“Frameworks for a new theory” are too dear at ten a penny, and the above text seems to me as worthless as anything output by the Postmodernism Generator. The other sources that Alexxarian linked seem to me no more interesting.
A more readable text by Kolak, which I see was linked by Alexxarian in an earlier comment, is “I am You”. The pages available on Google may give a measure of whether Kolak is worth reading.
Wikipedia describes him as “one of the most prolific philosophers in the world”. I tremble! Actually, some of the things mentioned in the wiki article look interesting, but the article clearly fails NPOV, being copied from one on croatia.org lauding this Famous Croatian. Certainly, his productivity is awesome.
I have read Kolak’s ‘I am You’ and I can honestly say that he logically proves that we are all the same consciousness. Kolak’s writing can appear cryptic but I can guarantee you that it makes perfect sense if you concentrate hard enough on it and read it in its full context. The wikipedia article should be ignored since it is only a copy paste. However, if you look up all the books he’s contributed to you will see that he indeed is quite a prolific philosopher. Why is this relevant? It is relevant because it demonstrates a fact about reality that most people currently alive aren’t even able to envision. This fact has to do with the actual nature of consciousness. I implore you to trust me on this and to make an honest attempt at reading Kolak’s ‘I am you’, or at least his paper. The majority of you in this forum have a higher IQ than me and a much better ability at thinking logically; this should make your ability to understand this not very heard as long as you open up your mind a bit. I have provided above a link to ‘I am You’ in it’s entirety. Please do remember that all paradigm shifting insights have been met by strong skepticism from the majority of the intellectual and close-minded elite. You have here an opportunity to learn something that will drastically widen your horizon of understanding. That is an understatement though. This knowledge is so drastic that if it starts spreading it will most likely lead to en eventual merging of identity between all of us. This is something unavoidable though. The Singularity is indeed near. In the surprising case that this message actually convinces you to try to read ‘I am You’, please do not give up during the second chapter, it gets much easier to understand later on.
I implore you to trust me on this and to make an honest attempt at reading Kolak’s ‘I am you’, or at least his paper.
I’m sorry, but we don’t know you well enough to just take your word for it. If this material is that interesting and valuable, the appropriate course is (a) to write an essay-level treatment of the material as a top-level post or (b) restrict yourself to mentioning it when someone asks for reading recommendations.
I guess I could try that if my score ever gets good enough to actually allow me to write a top-level post. However, Kolak is in a similar position to where Einstein was when he initially introduced the theory of relativity. This subject is so complex and hard to explain that I would basically have to recreate Kolak’s explanation in order to make you understand what this is about. All I’m willing to say is this: Kolak proves that we are all the same immortal consciousness, in the same way that eastern philosophers have realized it thousands of years ago. However, he uses western philosophical reasoning to come to the same conclusions.
pdf23ds writes that the phrases I use are ‘(cheap) signals that lead to negative impressions around these parts.’ I understand what you mean and unfortunately this is true since phrases of this kind of enthusiasm have been used in vain and corrupted by most of those who choose to express them. I can however promise you that the subject of knowledge I’m here talking about deserves phrases like these. How could it not? The ideas Kolak presents are larger than life, they are larger than what most of you have been capable of contemplating so far. But again, all I’m trying to do here is to convince you to read the source. Some would say that Kolak deserves a Nobel Prize for his work. This would be true if the true understanding of what he explains didn’t make things like Nobel Prizes completely obsolete. Again, please stop being so cynical for once, suspend your disbelief and make an honest attempt at looking at the explanation. I’m not saying you should suspend your judgement once reading it. By all means, be as critical and logical and skeptical as you possibly can while reading it. Please remember that from a certain perspective we’re nothing but protoplasm in a relatively complex configuration. It wasn’t long ago that you didn’t even exist and it won’t be long until you stop existing again, according to your own understanding. How can being aware of this not make you a bit more humble about your present knowledge and a bit more open to realize something more? I used to be a materialist, physicalist, positivist, ‘life is ultimately just sad because it all ends’ itivist. Maybe you think life is great despite of this. But the point is that you are IMMORTAL and all you need to do is realize this. Once you do, you will see that all the rationalizations you have made about life being great even if one is mortal are just that, desperate rationalizations. It’s not your fault though, immortality is quite hidden from the standard human perspective but it can be found. So don’t let this chance slip away. And no, it isn’t based on faith any more than the understanding that 2+2=4 is based on it, I can totally promise you that. Again, if I sound like some religious fanatic, I’m sorry, it isn’t my intention. It’s just that I don’t know any better. English isn’t my first language, I have an INFP personality, if that means anything. I’m highly neurotic. Hmm, maybe I could try:
I have spent a very big portion of my awake state pondering consciousness. I came to discover the essence of Kolak’s theory several years before I knew anything about him. The theory cannot be understood without a ‘Eureka’ type realization. Neither can most complex theorems in mathematics or logic so don’t let that discourage you. I’m barely intelligent enough to understand this, it would be very hard for me to explain it all over again and that is utterly pointless since it has already been explained. It would be like if someone wanted you to read Einstein’s paper on relativity and you asked that person to write his own version. It is THERE, just a few clicks away. The text would appear on the same screen that you are reading this on. Wake up.
