I think to accurately trace my development as a rationalist I’d have to ramble about my formative years for about fifteen paragraphs and it would bore the bejeezus out of anyone who isn’t my mother, so I’ll spare you, as Holden put it, the David Copperfield crap.
I value reason, logic and the search for truth—but also compassion, patience for human error and a sense of humour. (Hey, I’m Irish, flippancy is written in my genes just as humour with a “u” is written in my dictionary.)
I don’t like irrationality or ignorance, but I detest “shrug” or “let’s agree to disagree” or, worst of all, “who can really say what truth is anyway?”. I believe that someone passionately wrong is closer to being right that someone who doesn’t care. Believing that the truth matters is the sine qua non.
I promise I don’t go around sprinkling Latin into all my arguments, by the way. “Sine qua non” and “semper ubi sub ubi” are about all I’ve got.
I’ve read a great many posts on this site and others like it, and I’ve often constructed chains of reasoning in response to them, in order to work out whether I agree, partially agree, agree with the conclusion but not the steps leading to it or disagree entirely. Thing is, all of that is taking place in an empty room, literally and figuratively.
Talking to the walls in my flat about religion and morality and logic is unsatisfying and may be causing my neighbours some concern. I tried talking to my pot plant but it died, probably of boredom although possibly because I forgot to water it. Either way I’m reluctant to repeat the experiment with a hamster.
My problem is that I often feel awkward and diffident about participating in group discussions. I want to respond to everyone and then I get caught up in etiquette anxiety about what constitutes spamming or whether it’ll look like I’m trying to dominate the discussion, or I get embarrassed about replying to a five-year-old comment on a ten-year-old post, or I go into conflict-resolution mode and end up trying to moderate between two disputants instead of just participating on my own behalf. And I sometimes find being one voice among many competing for attention a bit dispiriting. I don’t just want to (ugh) “express my opinion”, and I certainly don’t want the last word—I can get that by talking to my poor dead pot-plant. I want to convince someone or be convinced myself.
Group discussion is usually not my bag, is what I’m saying, even in such a generally sensible community as LW—but I’ll try to give it a shot.
What I’d really like, though, (and please tell me if this is not an appropriate request or the appropriate place to make it—see etiquette anxiety, supra) is some good old-fashioned one-on-one conversation. So if you’re reading this and you’re at all like me, or you’d just like to do your kind deed for the day, PM me something—anything! - and let’s have a discussion or a debate or an argument. Religion, morality, trolley problems, the Great Santa Question, whatever—I’m down. I could perhaps be of some use to Advanced Rationalist Types who want to assess their ability to explain something clearly to someone with no background in formal logic or probability theory without ruining a dinner party, or to fellow newbs who want to test-drive a line of reasoning before taking it out in public. Try it on the dog, so to speak.
Looking forward to participating one way or another. My username, by the way, is the name of a Terry Pratchett character, and if anyone just wants to talk Pratchett I am so there.
Hello folks!
I think to accurately trace my development as a rationalist I’d have to ramble about my formative years for about fifteen paragraphs and it would bore the bejeezus out of anyone who isn’t my mother, so I’ll spare you, as Holden put it, the David Copperfield crap.
I value reason, logic and the search for truth—but also compassion, patience for human error and a sense of humour. (Hey, I’m Irish, flippancy is written in my genes just as humour with a “u” is written in my dictionary.)
I don’t like irrationality or ignorance, but I detest “shrug” or “let’s agree to disagree” or, worst of all, “who can really say what truth is anyway?”. I believe that someone passionately wrong is closer to being right that someone who doesn’t care. Believing that the truth matters is the sine qua non.
I promise I don’t go around sprinkling Latin into all my arguments, by the way. “Sine qua non” and “semper ubi sub ubi” are about all I’ve got.
I’ve read a great many posts on this site and others like it, and I’ve often constructed chains of reasoning in response to them, in order to work out whether I agree, partially agree, agree with the conclusion but not the steps leading to it or disagree entirely. Thing is, all of that is taking place in an empty room, literally and figuratively.
Talking to the walls in my flat about religion and morality and logic is unsatisfying and may be causing my neighbours some concern. I tried talking to my pot plant but it died, probably of boredom although possibly because I forgot to water it. Either way I’m reluctant to repeat the experiment with a hamster.
My problem is that I often feel awkward and diffident about participating in group discussions. I want to respond to everyone and then I get caught up in etiquette anxiety about what constitutes spamming or whether it’ll look like I’m trying to dominate the discussion, or I get embarrassed about replying to a five-year-old comment on a ten-year-old post, or I go into conflict-resolution mode and end up trying to moderate between two disputants instead of just participating on my own behalf. And I sometimes find being one voice among many competing for attention a bit dispiriting. I don’t just want to (ugh) “express my opinion”, and I certainly don’t want the last word—I can get that by talking to my poor dead pot-plant. I want to convince someone or be convinced myself.
Group discussion is usually not my bag, is what I’m saying, even in such a generally sensible community as LW—but I’ll try to give it a shot.
What I’d really like, though, (and please tell me if this is not an appropriate request or the appropriate place to make it—see etiquette anxiety, supra) is some good old-fashioned one-on-one conversation. So if you’re reading this and you’re at all like me, or you’d just like to do your kind deed for the day, PM me something—anything! - and let’s have a discussion or a debate or an argument. Religion, morality, trolley problems, the Great Santa Question, whatever—I’m down. I could perhaps be of some use to Advanced Rationalist Types who want to assess their ability to explain something clearly to someone with no background in formal logic or probability theory without ruining a dinner party, or to fellow newbs who want to test-drive a line of reasoning before taking it out in public. Try it on the dog, so to speak.
Looking forward to participating one way or another. My username, by the way, is the name of a Terry Pratchett character, and if anyone just wants to talk Pratchett I am so there.
If there is a local LW meetup in your area, you should also have plenty opportunity for one-on-one conversations there.