I appreciate I am likely to inexperienced to come up with anything that impressive,
It’s not even that (ok, it’s probably at least a little of that). Some of the most worthless and nonsensical philosophy has come from professional philosophers (guys with Famous Names, who get chapters in History of Philosophy textbooks) who’ve constructed massive edifices of blather without any connection to anything in the world. EDIT: See e.g. this quote.
with the utmost respect to Eliezer, I have yet to come across anything in the Sequences which did more than codify or verbalize beliefs I’d already held.
You’ve got it right. One of the points Eliezer sometimes makes is that true things, even novel true things, shouldn’t sound surprising. Surprising and counterintuitive is what you get when you want to sound deep and wise. When you say true things, what you get is “Oh, well… yeah. Sure. I pretty much knew that.” Also, the Sequences contain a lot of excellent distillation and coherent, accessible presentation of things that you would otherwise have to construct from a hundred philosophy books.
As for enlightenment that makes your previous views obsolete… in my case, at least, that happened slowly, as I digested things I read here and in other places, and spent time (over a long period) thinking about various things. Others may have different experiences.
As I said, I am reading them, but have found them mostly about how to think as opposed to what to think so far, though I daresay that is intentional in the ordering.
Yeah, one of the themes in Less Wrong material, I’ve found, is that how to think is more important than what to think (if for no other reason than that once you know how to think, thinking the right things follows naturally).
It’s not even that (ok, it’s probably at least a little of that). Some of the most worthless and nonsensical philosophy has come from professional philosophers (guys with Famous Names, who get chapters in History of Philosophy textbooks) who’ve constructed massive edifices of blather without any connection to anything in the world. EDIT: See e.g. this quote.
You’ve got it right. One of the points Eliezer sometimes makes is that true things, even novel true things, shouldn’t sound surprising. Surprising and counterintuitive is what you get when you want to sound deep and wise. When you say true things, what you get is “Oh, well… yeah. Sure. I pretty much knew that.” Also, the Sequences contain a lot of excellent distillation and coherent, accessible presentation of things that you would otherwise have to construct from a hundred philosophy books.
As for enlightenment that makes your previous views obsolete… in my case, at least, that happened slowly, as I digested things I read here and in other places, and spent time (over a long period) thinking about various things. Others may have different experiences.
Yeah, one of the themes in Less Wrong material, I’ve found, is that how to think is more important than what to think (if for no other reason than that once you know how to think, thinking the right things follows naturally).
Oh, I know. I start crying inside every time I learn about Kant.
Well, I’ll take what you’ve said on board. Thanks for the help!