Didn’t help, did it? I guess I can’t transcend my neurology. Anyway, you do not HAVE to read it. It’s not imperative to know the truth about things. The survival of our species and of this whole universe isn’t imperative either. It all comes down to desires and the choices that arise from them. So enjoy existence no matter what you choose to do from here :)
Either we’re all too dumb to see the enlightenment you’re bringing, or we’re all too smart to fall for it. Either way, it should be clear by now that your quest is hopeless. Please give up.
Suppose we were to grant that it is useful to think of all people as together constituting one person. Let’s just grant that, just for the sake of argument.
It doesn’t follow that that person’s immortality is what we care about. It’s still useful to distinguish individual biological organisms, just as it’s useful to distinguish my phone from my water bottle. These distinctions might be vague at their boundaries, as all distinctions are. But they are still useful at their core. And I can still be interested in the immortality of the individual organism.
True, but the issue at stake is whether the real and actual you, the actual foundation for your personal identity, is immortal or not. Kolak proves that it is. He also proves that we are all as connected to each other as your future and past selves are connected to your current self. Simply because there is only one identical self in the universe. If one realizes this then focusing on whether it is ‘useful to distinguish between individual biological organisms’ becomes of secondary importance. Furthermore, such a view has a drastic effect on ethics.
ciphergoth writes ‘Either we’re all too dumb to see the enlightenment you’re bringing, or we’re all too smart to fall for it. Either way, it should be clear by now that your quest is hopeless. Please give up.’
What is this? Am I supposed to feel bad or laugh or what? I know I appear arrogant to you but the fact is that I know something you don’t and all I’m asking for is that you check out this information on your own. There is no hidden agenda. I’m not asking you to sell your soul to the devil or to give up logic or become a member of Scientology. I’m not asking you to believe anything. The only act of faith you need to perform is to temporarily believe that I might be on to something, give in, and take a proper look at the source material. As I said before, Kolak has done a marvelous job at explaining this and there is no point in me rewriting what he’s already written. Furthermore, the knowledge he presents is for most individualistic humans so controversial that it becomes nearly impossible to pass it on in the form of a dialog. I was drunk when I wrote my first post so I apologize for calling you (whoever felt included) ‘a bunch of left-brainers’. I hoped you wouldn’t take it so seriously.
If after reading Kolak’s ‘I am You’ you still feel this was a waste of time and that I, and especially Kolak, are blabbering idiots then so be it. I would be very surprised if that was the case though. But seriously guys, how can you be so adamant to try reading a book?! Don’t you trust your own ability to reason? If the book is bullshit then it will become apparent to you. To be able to understand this builds upon the logical tools you already use, it doesn’t require you to abandon them. Do you actually expect me to explain the theory to you here, in a short post, through my brain? Haven’t I proven by now that I’m not qualified for something like that? The only thing I can hope for is to awaken your curiosity for Kolak’s work, and even at that I’m failing. Here’s my last attempt:
‘Guys, something totally amazing has happened. You won’t believe me because it sounds too good to be true but this time it actually is so please please do believe me. There is this guy who has written a book that explains that we are all immortal consciousness, aka God or whatever you wanna call it. It proves that we are all each other, just like our billions of cells are all each of us, and it’s totally mindblowingly amazing. But I can’t explain it because it’s freaking hard, it’s quite complex you see. But Kolak does explain it in his 600+ pages long book. so please please read it. I borrowed the book from a Swedish university, scanned it, uploaded it and totally breached the copyright law just so that anyone interested could read it. Please, please believe me. If just 10% of us realized this the world would become like freaking heaven. Kurzweil’s Singularity is the technical part, this is the spiritual part of it. Do you remember when you were a kid and dreamed of the endless possibilities of reality? Before you became cynical and disillusioned by people’s stupidity and cruelty and by your body’s and the universe’s apparent entropy? Please try to tap back into that way of seeing things and READ THE BOOK.’
