I’d been religious (Christian) my whole life, but was always plagued with the question, “How would I know this is the correct religion, if I’d grown up with a different cultural norm?” I concluded, after many years of passive reflection, that, no, I probably wouldn’t have become Christian at all, given that there are so many good people who do not. From there, I discovered that I was severely biased toward Christianity, and in an attempt to overcome that bias, I became atheist before I realized it.
I know that last part is a common idiom that’s usually hyperpole, but I really did become atheist well before I consciously knew I was. I remember reading HPMOR, looking up lesswrong.com, reading the post on “Belief in Belief”, and realizing that I was doing exactly that: explaining an unsupported theory by patching the holes, instead of reevaluating and updating, given the evidence.
It’s been more than religion, too, but that’s the area where I really felt it first. Next projects are to apply the principles to my social and professional life.
The least attractive thing about the rationalist life-style is nihilism. It’s there, it’s real, and it’s hard to handle. Eliezer’s solution is to be happy and the nihilism will leave you alone. But if you have a hard life, you need a way to spontaneously generate joy. That’s why so many people turn to religion as a comfort when they are in bad situations.
The problem that I find is that all ways to spontaneously generate joy have some degree of mysticism. I’m looking into Tai Chi as a replacement for going to church. But that’s still eastern mumbo-jumbo as opposed to western mumbo-jumbo. Stoicism might be the most rational joy machine I can find.
The problem that I find is that all ways to spontaneously generate joy have some degree of mysticism.
What? What about all the usual happiness inducing things? Listening to music that you like; playing games; watching your favourite TV show; being with friends? Maybe you’ve ruled these out as not being spontaneous? But going to church isn’t less effort than a lot of things on that list.
I suspect that a tendency towards mysticism just sort of spontaneously accretes onto anything sufficiently esoteric; you can see this happening over the last few decades with quantum mechanics, and to a lesser degree with results like Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. Martial arts is another good place to see this in action: most of those legendary death touch techniques you hear about, for example, originated in strikes that damaged vulnerable nerve clusters or lymph nodes, leading to abscesses and eventually a good chance of death without antibiotics. All very explicable. But layer the field’s native traditional-Chinese-medicine metaphor over that and run it through several generations of easily impressed students, partial information, and novelists without any particular incentive to be realistic, and suddenly you’ve got the Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.
So I don’t think the mumbo-jumbo is likely to be strictly necessary to most eudaemonic approaches, Eastern or Western. I expect it’d be difficult to extract from a lot of them, though.
So I suspect it’s unlikely that the mumbo-jumbo is strictly necessary to most eudaemonic approaches, Eastern or Western. I expect it’d be difficult to extract from a lot of them, though.
It would be difficult to do it on your own, but it’s not very hard to find e.g. guides to meditation that have been bowlderized of all the mysterious magical stuff.
Maybe it’s incomprehensibility itself that makes some people happy? If you don’t understand it, you don’t feel responsible, and ignorance being bliss, all that weird stuff there is not your problem, and that’s the end of it as far as your monkey bits are concerned.
Hello, everyone!
I’d been religious (Christian) my whole life, but was always plagued with the question, “How would I know this is the correct religion, if I’d grown up with a different cultural norm?” I concluded, after many years of passive reflection, that, no, I probably wouldn’t have become Christian at all, given that there are so many good people who do not. From there, I discovered that I was severely biased toward Christianity, and in an attempt to overcome that bias, I became atheist before I realized it.
I know that last part is a common idiom that’s usually hyperpole, but I really did become atheist well before I consciously knew I was. I remember reading HPMOR, looking up lesswrong.com, reading the post on “Belief in Belief”, and realizing that I was doing exactly that: explaining an unsupported theory by patching the holes, instead of reevaluating and updating, given the evidence.
It’s been more than religion, too, but that’s the area where I really felt it first. Next projects are to apply the principles to my social and professional life.
Welcome!
The least attractive thing about the rationalist life-style is nihilism. It’s there, it’s real, and it’s hard to handle. Eliezer’s solution is to be happy and the nihilism will leave you alone. But if you have a hard life, you need a way to spontaneously generate joy. That’s why so many people turn to religion as a comfort when they are in bad situations.
The problem that I find is that all ways to spontaneously generate joy have some degree of mysticism. I’m looking into Tai Chi as a replacement for going to church. But that’s still eastern mumbo-jumbo as opposed to western mumbo-jumbo. Stoicism might be the most rational joy machine I can find.
Let me know if you ever un-convert.
What? What about all the usual happiness inducing things? Listening to music that you like; playing games; watching your favourite TV show; being with friends? Maybe you’ve ruled these out as not being spontaneous? But going to church isn’t less effort than a lot of things on that list.
I suspect that a tendency towards mysticism just sort of spontaneously accretes onto anything sufficiently esoteric; you can see this happening over the last few decades with quantum mechanics, and to a lesser degree with results like Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. Martial arts is another good place to see this in action: most of those legendary death touch techniques you hear about, for example, originated in strikes that damaged vulnerable nerve clusters or lymph nodes, leading to abscesses and eventually a good chance of death without antibiotics. All very explicable. But layer the field’s native traditional-Chinese-medicine metaphor over that and run it through several generations of easily impressed students, partial information, and novelists without any particular incentive to be realistic, and suddenly you’ve got the Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.
So I don’t think the mumbo-jumbo is likely to be strictly necessary to most eudaemonic approaches, Eastern or Western. I expect it’d be difficult to extract from a lot of them, though.
It would be difficult to do it on your own, but it’s not very hard to find e.g. guides to meditation that have been bowlderized of all the mysterious magical stuff.
Maybe it’s incomprehensibility itself that makes some people happy? If you don’t understand it, you don’t feel responsible, and ignorance being bliss, all that weird stuff there is not your problem, and that’s the end of it as far as your monkey bits are concerned.