My name is Hannah. I’m an American living in Oslo, Norway (my husband is Norwegian). I am 24 (soon to be 25) years old. I am currently unemployed, but I have a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Truman State University. My intention is to find a job working at a day care, at least until I have children of my own. When that happens, I intend to be a stay-at-home mother and homeschool my children. Anything beyond that is too far into the future to be worth trying to figure out at this point in my life.
I was referred to LessWrong by some German guy on OkCupid. I don’t know his name or who he is or anything about him, really, and I don’t know why he messaged me randomly. I suppose something in my profile seemed to indicate that I might like it here or might already be familiar with it, and that sparked his interest. I really can’t say. I just got a message asking if I was familiar with LessWrong or Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (which I was not), and if so, what I thought of them. So I decided to check them out. I thought the HP fanfiction was excellent, and I’ve been reading through some of the major series here for the past week or so. At one point I had a comment I wanted to make, so I decided to join in order to be able to post the comment. I figure I may as well be part of the group, since I am interested in continuing reading and discussing here. :-)
As for more about my background in rationality and such, I like to think I’ve always been oriented towards rationality. Well, when I was younger I was probably less adept at reasoning and certainly less aware of cognitive biases and such, but I’ve always believed in following the evidence to find the truth. That’s something I think my mother helped to instill in me. My acute interest in rationality, however, probably occurred when I was around 18-19 years old. It was at this point that I became an atheist and also when I began Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
I had been raised as a Christian, more or less. My mother is very religious, but also very intelligent, and she believes fervently in following the evidence wherever it leads (despite the fact that, in practice, she does not actually do this). The shift in my religious perspective initially occurred around when I first began dating my husband. He was not religious, and I had the idea in my head that it was important that he be religious, in order for us to be properly compatible. But I observed that he was very open-minded and sensible, so I believed that the only requirement for him to become a Christian was for me to formulate a sufficiently compelling argument for why it was the true religion. And if this had been possible, it’s likely he would have converted, but alas, this was a task I could not succeed at. It was by examining my own religion and trying to answer his honest questions that I came to realize that I didn’t actually know what any good reasons for being a Christian were, and that I had merely assumed there must be good reasons, since my mother and many other intelligent relgious people that I knew were convinced of the religion. So I tried to find out what these reasons were, and they came up lacking.
When I found that I couldn’t find any obvious reasons that Christianity had to be the right religion, I realized that I didn’t have enough information to come to that conclusion. When I reflected on all my religious beliefs, it occured to me that I didn’t even know where most of them came from. So I decided to throw everything out the window and start from scratch. This was somewhat difficult for me emotionally, since I was honestly afraid that I was giving up something important that I might not get back. I mean, what if Christianity were the true religion and I gave it up and never came back? So I prayed to God (whichever god(s) he was, if any) to lead me on a path towards the truth. I figured if I followed evidence and reason, then I would end up at the truth, whatever it was. If that meant losing my religion, then my religion wasn’t worth having. I trusted that anything worth believing would come back to me. And that even if I was led astray and ended up believing the wrong thing, God would judge me based on my intent and on my deeds. A god who is good will not punish me for seeking the truth, even if I am unsuccessful in my quest. And a god who is not good is not worth worshipping. I know this idea has been voiced by many others before me, but for me this was an original conclusion at the time, not something I’d heard as a quote from someone else.
Another pertinent influence of rationality on my life occured during my second year of college. I had decided to see a counselor for problems with anxiety and depression. The therapy that counselor used was Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and we often engaged in a lot of meaningful discussions. I found the therapy and that particular approach extremely helpful in managing my emotions and excellent practice in thinking rationally. I think it really helped me become a better thinker in addition to being more emotionally stable.
So it’s been sort of a cumulative effect, losing my religion, going to college, going through counseling, etc. As I get older, I expose myself to more and more ideas (mostly through reading, but also through some discussion) and I feel that I get better and better at reasoning, understanding biases, and being more rational. A lot of the things I’ve read here are things that I had either encountered before or seemed obvious to me already. Although, there is plenty of new stuff too. So I feel that this community will be a good fit for me, and I hope that I will be a positive addition to it.
I have a lot of unorthodox ideas and such that I’d be happy to discuss. My interests are parenting (roughly in line with Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn), schooling/education (I support a Sudbury type model), diet (I’m paleo), relationships (I don’t follow anyone here; I’ve got my own ideas in this area), emotions and emotional regulation (REBT, humanistic approach, and my own experience/ideas) and pretty much anything about or related to psychology (I’m reasonably educated in this area, but I can always learn more!). I’m open to having my ideas challenged and I don’t shy away from changing my mind when the evidence points in the opposite direction. I used to have more of a problem with this, in so far as I was concerned about saving face (I didn’t want to look bad by publicly admitting I was wrong, even if I privately realized it), but I’ve since reasoned that changing my mind is actually a better way of saving face. You look a lot stupider clinging to a demonstrably wrong position than simply admitting that you were mistaken and changing your ideas accordingly.
Anyway, I hope that wasn’t too long an introduction. I have a tendency to write a lot and invest a lot of time and effort in to my writings. I care a lot about effective communication, and I like to think I’m good at expressing myself and explaining things. That seems to be something valued here too, so that’s good.
