jscn

• jscnApr 27, 2009, 7:34 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: Cached Procrastination

  What do you do with the answer, though? I have a fair idea of why most of my procrastination occurs (if I leave something til the last minute and make a hash of it, I have a convenient excuse to protect my ego) but that has never seemed to help me actually overcome it.

• jscnApr 25, 2009, 7:04 AM

  15 points

  in reply to: badger’s comment on: What’s in a name? That which we call a ra­tio­nal­ist…

  I’ve always enjoyed Lewis Carroll’s talk of maps:

  “That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”

  “About six inches to the mile.”

  “Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”

  “Have you used it much?” I enquired.

  “It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.

  From Sylvie and Bruno Concluded by Lewis Carroll, first published in 1893.

• jscnApr 22, 2009, 1:04 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: Lawliet’s comment on: The ideas you’re not ready to post

  I’m not confident I could do a good job of it. He proposes that most problems in relationships come from our mythologies about ourselves and others. In order to have good relationships, we have to be able to be honest about what’s actually going on underneath those mythologies. Obviously this involves work on ourselves, and we should help our partner to do the same (not by trying to change them, but by assisting them in discovering what is actually going on for them). He calls his approach to this kind of communication the “Real-Time Relationship.”

  To quote from the book: “The Real-Time Relationship (RTR) is based on two core principles, designed to liberate both you and others in your communication with each other:

  1. Thoughts precede emotions.

  2. Honesty requires that we communicate our thoughts and feelings, not our conclusions.”

  For a shorter read on relationships, you might like to try his “On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion”. Be forewarned that, even if you disagree, you may find either book an uncomfortable read.

• jscnApr 20, 2009, 7:54 PM

  1 point

  in reply to: Lawliet’s comment on: The ideas you’re not ready to post

  I’ve found the work of Stefan Molyneux to be very insightful with regards to this (his other work has also been pretty influential for me).

  You can find his books for free here. I haven’t actually read his book on this specific topic (“Real-Time Relationships: The Logic of Love”) since I was following his podcasting and forums pretty closely while he was working up to writing it.

• jscnApr 19, 2009, 1:18 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: caiuscamargarus’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes—April 2009

  If you don’t know about relative motion and inertia, then it does seem like the sun moves around the earth (even when you know, it still looks that way). Prior to the “Copernican” revolution, it was generally thought that our sense experience of everyday life was sufficient to expose the truth to us. Those two things combined make a major roadblock in establishing that the earth rotates.

  Now we can fully appreciate that it doesn’t even make sense to make an absolute statement either way. If earth is taken to be stationary, then the sun does move around it (interestingly, this was Tycho Brahe’s solution to the problem of shifting to a helio-centric view.)

• jscnApr 13, 2009, 11:38 PM

  3 points

  in reply to: Eliezer Yudkowsky’s comment on: Akra­sia and Shangri-La

  I find it hard to believe that you haven’t thought about the following, but you haven’t mentioned it so I will. Conventional wisdom says:

  1) Being at a healthy weight/​having a ‘healthy lifestyle’ will (accidents and terminal genetic disorders aside) result in you living a longer life. This means more time to work on FAI stuff.

  2) Exercise and good diet tend to increase feelings of well being and energy levels. This means better/​more effective work on FAI stuff.

  Discounting physical health and concentrating on intellectual life seems to me to be a status symbol for many intellectuals. But I would think that spending time and mental energy on physical well being would give larger benefits, in the long term, to one’s intellectual endeavours.

• jscnMar 29, 2009, 7:15 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: Cyan’s comment on: The Zom­bie Preacher of Somerset

  Blood chokes still take several minutes to effect brain damage/​death. I find the idea of accidentally throttling someone to death fairly suspicious. Besides, if it was truly an accident then where does Browne’s guilt come from? I don’t think the story suggested it was an accident.

• jscnMar 27, 2009, 8:14 PM

  4 points

  in reply to: nazgulnarsil’s comment on: Crowley on Reli­gious Experience

  I’ve recently started reading a book on the changes which Zen meditation seems to cause on neurology and consciousness, authored by a neurologist. The premise seems to fit with what you’re saying.

  I’ve heard that some meditative states (as measured by brain wave patterns) can be induced through the use of devices employing flashing lights and audio interference at certain frequencies (“binaural beats”). I’ve never really spent the time to investigate it seriously and there seems to be a fair amount of new-agey crap surrounding the idea, but it may have some merit.

• jscnMar 20, 2009, 6:12 AM

  3 points

  in reply to: MichaelGR’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ist Fiction

  I was indeed thinking of the Mentats and Bene Gesserit. As you both point out, there was a significant mystical aspect to it. I suppose I was thinking more of the approach taken to mental training (within the world’s internally consistent, but mystical, framework) rather than any specific techniques or events.

  Mentats on the other hand have “minds developed to staggering heights of cognitive and analytical ability” (thanks Wikipedia) which would seem to fit the bill.

  On the other hand, I suppose that neither of these instances are quite what Eliezer was after, as “you can’t go out and do it at home”.

• jscnMar 19, 2009, 9:34 PM

  6 points

  0

  on: Ra­tion­al­ist Fiction

  The Dune series and Neal Stephenson’s latest novel Anathem both come to mind. The Dune series includes a number of plot devices involving mental discipline (although it’s all semi-mystical.) The world of Anathem, on the other hand, is split into two factions, one of which is specifically rationalist. It gets pretty philosophical and weird toward the end, but it mostly involves rationalist characters using math/​science/​etc to overcome the hurdles in their way. The world it describes sounds pretty similair to what I’ve read of Eliezer’s Bayesian Conspiracy.