I read your Call for a more ‘hippie’ rationalism. It didn’t really seem like your ontology was that different than the LessWrong one. I wonder if you focus on that difference because you’re afraid people here will be harsh, and want to preempt criticism with a defense of different ontologies. But I found the epistemology to be similar, though the content is different.
I thought you raised a number of interesting ideas. I’ve written around several of them here on LessWrong, and occasionally see similar ideas written about that get a good response if the writing is good. I particularly found your comparison of Western and Alternative medicine enjoyable. It demonstrates a very LessWrong way of thinking (“let’s take my experiences and use them to assign a numerical score to each type of medicine based on how effectively they served my goals” is not a hippie way of thinking!).
I think your post would get some valid criticism on LessWrong. Here there’s maybe a greater demand for evidence to support your beliefs, and maybe a demand not only for proposing new ideas, but to try to understand those ideas at the gears level, and the implications of those ideas.
For example, you asked me to consider that we were made for a different environment. I agree, but so what? My ancestral environment is destroyed. I have no tribe, I cannot hunt long distances for food. Nor could we return to such an environment without letting 90% of people starve to death. Sure, I could hang out in a meadow, or lay down on a log, but it’s a far cry from the True Nature we’ve lost.
I am philosophically already on board with the Do Chairs Exist idea as applied to humans, and I already consider it possible that I could feel this rather than know it intellectually. Yet, so what? Considering that I could feel it, and feeling it, are two different things, and your post doesn’t really help me feel it or understand the benefit of feeling it for that matter.
You say I should consider that I may be better off if I explore my imagination more. Yeah, maybe. So what? How do I do it? What do I do? What are the actual benefits of doing so?
I think you raised interesting ideas, and you will find a huge appetite for them on LessWrong if you’re able to explain what the benefits are, maybe how they’ve benefited you personally, and explain not just the what, but also the how.
I hope you post here more in the future, and if you get some nitpicky comments, don’t worry about them too much and know that LessWrongers express approval with the upvote button rather than with comments and don’t take the comments personally.
I read your Call for a more ‘hippie’ rationalism. It didn’t really seem like your ontology was that different than the LessWrong one. I wonder if you focus on that difference because you’re afraid people here will be harsh, and want to preempt criticism with a defense of different ontologies. But I found the epistemology to be similar, though the content is different.
I thought you raised a number of interesting ideas. I’ve written around several of them here on LessWrong, and occasionally see similar ideas written about that get a good response if the writing is good. I particularly found your comparison of Western and Alternative medicine enjoyable. It demonstrates a very LessWrong way of thinking (“let’s take my experiences and use them to assign a numerical score to each type of medicine based on how effectively they served my goals” is not a hippie way of thinking!).
I think your post would get some valid criticism on LessWrong. Here there’s maybe a greater demand for evidence to support your beliefs, and maybe a demand not only for proposing new ideas, but to try to understand those ideas at the gears level, and the implications of those ideas.
For example, you asked me to consider that we were made for a different environment. I agree, but so what? My ancestral environment is destroyed. I have no tribe, I cannot hunt long distances for food. Nor could we return to such an environment without letting 90% of people starve to death. Sure, I could hang out in a meadow, or lay down on a log, but it’s a far cry from the True Nature we’ve lost.
I am philosophically already on board with the Do Chairs Exist idea as applied to humans, and I already consider it possible that I could feel this rather than know it intellectually. Yet, so what? Considering that I could feel it, and feeling it, are two different things, and your post doesn’t really help me feel it or understand the benefit of feeling it for that matter.
You say I should consider that I may be better off if I explore my imagination more. Yeah, maybe. So what? How do I do it? What do I do? What are the actual benefits of doing so?
I think you raised interesting ideas, and you will find a huge appetite for them on LessWrong if you’re able to explain what the benefits are, maybe how they’ve benefited you personally, and explain not just the what, but also the how.
I hope you post here more in the future, and if you get some nitpicky comments, don’t worry about them too much and know that LessWrongers express approval with the upvote button rather than with comments and don’t take the comments personally.