Hi,
My name is Hannah. I’m an American living in Oslo, Norway (my husband is Norwegian). I am 24 (soon to be 25) years old. I am currently unemployed, but I have a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Truman State University. My intention is to find a job working at a day care, at least until I have children of my own. When that happens, I intend to be a stay-at-home mother and homeschool my children. Anything beyond that is too far into the future to be worth trying to figure out at this point in my life.
I was referred to LessWrong by some German guy on OkCupid. I don’t know his name or who he is or anything about him, really, and I don’t know why he messaged me randomly. I suppose something in my profile seemed to indicate that I might like it here or might already be familiar with it, and that sparked his interest. I really can’t say. I just got a message asking if I was familiar with LessWrong or Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (which I was not), and if so, what I thought of them. So I decided to check them out. I thought the HP fanfiction was excellent, and I’ve been reading through some of the major series here for the past week or so. At one point I had a comment I wanted to make, so I decided to join in order to be able to post the comment. I figure I may as well be part of the group, since I am interested in continuing reading and discussing here. :-)
As for more about my background in rationality and such, I like to think I’ve always been oriented towards rationality. Well, when I was younger I was probably less adept at reasoning and certainly less aware of cognitive biases and such, but I’ve always believed in following the evidence to find the truth. That’s something I think my mother helped to instill in me. My acute interest in rationality, however, probably occurred when I was around 18-19 years old. It was at this point that I became an atheist and also when I began Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
I had been raised as a Christian, more or less. My mother is very religious, but also very intelligent, and she believes fervently in following the evidence wherever it leads (despite the fact that, in practice, she does not actually do this). The shift in my religious perspective initially occurred around when I first began dating my husband. He was not religious, and I had the idea in my head that it was important that he be religious, in order for us to be properly compatible. But I observed that he was very open-minded and sensible, so I believed that the only requirement for him to become a Christian was for me to formulate a sufficiently compelling argument for why it was the true religion. And if this had been possible, it’s likely he would have converted, but alas, this was a task I could not succeed at. It was by examining my own religion and trying to answer his honest questions that I came to realize that I didn’t actually know what any good reasons for being a Christian were, and that I had merely assumed there must be good reasons, since my mother and many other intelligent relgious people that I knew were convinced of the religion. So I tried to find out what these reasons were, and they came up lacking.
When I found that I couldn’t find any obvious reasons that Christianity had to be the right religion, I realized that I didn’t have enough information to come to that conclusion. When I reflected on all my religious beliefs, it occured to me that I didn’t even know where most of them came from. So I decided to throw everything out the window and start from scratch. This was somewhat difficult for me emotionally, since I was honestly afraid that I was giving up something important that I might not get back. I mean, what if Christianity were the true religion and I gave it up and never came back? So I prayed to God (whichever god(s) he was, if any) to lead me on a path towards the truth. I figured if I followed evidence and reason, then I would end up at the truth, whatever it was. If that meant losing my religion, then my religion wasn’t worth having. I trusted that anything worth believing would come back to me. And that even if I was led astray and ended up believing the wrong thing, God would judge me based on my intent and on my deeds. A god who is good will not punish me for seeking the truth, even if I am unsuccessful in my quest. And a god who is not good is not worth worshipping. I know this idea has been voiced by many others before me, but for me this was an original conclusion at the time, not something I’d heard as a quote from someone else.
Another pertinent influence of rationality on my life occured during my second year of college. I had decided to see a counselor for problems with anxiety and depression. The therapy that counselor used was Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and we often engaged in a lot of meaningful discussions. I found the therapy and that particular approach extremely helpful in managing my emotions and excellent practice in thinking rationally. I think it really helped me become a better thinker in addition to being more emotionally stable.
So it’s been sort of a cumulative effect, losing my religion, going to college, going through counseling, etc. As I get older, I expose myself to more and more ideas (mostly through reading, but also through some discussion) and I feel that I get better and better at reasoning, understanding biases, and being more rational. A lot of the things I’ve read here are things that I had either encountered before or seemed obvious to me already. Although, there is plenty of new stuff too. So I feel that this community will be a good fit for me, and I hope that I will be a positive addition to it.
I have a lot of unorthodox ideas and such that I’d be happy to discuss. My interests are parenting (roughly in line with Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn), schooling/education (I support a Sudbury type model), diet (I’m paleo), relationships (I don’t follow anyone here; I’ve got my own ideas in this area), emotions and emotional regulation (REBT, humanistic approach, and my own experience/ideas) and pretty much anything about or related to psychology (I’m reasonably educated in this area, but I can always learn more!). I’m open to having my ideas challenged and I don’t shy away from changing my mind when the evidence points in the opposite direction. I used to have more of a problem with this, in so far as I was concerned about saving face (I didn’t want to look bad by publicly admitting I was wrong, even if I privately realized it), but I’ve since reasoned that changing my mind is actually a better way of saving face. You look a lot stupider clinging to a demonstrably wrong position than simply admitting that you were mistaken and changing your ideas accordingly.
Anyway, I hope that wasn’t too long an introduction. I have a tendency to write a lot and invest a lot of time and effort in to my writings. I care a lot about effective communication, and I like to think I’m good at expressing myself and explaining things. That seems to be something valued here too, so that’s good.
Welcome here!