained by my sex, but the similarities I perceive between Eliezer’s reported-identity and my identity. (This is why I would expect “communicating in the maze” to be necessary, not to find out whether Eliezer is male.)
I expect this would be true until we discover exactly what mental traits have been genetically hardwired to correspond to sex, and how those traits socialize.
Given that we haven’t yet, I would imagine that we shouldn’t be asking what a “female-rationalist” would do but what a “rationalist who identifies as a woman” would do.
Given that we haven’t yet, I would imagine that we shouldn’t be asking what a “female-rationalist” would do but what a “rationalist who identifies as a woman” would do.
It seems likely that either will be substantially different. The personalities of the trans men I know are significantly formed by female socialization. The trans women I know are similarly affected by male socialization. They are not what they were raised to be, but how they were raised is a significant part of who they are; in most cases a part they dislike and repudiate, but still a major influence on the people they are.
Of course, the oldest trans person I know is barely 30. Potentially those influences will go away with age, but I doubt it. They may disappear from view, but still have a backstage role.
It will definitely help to have people from completely different backgrounds understand rationality. People with different sexes is absolutely awesome, because what is being implied here is a genuine non-understanding of the other sex, a slightly alien intelligence. A genuine new piece of information on which much new science can be built. The enthusiasm of George Dvorsky and David Brin for uplifiting animals seems to make much more sense in this light. (I hope that comment didn’t violate the rules)
But a certain doubt does arise. When different people with different paths start from different points and try to explain this multidimensional problem, then each begins simple and then as they continue to post, the effort of the others to understand them rises as the inferential distance from new comers on the path increases.
The ability to understand the many paths, to really learn their lessons, to incorporate them within your bones, we have faith that this is possible within one human mind, whichever point it began from.
For the sake of the reason that shall not be named, lets hope this is true.
The ability to understand the many paths, to really learn their lessons, to incorporate them within your bones, we have faith that this is possible within one human mind, whichever point it began from.
I am not sure that all paths hold the same relevance or value.
When I first stumbled upon LessWrong, this is exactly what I expected it to become. I do not think it is there yet, but I do imagine this place as the place that the aspiring female rationalist can tell the rest of us about it. To use the SF labyrinth analogy, I see all of us wandering around in the same maze. Some of us are on connected paths and others are in completely different areas. But radioing our descriptions of these bizarre things back into a depository makes me feel like the journey is worth something more than simply finding a path and plodding along waiting for it to end. Personally, it makes me feel as if the path, my path, is valuable enough to actually look at and analyze and study.
As feel-goody as that sounds, it provides precious ammunition against the some of the horridly long hallways where everything starts looking the same and the feelings of traveling in circles is wearing me down. I will never see the entire maze. I find it highly unlikely that I will even find the end of the path I am on. (Does the end of this path reach the ultimate goal? Is it a dead-end?) I have come to realize that not seeing where this path leads is okay. My life is not about finding the end of the maze. My life is about studying the maze itself and the journey of documenting this particular path is valuable.
Is this ego-centric? Yes. But I think that this is pragmatically inevitable. I do not think it is realistically possible for me to eliminate all personal bias and all effects placed on me during my travels. I started at a gate labeled “male” and “American” and “middle-class.” The gate holds hundreds (infinite?) of other labels that define the beginning of my life (I am white; my name is Adam). Some of these factors will effect me the rest of my life and this is okay. It is impossible to cheat this. Even if I were somehow able to possess the ability to perfectly understand a woman’s perspective, there are impossible perspectives to encompass. Two rather blunt examples: my gate also held the labels “human” and “born in 1984.”
Does this mean that my art, my path, is now tainted by “male, American, middle-class, white, named Adam, human, born in 1984”? I think, in a nit-picky and causal sense, the answer is yes. The key phrase in the quote above is that this art becomes “tied into every part” of ourselves. But if our paths are nothing more than the lives we lead, what is the point of radioing it back to the rest of us? What about our observations and analysis is valuable? What we learn about our own paths is valuable because we share a common goal.
Our paths converge. Our ways will cross and bump into each other and we will have the opportunity to walk each other’s paths. When I reach a section of my life that aligns itself with Eliezer’s path I can tune into his radio and listen. I know that his goal is my goal and that I happen to share this path.
The labyrinth is an analogy and I think this is where the analogy begins to break down. A more apt analogy would be one where I have more than one marble in the same labyrinth. I am controlling all of these marbles and am moving them simultaneously along the various turns and alleys. The path that each marble takes represents one aspect of my life or one way of thought or one belief I hold. These marbles are extremely difficult to maintain and control all at the same time. If I focus on one particular marble for too long the others may stray from the path I wanted them to follow. The laziest of all approaches is to simply let go of the controls and let the labyrinth itself guide the marbles. To beat the labyrinth, however, I cannot do that. To win I must learn how to control as many marbles as I can and to guide them the best I can.
Say that in my attempts at this, one marble touches a path that one of Eliezer’s has and Eliezer radioed the right information back to me. I can set that marble on Eliezer’s path and this allows me to move that portion of my life in a safer manner. The effort required to do this is significantly less than if I were to redo all of Eliezer’s experience on this same path. Even more so, once I have followed Eliezer’s path and know it to work, I can start asking about other paths that may be very near to where my other marbles are. I can guide those marbles toward other paths traveled by Eliezer. But I can never replicate Eliezer’s entire life. My way is not his way. I can never get all of my marbles lined up with his so as to essentially let him guide my every action and choice. There are some marbles that belong to me that are on a path so unique it will likely never see another marble’s history. This is what defines my path and my way. This is what I radio back for the person entering from a gate near my own gate who may have a marble on a path that I managed to conquer.
In this analogy, my way is not a singular path through the labyrinth. My way is the collective paths of each facet of my life as it progresses toward the common object we are trying to find. Even if we find it there is still the great task of getting all of our marbles into the proper little holes. Ideally, this will get easier the more people we have communicating in the maze. Ideally, this is what I see in LessWrong’s future.
I think we need to remember the distinction between sex and gender. It is our identity (how we interpret our physical description and existence) that our art/path is tied to, not our physical description/existence itself. I’m glad curious brought it up, but this thread still seems to be using “sex” where it means “gender” (how we interpret our sex given social norms, etc).
So, my ability to build on Eliezer’s posted knowledge is not dependent on physical differences explained by my sex, but the similarities I perceive between Eliezer’s reported-identity and my identity. (This is why I would expect “communicating in the maze” to be necessary, not to find out whether Eliezer is male.)
I expect this would be true until we discover exactly what mental traits have been genetically hardwired to correspond to sex, and how those traits socialize.
Given that we haven’t yet, I would imagine that we shouldn’t be asking what a “female-rationalist” would do but what a “rationalist who identifies as a woman” would do.
It seems likely that either will be substantially different. The personalities of the trans men I know are significantly formed by female socialization. The trans women I know are similarly affected by male socialization. They are not what they were raised to be, but how they were raised is a significant part of who they are; in most cases a part they dislike and repudiate, but still a major influence on the people they are.
Of course, the oldest trans person I know is barely 30. Potentially those influences will go away with age, but I doubt it. They may disappear from view, but still have a backstage role.
It will definitely help to have people from completely different backgrounds understand rationality. People with different sexes is absolutely awesome, because what is being implied here is a genuine non-understanding of the other sex, a slightly alien intelligence. A genuine new piece of information on which much new science can be built. The enthusiasm of George Dvorsky and David Brin for uplifiting animals seems to make much more sense in this light. (I hope that comment didn’t violate the rules)
But a certain doubt does arise. When different people with different paths start from different points and try to explain this multidimensional problem, then each begins simple and then as they continue to post, the effort of the others to understand them rises as the inferential distance from new comers on the path increases.
The ability to understand the many paths, to really learn their lessons, to incorporate them within your bones, we have faith that this is possible within one human mind, whichever point it began from.
For the sake of the reason that shall not be named, lets hope this is true.
I am not sure that all paths hold the same relevance or value.