Robin, that’s one reason I first wrote up my abstract views on the proposition of eliminating pain, and then I put up a fictional story that addressed the same issue.
But what first got me thinking along the same lines was watching a certain movie—all the Far arguments I’d read up until that point hadn’t moved me; but watching it playing out in an imaginary Near situation altered my thinking. Pretty sure it’s got something to do with there being fewer degrees of emotional freedom in concrete Near thinking versus abstract propositional Far thinking.
I think that so long as I lay my cards plainly on the table outside the story, writing the story should fall more along the lines of public service to understanding, and less along the lines of sneaky covert hidden arguments. Do I need to remark on how desperately important it is, with important ideas, to have some versions that are as accessible as possible? The difficulty is to do this without simply flushing away the real idea and substituting one that’s easier to explain. But I do think—I do hope—that I am generally pretty damned careful on that score.
Maglick, last piece RH wrote that changed my mind (as in causing me to alter my beliefs on questions I had previously considered) was the “Near vs. Far” one.
Robin, that’s one reason I first wrote up my abstract views on the proposition of eliminating pain, and then I put up a fictional story that addressed the same issue.
But what first got me thinking along the same lines was watching a certain movie—all the Far arguments I’d read up until that point hadn’t moved me; but watching it playing out in an imaginary Near situation altered my thinking. Pretty sure it’s got something to do with there being fewer degrees of emotional freedom in concrete Near thinking versus abstract propositional Far thinking.
I think that so long as I lay my cards plainly on the table outside the story, writing the story should fall more along the lines of public service to understanding, and less along the lines of sneaky covert hidden arguments. Do I need to remark on how desperately important it is, with important ideas, to have some versions that are as accessible as possible? The difficulty is to do this without simply flushing away the real idea and substituting one that’s easier to explain. But I do think—I do hope—that I am generally pretty damned careful on that score.
Maglick, last piece RH wrote that changed my mind (as in causing me to alter my beliefs on questions I had previously considered) was the “Near vs. Far” one.