So: Here goes. I’m dipping my toe into this gigantic and somewhat scary pool/lake(/ocean?).
Here’s the deal: I’m a recovering irrationalic. Not an irrationalist; I’ve never believed in anything but rationalism (in the sense it’s used here, but that’s another discussion), formally. But my behaviors and attitudes have been stuck in an irrational quagmire for years. Perhaps decades, depending on exactly how you’re measuring. So I use “irrationalic” in the sense of “alcoholic”; someone who self-identifies as “alcoholic” is very unlikely to extol the virtues of alcohol, but nonetheless has a hard time staying away from the stuff.
And, like many alcoholics, I have a gut feeling that going “cold turkey” is a very bad idea. Not, in this case, in the sense that I want to continue being specifically irrational to some degree or another, but in that I am extremely wary of diving into the list of readings and immersing myself in rationalist literature and ideology (if that is the correct word) at this point. I have a feeling that I need to work some things out slowly, and I have learned from long and painful experience that my gut is always right on this particular kind of issue.
This does not mean that linking to suggested resources is in any way not okay, just that I’m going to take my time about reading them, and I suppose I’m making a weak (in a technical sense) request to be gentle at first. Yes, in principle, all of my premises are questionable; that’s what rationalism means (in part). But...think about it as if you had a new, half-developed idea. If you tell it to people who tear it apart, that can kill it. That’s kind of how I feel now. I’m feeling out this new(ish) way of being, and I don’t feel like being pushed just yet (which people who know me might find quite rich; I’m a champion arguer).
Yes, this is personal, more personal than I am at all comfortable being in public. But if this community is anything like I imagine it to be (not that I don’t have experience with foiled expectations!), I figure I’ll probably end up divulging a lot more personal stuff anyway.
I honestly feel as if I’m walking into church for the first time in decades.
So why am I here then? Well, I was updating my long-dormant blog by fixing dead links &c, and in doing so, discovered to my joy that Memepool was no longer dead. There, I found a link to HPMOR. Reading this over the next several days contributed to my reawakening, along with other, more personal happenings. This is a journey of recovery I’ve been on for, depending on how you count, three to six years, but HPMOR certainly gave a significant boost to the process, and today (also for personal reasons) I feel that I’ve crossed a threshold, and feel comfortable “walking into church” again.
Alright, I’ll anticipate the first question: “What are you talking about? Irrationality is an extremely broad label.” Well, I’m not going to go into to too terribly much detail just now, but let’s say that the revelation or step forward that occurred today was realizing that the extremely common belief that other people can make you morally wrong by their judgement is unequivocally false. This is what I strongly believed growing up, but...well, perhaps “strongly” is the wrong word. I had been raised in an environment that very much held that the opposite was true, that other people’s opinion of you was crucial to your rightness, morality and worth as a human being. Nobody ever said it that way, of course, and would probably deny it if put that way, but that is nonetheless how most people believe. However, in my case it was so blatant that it was fairly easy to see how ridiculous it was. Nonetheless, as reasonable as my rational constructions seemed to me, there was really no way I could be certain that I was right and others were wrong, so I held a back-of-my-head belief, borne of the experience of being repeatedly mistaken that every inquisitive child experiences, that I would someday mature and come to realize I had been wrong all along.
Well, that happened. Sort of. Events in my life picked at that point of uncertainty, and I gave up my utter visceral devotion to rationality and personal responsibility, which led slowly down into an awful abyss that I’m not going to describe at just this moment, that I have (hopefully) at last managed to climb out of, and am now standing at the edge, blinking at the sunlight, trying to figure out precisely where to go from here, but wary of being blinded by the newfound brilliance and wishing to take my time to figure out the next step.
So again, then, why am I here? If I don’t want to be bombarded with advice on how to think more rationally, why did I walk in here? I’m not sure. It seemed time, time to connect with people who, perhaps, could support me in this journey, and possibly shorten it somewhat.
