Right, which is why how the question is phrased is tricky. I wouldn’t expect someone to devise something as distilled and deliberate as the Sequences independently or to use the title “Rationality” for what they’re doing, for example. Like you though, reading the Sequences for the first time felt less like entirely new things and more like finding clearer expressions and vocabulary for a style of thought that was already in my head. It’s how common that experience is that I would find interesting- how many people were in this sort of intellectual cluster before encountering the Sequences? Do they usually teach a new kind of approach, or do they upgrade a style of thought that existed beforehand?
I know I’m not phrasing this question well enough for the survey at present. If what I’m getting at makes sense and is interesting, assistance rephrasing it would be appreciated.
Sorry, no obviously good ideas how to rephrase the question. Perhaps:
“At what age did you first encounter or begin to develop parts of what you currently recognize as Rationality?”
For me, it was mostly a vague feeling, something like—of course without these specific words—“There is a territory… and most people seem not to give a fuck about it, escaping to their fantasies instead (religion, positive thinking, quantum mumbo jumbo, political mindkilling, etc.). The only difference seems to be that some people are proudly and publicly irrational since the very beginning, while others are rational in the near mode of everyday life and only switch to the irrational mode at some later point, suggesting that it is a higher form of thinking (e.g. they first study physics seriously, learn the equations, get a degree… and then they read a book about quantum mumbo jumbo and fall in love with it, continuing to do the equations in their everyday job, but thinking the mumbo jumbo is the higher level of insight). I too understand the temptations of this atractor, I just can’t make myself believe that the reality will go away when I close my eyes (and there were moments when I desperately tried this, just to fit in the human society, but it didn’t work).” And for a large part of my life, I suspected I might be alone with this condition, which was quite weird.
Right, which is why how the question is phrased is tricky. I wouldn’t expect someone to devise something as distilled and deliberate as the Sequences independently or to use the title “Rationality” for what they’re doing, for example. Like you though, reading the Sequences for the first time felt less like entirely new things and more like finding clearer expressions and vocabulary for a style of thought that was already in my head. It’s how common that experience is that I would find interesting- how many people were in this sort of intellectual cluster before encountering the Sequences? Do they usually teach a new kind of approach, or do they upgrade a style of thought that existed beforehand?
I know I’m not phrasing this question well enough for the survey at present. If what I’m getting at makes sense and is interesting, assistance rephrasing it would be appreciated.
Sorry, no obviously good ideas how to rephrase the question. Perhaps:
For me, it was mostly a vague feeling, something like—of course without these specific words—“There is a territory… and most people seem not to give a fuck about it, escaping to their fantasies instead (religion, positive thinking, quantum mumbo jumbo, political mindkilling, etc.). The only difference seems to be that some people are proudly and publicly irrational since the very beginning, while others are rational in the near mode of everyday life and only switch to the irrational mode at some later point, suggesting that it is a higher form of thinking (e.g. they first study physics seriously, learn the equations, get a degree… and then they read a book about quantum mumbo jumbo and fall in love with it, continuing to do the equations in their everyday job, but thinking the mumbo jumbo is the higher level of insight). I too understand the temptations of this atractor, I just can’t make myself believe that the reality will go away when I close my eyes (and there were moments when I desperately tried this, just to fit in the human society, but it didn’t work).” And for a large part of my life, I suspected I might be alone with this condition, which was quite weird.