I’m Katy, I’m 26, I have a 7 month old baby (I feel that’s important because it heavily affects my current ability to think/sleep/eat/do anything) and a husband and … well, I never really thought about rationality until I came across Less Wrong.
I grew up always … wanting more. I believed in god, for a while, until I realised I was just talking to myself. I suffered from bipolar disorder (mainly depressive) from my early teens until … well, until I became pregnant, actually, when it mysteriously disappeared. I wanted to meet people who understood, who thought deeper, who questioned, who wondered. I came across Terry Pratchett, and I found his ideas within stories to be so wonderful, but met few people who had read (or enjoyed) his writing, and even fewer who ever found the concepts of “how” and “why” as intensely interesting as I did.
I studied a lot of different things at university—English, history, Antarctic Studies (I live in Australia so there was a course down in Tasmania), maths, physics, business … but most of my learning has been alone, through books or the internet or waking up at 2am and thinking “I wonder why that happens” and then going on an hours-long adventure through the internet.
When I got married, I got two lovely step-daughters in the package, aged 6 and 10, and introducing them to science and maths has really reignited my interest in learning again. Unfortunately this is slightly challenge by their mother who is a bit of an unpleasant dullard (when the girls learnt the entire periodic table from a song I showed them on youtube, her response was “science is boring” ). My husband and I also hope to home-school our daughter, and I want to be able to give her as much support as possible in whatever areas interest her, and ignite the love of knowledge that her father and I have.
I came across LW a few days ago and just instantly got drawn in—the form of the posts, the replies, the flow of logic and reason … it’s not only very educational, but inspires me to do better in my daily life. Sure, you don’t have to be particularly rational to change a nappy or feed a baby, but (for example) I was considering getting contents insurance and, after reading a thread here I thought “maybe I should approach this rationally, instead of just thinking that it seems like a good idea”, and went on to do some rough calculations and probabilities and approach it that way.
I don’t think I’ll be posting on any other threads any time soon—I’d rather read and learn and learn and get a feel for the community rather than post a half-decent comment that doesn’t contribute much—but I figured it would be worth posting here to start with.
Thanks! I hope so, in time—I just think it’s wiser to watch and learn so that I can understand how LW works and what specific terms and concepts mean before jumping in with what I think I understand!
I’m Katy, I’m 26, I have a 7 month old baby (I feel that’s important because it heavily affects my current ability to think/sleep/eat/do anything) and a husband and … well, I never really thought about rationality until I came across Less Wrong.
I grew up always … wanting more. I believed in god, for a while, until I realised I was just talking to myself. I suffered from bipolar disorder (mainly depressive) from my early teens until … well, until I became pregnant, actually, when it mysteriously disappeared. I wanted to meet people who understood, who thought deeper, who questioned, who wondered. I came across Terry Pratchett, and I found his ideas within stories to be so wonderful, but met few people who had read (or enjoyed) his writing, and even fewer who ever found the concepts of “how” and “why” as intensely interesting as I did.
I studied a lot of different things at university—English, history, Antarctic Studies (I live in Australia so there was a course down in Tasmania), maths, physics, business … but most of my learning has been alone, through books or the internet or waking up at 2am and thinking “I wonder why that happens” and then going on an hours-long adventure through the internet.
When I got married, I got two lovely step-daughters in the package, aged 6 and 10, and introducing them to science and maths has really reignited my interest in learning again. Unfortunately this is slightly challenge by their mother who is a bit of an unpleasant dullard (when the girls learnt the entire periodic table from a song I showed them on youtube, her response was “science is boring” ). My husband and I also hope to home-school our daughter, and I want to be able to give her as much support as possible in whatever areas interest her, and ignite the love of knowledge that her father and I have.
I came across LW a few days ago and just instantly got drawn in—the form of the posts, the replies, the flow of logic and reason … it’s not only very educational, but inspires me to do better in my daily life. Sure, you don’t have to be particularly rational to change a nappy or feed a baby, but (for example) I was considering getting contents insurance and, after reading a thread here I thought “maybe I should approach this rationally, instead of just thinking that it seems like a good idea”, and went on to do some rough calculations and probabilities and approach it that way.
I don’t think I’ll be posting on any other threads any time soon—I’d rather read and learn and learn and get a feel for the community rather than post a half-decent comment that doesn’t contribute much—but I figured it would be worth posting here to start with.
Welcome! You can probably contribute more than you realize.
Thanks! I hope so, in time—I just think it’s wiser to watch and learn so that I can understand how LW works and what specific terms and concepts mean before jumping in with what I think I understand!