Perhaps the rule “consistent downvotes of most comments → stop posting (for a long while)” should be given authority by being added to the “About” page, which may be enough in some cases, removing the need for actual comment-deleting.
I find the process of (1) identifying trolls, (2) trying to convince them to stop posting and (3) kicking them off if they don’t listen to be a very unpleasant experience. It introduces all sorts of negativity and it makes me uncomfortable, mainly because the norms and boundaries are subjective and I empathize (but don’t sympathize) with the trolls.
I think it would be best if the process was entirely objective and automated—people could know the rules from the About page and altercations with trolls wouldn’t be required.
The main rule would be that people cannot comment if their karma is below some negative value K.
If we wanted to give a “time-out” (-->stop posting (for a long while)) instead of a ban, then this could be automated by an algorithm whereby anyone with negative karma gets one karma point per day until they’re back to 0.
Given this second scheme, I think that even a K as high as K=-1 would be fine, because then a person with K=-1 only needs to wait one day until they can comment again.
I agree that an automated system would be preferable. By getting (temporarily) deactivated without fanfare, the actual trolls would be robbed of the attention and responses they crave, and the naive innocents will be more likely to believe they’ve actually done something wrong and should reconsider their behavior, instead of getting self-righteous and feeling maligned and aggrieved.
I definitely see your point: if the system is automated and objective, (that is, without any component of public shaming), trolls won’t feel as much as though it’s a social norm preventing them from posting so they will feel like it’s OK to work around the system. However, it’s the atmosphere of public shaming that makes me uncomfortable.
We could try to emphasize the social norm as much as possible in the About description, something along the lines of, “If you have negative karma, it is because the net opinion of readers on Less Wrong of your comments is negative. Thus, users with negative karma are discouraged from commenting by an interruption in their ability to post comments.”
Also, I submit that it wouldn’t be that rewarding to sock-puppet yourself to positive karma, just to post a comment and get negative karma again.
I find the process [...] to be a very unpleasant experience. It introduces all sorts of negativity and it makes me uncomfortable
Not me. And anyway, it’s not you in charge of this process, so you could try to ignore it to avoid the stress, if at all possible. (It may not be.)
A lot of negativity seems unavoidable whenever anyone comes around the community disagrees with, either as a troll (like the “immortal” guy), or just as someone pushing weird and likely wrong opinions. I’m not sure the “kicking” part itself is a big part of that, so I’m not sure your solution would help.
Edit: I don’t mean to be snide or anything—I don’t know if the sort of person to ignore persistent downvoting would also ignore a rule posted in the “About” page about persistent downvoting. I believe they would not, but I can’t back that up with evidence.
I’d support the addition of the rule to the About page not because I’d have expectations about anyone’s behavior but because it is apparently Eliezer’s policy to enforce such a rule, so we should probably state the rule explicitly somewhere that newcomers are likely to see it.
In a sizable portion of cases, yes. But then again, how many people have we asked to leave? Maybe 5 to 8, no more. On the other hand, presence of this rule may make the endgame shorter, as non-admin users would be able to appeal to it.
Since my Karma is so low, I can only post drafts. At the moment I don’t have very high expectations of getting it up any time soon, seeing how little you appreciate my ideas and style of expression. As said, any feedback would be appreciated, including a permanent ban :)
as long as you open up your mind a bit. … have been met by strong skepticism from the majority of the intellectual and close-minded elite. You have here an opportunity to learn something that will drastically widen your horizon of understanding.
Danger! Danger!
Those phrases are (cheap) signals that lead to negative impressions around these parts.
But you should be warned: As generally true as it is that “all paradigm shifting insights have been met by strong skepticism from the majority of the intellectual and close-minded elite”, it is also true that people are conditioned to know that when someone says this,this someone is about to attest to something crazy.
Perhaps because it’s a defensive posture, so we know they’ve met general resistance already.
I would hazard that what you describe that Kolak presents is a compelling philosophy, the kind of thing someone could believe or not believe without any actual material consequences.
“Frameworks for a new theory” are too dear at ten a penny, and the above text seems to me as worthless as anything output by the Postmodernism Generator. The other sources that Alexxarian linked seem to me no more interesting.
A more readable text by Kolak, which I see was linked by Alexxarian in an earlier comment, is “I am You”. The pages available on Google may give a measure of whether Kolak is worth reading.
