It’s tempting to judge what you read: “I agree with these statements, and I disagree with those.” However, a great thinker who has spent decades on an unusual line of thought cannot induce their context into your head in a few pages. It’s almost certainly the case that you don’t fully understand their statements. Instead, you can say: “I have now learned that there exists a worldview in which all of these statements are consistent.” And if it feels worthwhile, you can make a genuine effort to understand that entire worldview. You don’t have to adopt it. Just make it available to yourself, so you can make connections to it when it’s needed.
Consistent does not mean true. When I was reading Yoga books, there were some real physiological and medical facts, and there were spiritual facts about chakra and prana mechanics, souls and reincarnation. I could agree with the former and disagree with the later. “There exists a worldview in which all of these statements are consistent” is a valid thing to say, but hardly useful. I am not reading books to learn validity, only truth. And if something is not true, you should disagree with it, not say “there exist statements that are consistent with this statement”, especially if the cosistency of the statements is the reason why they are in the book to begin with.
I read that as recommending a technique to withhold judgement on something while you’re reading it, which can be a useful rationality technique- provided of course you remember the reasons you’re using it and don’t turn it into subjective reality.
It reminds me of my attitude when reading, for example, Yvain’s writing on Neo-Reactionary thought. I pretty much read that sort of thing with the attitude of “this is a really interesting hypothetical alternate universe where my beliefs are wrong and I don’t’ know it”- my hope being that allows me to incorporate that sort of idea more easily, which means that if my beliefs actually are* wrong on something like that, I’d have an easier time realizing it.
Bret Victor, reflecting on Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together by Bruno Latour
Consistent does not mean true. When I was reading Yoga books, there were some real physiological and medical facts, and there were spiritual facts about chakra and prana mechanics, souls and reincarnation. I could agree with the former and disagree with the later. “There exists a worldview in which all of these statements are consistent” is a valid thing to say, but hardly useful. I am not reading books to learn validity, only truth. And if something is not true, you should disagree with it, not say “there exist statements that are consistent with this statement”, especially if the cosistency of the statements is the reason why they are in the book to begin with.
For that matter, “being in the same worldview” does not mean consistent. Compartmentalisation is a wonderful thing.
I read that as recommending a technique to withhold judgement on something while you’re reading it, which can be a useful rationality technique- provided of course you remember the reasons you’re using it and don’t turn it into subjective reality. It reminds me of my attitude when reading, for example, Yvain’s writing on Neo-Reactionary thought. I pretty much read that sort of thing with the attitude of “this is a really interesting hypothetical alternate universe where my beliefs are wrong and I don’t’ know it”- my hope being that allows me to incorporate that sort of idea more easily, which means that if my beliefs actually are* wrong on something like that, I’d have an easier time realizing it.
*http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-in-an-enormous-planet-sized-nutshell/
What if the Great Thinker is arguing for Dialetheism?