Ilya’s right, it’s too long. For example, in Exodus it is written, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The author doesn’t bother defining adultery because his audience shares enough history and culture to know pretty what what’s meant. I suspect that you’re trying to defend yourself against corner cases and nitpicking. That’s a reasonable thing to want (especially in this crowd!) but that’s what commentaries are for.
Come to think of it, that division between commandment and commentary might be useful to you. For example, I would rewrite your ninth commandment as, “Thou shalt not assign probability of 0 or 1”, and appeal to Rebe Yudkowsky’s writings for questions like “but what about epsilon?”
I like that it’s self-contained, not a maze of hyperlinks. Could be a bit shorter, though.
Perhaps each point could start with the essence (in bold) and follow with an explanation, like this:
Thou shalt not assign a probability exactly equal to 0 or 1.
Declaring to the skies that thy certainty regarding any matter is absolute is declaring thyself infallible and placing thyself above thine most holy lord, Bayes.
Actually, the Old Testament has three versions of the commandments, each one of different length (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and the third one I forgot. Fun fact: I learned that at literature lessons in high school, not at any kind of religious lessons). The shorter commandments are the same, but the longer ones differ—maybe it was too difficult even for ancient izraelites to remember them exactly?
Let’s try to make some other points shorter.
Number 10. Thou shalt meekly accept battles lost in pursuit of wars won
Number 7. Thou shalt not cease falsificating thine beliefs
I’m only familiar with the two versions of the commandments given in Exodus and Deuteronomy: I specified Exodus specifically to clarify that distinction, then wound up using an example that’s the same in both of them. Oh well. I’ve never heard of a third, though; can you remember any other context?
I’d expect there to be exactly two versions, for the same reason that there are two creation stories in Genesis: the early books of the Bible are the first written form of a faith with two competing (though closely related!) oral traditions.
Anyway, now that I’ve thought about it more I think this concept would work better as a riff on the book of Proverbs.
Of course, that shows that the Ten Commandments cannot possibly be a basis, rather than summary, of morality, since the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” does not put forth a moral rule, but rather reminds the audience to follow a previously existing moral rule.
Yes. People who say that the ten commandments form the basis of Western morality are not just wrong, but incoherent; there exists no possible history in which that is true.
Ilya’s right, it’s too long. For example, in Exodus it is written, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The author doesn’t bother defining adultery because his audience shares enough history and culture to know pretty what what’s meant. I suspect that you’re trying to defend yourself against corner cases and nitpicking. That’s a reasonable thing to want (especially in this crowd!) but that’s what commentaries are for.
Come to think of it, that division between commandment and commentary might be useful to you. For example, I would rewrite your ninth commandment as, “Thou shalt not assign probability of 0 or 1”, and appeal to Rebe Yudkowsky’s writings for questions like “but what about epsilon?”
I like that it’s self-contained, not a maze of hyperlinks. Could be a bit shorter, though.
Perhaps each point could start with the essence (in bold) and follow with an explanation, like this:
Actually, the Old Testament has three versions of the commandments, each one of different length (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, and the third one I forgot. Fun fact: I learned that at literature lessons in high school, not at any kind of religious lessons). The shorter commandments are the same, but the longer ones differ—maybe it was too difficult even for ancient izraelites to remember them exactly?
Let’s try to make some other points shorter.
Number 10. Thou shalt meekly accept battles lost in pursuit of wars won
Number 7. Thou shalt not cease falsificating thine beliefs
I’m only familiar with the two versions of the commandments given in Exodus and Deuteronomy: I specified Exodus specifically to clarify that distinction, then wound up using an example that’s the same in both of them. Oh well. I’ve never heard of a third, though; can you remember any other context?
I’d expect there to be exactly two versions, for the same reason that there are two creation stories in Genesis: the early books of the Bible are the first written form of a faith with two competing (though closely related!) oral traditions.
Anyway, now that I’ve thought about it more I think this concept would work better as a riff on the book of Proverbs.
Of course, that shows that the Ten Commandments cannot possibly be a basis, rather than summary, of morality, since the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” does not put forth a moral rule, but rather reminds the audience to follow a previously existing moral rule.
Yes. People who say that the ten commandments form the basis of Western morality are not just wrong, but incoherent; there exists no possible history in which that is true.