Wikipedia describes him as “one of the most prolific philosophers in the world”. I tremble! Actually, some of the things mentioned in the wiki article look interesting, but the article clearly fails NPOV, being copied from one on croatia.org lauding this Famous Croatian. Certainly, his productivity is awesome.
I have read Kolak’s ‘I am You’ and I can honestly say that he logically proves that we are all the same consciousness. Kolak’s writing can appear cryptic but I can guarantee you that it makes perfect sense if you concentrate hard enough on it and read it in its full context. The wikipedia article should be ignored since it is only a copy paste. However, if you look up all the books he’s contributed to you will see that he indeed is quite a prolific philosopher. Why is this relevant? It is relevant because it demonstrates a fact about reality that most people currently alive aren’t even able to envision. This fact has to do with the actual nature of consciousness. I implore you to trust me on this and to make an honest attempt at reading Kolak’s ‘I am you’, or at least his paper. The majority of you in this forum have a higher IQ than me and a much better ability at thinking logically; this should make your ability to understand this not very heard as long as you open up your mind a bit. I have provided above a link to ‘I am You’ in it’s entirety. Please do remember that all paradigm shifting insights have been met by strong skepticism from the majority of the intellectual and close-minded elite. You have here an opportunity to learn something that will drastically widen your horizon of understanding. That is an understatement though. This knowledge is so drastic that if it starts spreading it will most likely lead to en eventual merging of identity between all of us. This is something unavoidable though. The Singularity is indeed near. In the surprising case that this message actually convinces you to try to read ‘I am You’, please do not give up during the second chapter, it gets much easier to understand later on.
I’m sorry, but we don’t know you well enough to just take your word for it. If this material is that interesting and valuable, the appropriate course is (a) to write an essay-level treatment of the material as a top-level post or (b) restrict yourself to mentioning it when someone asks for reading recommendations.
I guess I could try that if my score ever gets good enough to actually allow me to write a top-level post. However, Kolak is in a similar position to where Einstein was when he initially introduced the theory of relativity. This subject is so complex and hard to explain that I would basically have to recreate Kolak’s explanation in order to make you understand what this is about. All I’m willing to say is this: Kolak proves that we are all the same immortal consciousness, in the same way that eastern philosophers have realized it thousands of years ago. However, he uses western philosophical reasoning to come to the same conclusions.
pdf23ds writes that the phrases I use are ‘(cheap) signals that lead to negative impressions around these parts.’ I understand what you mean and unfortunately this is true since phrases of this kind of enthusiasm have been used in vain and corrupted by most of those who choose to express them. I can however promise you that the subject of knowledge I’m here talking about deserves phrases like these. How could it not? The ideas Kolak presents are larger than life, they are larger than what most of you have been capable of contemplating so far. But again, all I’m trying to do here is to convince you to read the source. Some would say that Kolak deserves a Nobel Prize for his work. This would be true if the true understanding of what he explains didn’t make things like Nobel Prizes completely obsolete. Again, please stop being so cynical for once, suspend your disbelief and make an honest attempt at looking at the explanation. I’m not saying you should suspend your judgement once reading it. By all means, be as critical and logical and skeptical as you possibly can while reading it. Please remember that from a certain perspective we’re nothing but protoplasm in a relatively complex configuration. It wasn’t long ago that you didn’t even exist and it won’t be long until you stop existing again, according to your own understanding. How can being aware of this not make you a bit more humble about your present knowledge and a bit more open to realize something more? I used to be a materialist, physicalist, positivist, ‘life is ultimately just sad because it all ends’ itivist. Maybe you think life is great despite of this. But the point is that you are IMMORTAL and all you need to do is realize this. Once you do, you will see that all the rationalizations you have made about life being great even if one is mortal are just that, desperate rationalizations. It’s not your fault though, immortality is quite hidden from the standard human perspective but it can be found. So don’t let this chance slip away. And no, it isn’t based on faith any more than the understanding that 2+2=4 is based on it, I can totally promise you that. Again, if I sound like some religious fanatic, I’m sorry, it isn’t my intention. It’s just that I don’t know any better. English isn’t my first language, I have an INFP personality, if that means anything. I’m highly neurotic. Hmm, maybe I could try:
I have spent a very big portion of my awake state pondering consciousness. I came to discover the essence of Kolak’s theory several years before I knew anything about him. The theory cannot be understood without a ‘Eureka’ type realization. Neither can most complex theorems in mathematics or logic so don’t let that discourage you. I’m barely intelligent enough to understand this, it would be very hard for me to explain it all over again and that is utterly pointless since it has already been explained. It would be like if someone wanted you to read Einstein’s paper on relativity and you asked that person to write his own version. It is THERE, just a few clicks away. The text would appear on the same screen that you are reading this on. Wake up.
Didn’t help, did it? I guess I can’t transcend my neurology. Anyway, you do not HAVE to read it. It’s not imperative to know the truth about things. The survival of our species and of this whole universe isn’t imperative either. It all comes down to desires and the choices that arise from them. So enjoy existence no matter what you choose to do from here :)
Either we’re all too dumb to see the enlightenment you’re bringing, or we’re all too smart to fall for it. Either way, it should be clear by now that your quest is hopeless. Please give up.
Suppose we were to grant that it is useful to think of all people as together constituting one person. Let’s just grant that, just for the sake of argument.
It doesn’t follow that that person’s immortality is what we care about. It’s still useful to distinguish individual biological organisms, just as it’s useful to distinguish my phone from my water bottle. These distinctions might be vague at their boundaries, as all distinctions are. But they are still useful at their core. And I can still be interested in the immortality of the individual organism.
True, but the issue at stake is whether the real and actual you, the actual foundation for your personal identity, is immortal or not. Kolak proves that it is. He also proves that we are all as connected to each other as your future and past selves are connected to your current self. Simply because there is only one identical self in the universe. If one realizes this then focusing on whether it is ‘useful to distinguish between individual biological organisms’ becomes of secondary importance. Furthermore, such a view has a drastic effect on ethics.
ciphergoth writes ‘Either we’re all too dumb to see the enlightenment you’re bringing, or we’re all too smart to fall for it. Either way, it should be clear by now that your quest is hopeless. Please give up.’
What is this? Am I supposed to feel bad or laugh or what? I know I appear arrogant to you but the fact is that I know something you don’t and all I’m asking for is that you check out this information on your own. There is no hidden agenda. I’m not asking you to sell your soul to the devil or to give up logic or become a member of Scientology. I’m not asking you to believe anything. The only act of faith you need to perform is to temporarily believe that I might be on to something, give in, and take a proper look at the source material. As I said before, Kolak has done a marvelous job at explaining this and there is no point in me rewriting what he’s already written. Furthermore, the knowledge he presents is for most individualistic humans so controversial that it becomes nearly impossible to pass it on in the form of a dialog. I was drunk when I wrote my first post so I apologize for calling you (whoever felt included) ‘a bunch of left-brainers’. I hoped you wouldn’t take it so seriously.
If after reading Kolak’s ‘I am You’ you still feel this was a waste of time and that I, and especially Kolak, are blabbering idiots then so be it. I would be very surprised if that was the case though. But seriously guys, how can you be so adamant to try reading a book?! Don’t you trust your own ability to reason? If the book is bullshit then it will become apparent to you. To be able to understand this builds upon the logical tools you already use, it doesn’t require you to abandon them. Do you actually expect me to explain the theory to you here, in a short post, through my brain? Haven’t I proven by now that I’m not qualified for something like that? The only thing I can hope for is to awaken your curiosity for Kolak’s work, and even at that I’m failing. Here’s my last attempt:
‘Guys, something totally amazing has happened. You won’t believe me because it sounds too good to be true but this time it actually is so please please do believe me. There is this guy who has written a book that explains that we are all immortal consciousness, aka God or whatever you wanna call it. It proves that we are all each other, just like our billions of cells are all each of us, and it’s totally mindblowingly amazing. But I can’t explain it because it’s freaking hard, it’s quite complex you see. But Kolak does explain it in his 600+ pages long book. so please please read it. I borrowed the book from a Swedish university, scanned it, uploaded it and totally breached the copyright law just so that anyone interested could read it. Please, please believe me. If just 10% of us realized this the world would become like freaking heaven. Kurzweil’s Singularity is the technical part, this is the spiritual part of it. Do you remember when you were a kid and dreamed of the endless possibilities of reality? Before you became cynical and disillusioned by people’s stupidity and cruelty and by your body’s and the universe’s apparent entropy? Please try to tap back into that way of seeing things and READ THE BOOK.’
Lol xD
Please stop posting.
I observe a systematic pattern of downvoted comments. If you can’t take this hint, further comments from you will be removed. Goodbye.
Perhaps the rule “consistent downvotes of most comments → stop posting (for a long while)” should be given authority by being added to the “About” page, which may be enough in some cases, removing the need for actual comment-deleting.