So: Here goes. I’m dipping my toe into this gigantic and somewhat scary pool/lake(/ocean?).
Here’s the deal: I’m a recovering irrationalic. Not an irrationalist; I’ve never believed in anything but rationalism (in the sense it’s used here, but that’s another discussion), formally. But my behaviors and attitudes have been stuck in an irrational quagmire for years. Perhaps decades, depending on exactly how you’re measuring. So I use “irrationalic” in the sense of “alcoholic”; someone who self-identifies as “alcoholic” is very unlikely to extol the virtues of alcohol, but nonetheless has a hard time staying away from the stuff.
And, like many alcoholics, I have a gut feeling that going “cold turkey” is a very bad idea. Not, in this case, in the sense that I want to continue being specifically irrational to some degree or another, but in that I am extremely wary of diving into the list of readings and immersing myself in rationalist literature and ideology (if that is the correct word) at this point. I have a feeling that I need to work some things out slowly, and I have learned from long and painful experience that my gut is always right on this particular kind of issue.
This does not mean that linking to suggested resources is in any way not okay, just that I’m going to take my time about reading them, and I suppose I’m making a weak (in a technical sense) request to be gentle at first. Yes, in principle, all of my premises are questionable; that’s what rationalism means (in part). But...think about it as if you had a new, half-developed idea. If you tell it to people who tear it apart, that can kill it. That’s kind of how I feel now. I’m feeling out this new(ish) way of being, and I don’t feel like being pushed just yet (which people who know me might find quite rich; I’m a champion arguer).
Yes, this is personal, more personal than I am at all comfortable being in public. But if this community is anything like I imagine it to be (not that I don’t have experience with foiled expectations!), I figure I’ll probably end up divulging a lot more personal stuff anyway.
I honestly feel as if I’m walking into church for the first time in decades.
So why am I here then? Well, I was updating my long-dormant blog by fixing dead links &c, and in doing so, discovered to my joy that Memepool was no longer dead. There, I found a link to HPMOR. Reading this over the next several days contributed to my reawakening, along with other, more personal happenings. This is a journey of recovery I’ve been on for, depending on how you count, three to six years, but HPMOR certainly gave a significant boost to the process, and today (also for personal reasons) I feel that I’ve crossed a threshold, and feel comfortable “walking into church” again.
Alright, I’ll anticipate the first question: “What are you talking about? Irrationality is an extremely broad label.” Well, I’m not going to go into to too terribly much detail just now, but let’s say that the revelation or step forward that occurred today was realizing that the extremely common belief that other people can make you morally wrong by their judgement is unequivocally false. This is what I strongly believed growing up, but...well, perhaps “strongly” is the wrong word. I had been raised in an environment that very much held that the opposite was true, that other people’s opinion of you was crucial to your rightness, morality and worth as a human being. Nobody ever said it that way, of course, and would probably deny it if put that way, but that is nonetheless how most people believe. However, in my case it was so blatant that it was fairly easy to see how ridiculous it was. Nonetheless, as reasonable as my rational constructions seemed to me, there was really no way I could be certain that I was right and others were wrong, so I held a back-of-my-head belief, borne of the experience of being repeatedly mistaken that every inquisitive child experiences, that I would someday mature and come to realize I had been wrong all along.
Well, that happened. Sort of. Events in my life picked at that point of uncertainty, and I gave up my utter visceral devotion to rationality and personal responsibility, which led slowly down into an awful abyss that I’m not going to describe at just this moment, that I have (hopefully) at last managed to climb out of, and am now standing at the edge, blinking at the sunlight, trying to figure out precisely where to go from here, but wary of being blinded by the newfound brilliance and wishing to take my time to figure out the next step.
So again, then, why am I here? If I don’t want to be bombarded with advice on how to think more rationally, why did I walk in here? I’m not sure. It seemed time, time to connect with people who, perhaps, could support me in this journey, and possibly shorten it somewhat.