I’m coming to this conversation pretty late because I just saw it was featured on the front page. I think there is a lot worth considering, both in the article and in the comments below.
Not too long ago I had my first experience with a Tarot reading. I was meeting a friend of mine who is sort of an atheistic/rationalist/materialist neopagan, and I made a disparaging comment about New Agers with their crystals and Tarot cards. He promptly and unabashedly informed me that he always carries a deck with him.
Needless to say I was wary at first. What changed my mind was when he explicitly told me that there was no magic whatsoever in the process, and in fact a Tarot reading couldn’t tell you anything you couldn’t in principle know through other means, i.e. high-powered introspection. What it can do, though, is use evocative art and symbolism to knock loose boulders of insight from the unconscious. It can sort of scaffold your stream of consciousness along unusual and valuable tangents that might be hard to find with other means.
I won’t pretend that I was blown away by the process, but I can definitely see how interacting with a deck over a period of time could lead to actionable insights. Even in that first reading (as of now there hasn’t been a subsequent one) I was fascinated by the emotions which manifested and by the thoughts which I projected onto the deck.
The dangers here are clear. It would be all too easy to start seeing profundity where there isn’t any, signal where there is only noise, etc. I’ve been giving thought to writing an essay on LW to the effect of “how much fire can you play with before the rational thing to do is drop it and run”? Anyway, I’m glad to see that thinking on this topic is alive and well here.
I don’t think there is any taboo in this community against posting other sources, so here is an essay written by Eric Raymond that I’ve found to be well worth contemplating:
Hello,
My name is Trent Fowler. I started leaning toward scientific and rational thinking while still a child, thanks in part to a variety of aphorisms my father was fond of saying. Things like “think for yourself” and “question your own beliefs” are too general to be very useful in particular circumstances, but were instrumental in fostering in me a skepticism and respect for good argument that has persisted all my life (I’m 23 as of this writing). These tools are what allowed me to abandon the religion I was brought up in as a child, and to eventually begin salvaging the bits of it that are worth salvaging. Like many atheists, when I first dropped religion I dropped every last thing associated with it. I’ve since grown to appreciate practices like meditation, ritual, and even outright mysticism as techniques which are valuable and pursuable in a secular context.
What I’ve just described is basically the rationality equivalent of lifting weights twice a week and going for a brisk walk in the mornings. It’s great for a beginner, but anyone who sticks with it long enough will start to get a glimpse of what’s achievable by systematizing training and ramping up the intensity. World-class martial artists, olympic powerlifters, and ultramarathoners may seem like demi-gods to the weekend warriors, but a huge amount of what they’ve accomplished is attributable to hard work and dedication (with a dash of luck and genetics, of course).
The Bruce Lees of the mind, however, are more than just role models. They’re the people who will look extinction risk square in the face and start figuring out how to actually the problems. They’re the people who will build transhuman AIs, extinguish death, probe the bedrock of reality, and fling human civilization into deep-space. As the dojo is to the apprentice, so is Less Wrong to the aspiring rationalist.
Sadly, when I was gripped rather suddenly by a fascination with math and physics as a child, there was not enough in the way of books, support, and instruction to get the prodigy-fires burning. To this day deep math and physics remain and interesting but largely inscrutable realm of human knowledge. But I’m still young enough that with hard work and dedication I could be a Bostrom or a Yudkowsky, especially if I manage to scramble onto their shoulders.
So here I am, ready to sharpen the blade of my thinking, that it may more effectively be turned to both pondering metaphysical quandaries and solving problems that threaten our collective future. I am excited by the prospects, and hope I am up to the challenge.