I don’t even. I’m just gonna score some points against this here...
Schizophrenia = sense of split self / lack of unity, leads to “Who am I even?”
Narcissism = so like, I need an identity, and hey these corporate advertisements sell me values (always ersatz, i.e. worse substitute) so I will spend spend spend so I can seem like someone
I feel urge to defend the technical meanings of those terms, but I think it’s in large part because it seems like the author is invoking the technical terms as a bailey: claiming that everyone who goes “who am I even?” is in a technical sense schizophrenic, with a motte allowing the author to fall back on saying it’s just about this specific scenario.
Is God dead?
If so, something must fill its void; nature abhors a vacuum
That’s not actually trivially true, since “god” here is some social meme thing. I didn’t update on this argument.
Empiricism = Truth is OBSERVABLE & TESTABLE
Rationalism = Truth is MENTALLY DEDUCIBLE
“Woo” = Truth is ASTROLOGY & HOROSCOPES
Christianity = Truth is GOD
Pomo = Truth is WHATEVER YOU WANT IT TO BE
That’s not what lesswrong rationalism is about; it’s an unfortunate name collision due to yudkowsky using a word that already meant “truth is mentally deducible”, and then overwriting it with his own meaning. This presentation conflates them.
Re: God is dead: The argument is that religion was able to become so popular because of some intrinsic propensity towards it that the majority of humans have and that the decline of religion opens the door for other ideologies to spread (which can sometimes tend towards religion in terms of how they give a person meaning, a worldview and an in-group).
I understood the reference to schizophrenia, but I thought the narcissism link could have been drawn clearer.
I don’t even. I’m just gonna score some points against this here...
I feel urge to defend the technical meanings of those terms, but I think it’s in large part because it seems like the author is invoking the technical terms as a bailey: claiming that everyone who goes “who am I even?” is in a technical sense schizophrenic, with a motte allowing the author to fall back on saying it’s just about this specific scenario.
That’s not actually trivially true, since “god” here is some social meme thing. I didn’t update on this argument.
That’s not what lesswrong rationalism is about; it’s an unfortunate name collision due to yudkowsky using a word that already meant “truth is mentally deducible”, and then overwriting it with his own meaning. This presentation conflates them.
Re: God is dead: The argument is that religion was able to become so popular because of some intrinsic propensity towards it that the majority of humans have and that the decline of religion opens the door for other ideologies to spread (which can sometimes tend towards religion in terms of how they give a person meaning, a worldview and an in-group).
I understood the reference to schizophrenia, but I thought the narcissism link could have been drawn clearer.