I find the process of (1) identifying trolls, (2) trying to convince them to stop posting and (3) kicking them off if they don’t listen to be a very unpleasant experience. It introduces all sorts of negativity and it makes me uncomfortable, mainly because the norms and boundaries are subjective and I empathize (but don’t sympathize) with the trolls.
I think it would be best if the process was entirely objective and automated—people could know the rules from the About page and altercations with trolls wouldn’t be required.
The main rule would be that people cannot comment if their karma is below some negative value K.
If we wanted to give a “time-out” (-->stop posting (for a long while)) instead of a ban, then this could be automated by an algorithm whereby anyone with negative karma gets one karma point per day until they’re back to 0.
Given this second scheme, I think that even a K as high as K=-1 would be fine, because then a person with K=-1 only needs to wait one day until they can comment again.
I suggested something similar recently.
I agree that an automated system would be preferable. By getting (temporarily) deactivated without fanfare, the actual trolls would be robbed of the attention and responses they crave, and the naive innocents will be more likely to believe they’ve actually done something wrong and should reconsider their behavior, instead of getting self-righteous and feeling maligned and aggrieved.
If you automate it people will just sockpuppet their way around it, and other such attacks.
What we have is working well. Let’s not create a system that people will be encouraged to game.
I definitely see your point: if the system is automated and objective, (that is, without any component of public shaming), trolls won’t feel as much as though it’s a social norm preventing them from posting so they will feel like it’s OK to work around the system. However, it’s the atmosphere of public shaming that makes me uncomfortable.
We could try to emphasize the social norm as much as possible in the About description, something along the lines of, “If you have negative karma, it is because the net opinion of readers on Less Wrong of your comments is negative. Thus, users with negative karma are discouraged from commenting by an interruption in their ability to post comments.”
Also, I submit that it wouldn’t be that rewarding to sock-puppet yourself to positive karma, just to post a comment and get negative karma again.
Not me. And anyway, it’s not you in charge of this process, so you could try to ignore it to avoid the stress, if at all possible. (It may not be.)
A lot of negativity seems unavoidable whenever anyone comes around the community disagrees with, either as a troll (like the “immortal” guy), or just as someone pushing weird and likely wrong opinions. I’m not sure the “kicking” part itself is a big part of that, so I’m not sure your solution would help.
Do you believe such a rule would be effective?
Edit: I don’t mean to be snide or anything—I don’t know if the sort of person to ignore persistent downvoting would also ignore a rule posted in the “About” page about persistent downvoting. I believe they would not, but I can’t back that up with evidence.
I’d support the addition of the rule to the About page not because I’d have expectations about anyone’s behavior but because it is apparently Eliezer’s policy to enforce such a rule, so we should probably state the rule explicitly somewhere that newcomers are likely to see it.
An even stronger point—I, too, add my support to the addition of such a rule to the About page.
In a sizable portion of cases, yes. But then again, how many people have we asked to leave? Maybe 5 to 8, no more. On the other hand, presence of this rule may make the endgame shorter, as non-admin users would be able to appeal to it.
That sounds reasonable to me—the second point is particularly cogent.
OK, I take the hint. Sorry about my trollish style. It was never my intention to annoy any of you, straight the contrary. I would however be interested in receiving feedback on http://lesswrong.com/lw/1nz/on_morphological_freedom_and_personal_identity/
Since my Karma is so low, I can only post drafts. At the moment I don’t have very high expectations of getting it up any time soon, seeing how little you appreciate my ideas and style of expression. As said, any feedback would be appreciated, including a permanent ban :)
Draft is not appropriate for Less Wrong in any case. I suggest that you might find your discourse better appreciated elsewhere.
Drafts are not visible to other users, even if you link us to them.
In the meantime, I would recommend (as ciphergoth has) that you drop the subject.
Danger! Danger!
Those phrases are (cheap) signals that lead to negative impressions around these parts.
I (mostly) involuntarily roll my eyes every time I hear the word “elite” used derogatorily.
This is interesting.
But you should be warned: As generally true as it is that “all paradigm shifting insights have been met by strong skepticism from the majority of the intellectual and close-minded elite”, it is also true that people are conditioned to know that when someone says this,this someone is about to attest to something crazy.
Perhaps because it’s a defensive posture, so we know they’ve met general resistance already.
I would hazard that what you describe that Kolak presents is a compelling philosophy, the kind of thing someone could believe or not believe without any actual material consequences.