As a species we’re fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?
Unfortunately the classic essay “Understanding Neurotypicality” is gone, the owner’s web pages removed. But there are similar pages still available, for instance, this from Greg Egan
I said, if autism is a lack of understanding of others… and healing the lesion would grant you that lost understanding—”
Rourke broken in, “But how much is understanding, and how much is a delusion of understanding? Is intimacy a form of knowledge—or is it just a comforting false belief? Evolution is not interested in whether we grasp the truth, except in the most pragmatic sense. And their can be equally pragmatic falsehoods. If the brain needs to grant us exaggerated sense of our capacity for knowing each other—to make pair-bonding compatible with self-awareness—it will lie, shamelessly, as mush as it has to, in order to make the strategy succeed.”
“If the brain needs … to make pair-bonding compatible with self-awareness—it will lie, shamelessly, as mush as it has to, in order to make the strategy succeed.”
Neat typo: it preserves the meaning of the passage. If you don’t see how, read it as “If the brain needs you to feel romantic love, it will lie—as mush, it has to—in order to succeed.”
I love this one. I don’t really understand why it got downvoted, yet bizarre mystical religious quotes from nutcases in the Ouspensky/Gurdjieff tradition got upvoted...
Would you have balked at the idea that we are all, metaphorically, in prison and must seek above all else to escape, if I had quoted a known rationalist?
Do you rate any differently the idea that the task is to understand things so completely that the single right course of action is unmistakable, now that Yvain has quoted Eliezer to that same effect?
Do you think the context of a horror story confers a better aura of rationality on Rain’s quote?
Why do you love the idea that we are all insane homicidal maniacs, and dislike the idea that there is a way to follow, whether we like it or not, and that the fundamental question in life is whether one makes the only possible choice, or turns away from it? Is your response entangled with whether these things are true or false?
When Eliezer appears to you in a clown suit, will you laugh and turn away?
When Eliezer appears to you in a clown suit, will you laugh and turn away?
Taken in the context of a general probe attack, this attempt at humor seems out of place.
Probe attack… yes, that’s one reason I find quite a few of the questioning responses here agitating or frustrating. Just like a port scan, they have all the patterns of an attack, are used to discover weaknesses and flaws, and can be generally invasive and exhaustingly thorough, even though they’re part of the standard toolkit and even more often used for troubleshooting. Enlightenment++
I take your point about a “probe attack” and now I find what I wrote unsatisfactory. I’ll try again:
Blueberry loves the idea that we’re all insane homicidal maniacs, and doesn’t like the other ideas, apparently on the grounds that the latter appear in a religious context. This looks like a classic example of judging the truth by the clothes it appears in.
-- Ollie, The Mist, 2007
Unfortunately the classic essay “Understanding Neurotypicality” is gone, the owner’s web pages removed. But there are similar pages still available, for instance, this from Greg Egan
In http://wlug.org.nz/GregEganOnNeurotypicalSyndrome
And more indexed here: http://www.neurodiversity.com/neurotypical.html
Copy here.
Bitrot marches on; a copy at The Wayback Machine should be more durable.
“If the brain needs … to make pair-bonding compatible with self-awareness—it will lie, shamelessly, as mush as it has to, in order to make the strategy succeed.”
Neat typo: it preserves the meaning of the passage. If you don’t see how, read it as “If the brain needs you to feel romantic love, it will lie—as mush, it has to—in order to succeed.”
I love this one. I don’t really understand why it got downvoted, yet bizarre mystical religious quotes from nutcases in the Ouspensky/Gurdjieff tradition got upvoted...
I have many questions.
Would you have balked at the idea that we are all, metaphorically, in prison and must seek above all else to escape, if I had quoted a known rationalist?
Do you rate any differently the idea that the task is to understand things so completely that the single right course of action is unmistakable, now that Yvain has quoted Eliezer to that same effect?
Do you think the context of a horror story confers a better aura of rationality on Rain’s quote?
Why do you love the idea that we are all insane homicidal maniacs, and dislike the idea that there is a way to follow, whether we like it or not, and that the fundamental question in life is whether one makes the only possible choice, or turns away from it? Is your response entangled with whether these things are true or false?
When Eliezer appears to you in a clown suit, will you laugh and turn away?
Taken in the context of a general probe attack, this attempt at humor seems out of place.
Probe attack… yes, that’s one reason I find quite a few of the questioning responses here agitating or frustrating. Just like a port scan, they have all the patterns of an attack, are used to discover weaknesses and flaws, and can be generally invasive and exhaustingly thorough, even though they’re part of the standard toolkit and even more often used for troubleshooting. Enlightenment++
I take your point about a “probe attack” and now I find what I wrote unsatisfactory. I’ll try again:
Blueberry loves the idea that we’re all insane homicidal maniacs, and doesn’t like the other ideas, apparently on the grounds that the latter appear in a religious context. This looks like a classic example of judging the truth by the clothes it appears in.
Maybe I should have posted it like this: