When the call to compile a reading list for new rationalists went out, contributor djcb responded by suggesting The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul, a compilation of essays, fictions and excerpts "composed and arranged" by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett. Cut to me peering guiltily over...
From David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: > He could do the dextral pain the same way: Abiding. No one single instant of it was unendurable. Here was a second right here: he endured it. What was undealable-with was the thought of all the instants all lined up and stretching ahead,...
When the call to compile a reading list for new rationalists went out, contributor djcb responded by suggesting The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul, a compilation of essays, fictions and excerpts "composed and arranged" by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett. Cut to me peering guiltily over my shoulder, my own copy sitting unread on the shelf, peering back.
The book presents Hofstadter and Dennett's co-curation of 27 pieces, some penned by the curators themselves, meant to "reveal" and "make vivid" a set of "perplexities," to wit: "What is the mind?" "Who am I?" "Can mere matter think or feel?" "Where is the soul?" Two immediate concerns arise. First, The... (read 3794 more words →)
From David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest:
He could do the dextral pain the same way: Abiding. No one single instant of it was unendurable. Here was a second right here: he endured it. What was undealable-with was the thought of all the instants all lined up and stretching ahead, glittering. And the projected future fear... It's too much to think about. To Abide there. But none of it's as of now real... He could just hunker down in the space between each heartbeat and make each heartbeat a wall and live in there. Not let his head look over. What's unendurable is what his own head could make of it all. What his... (read 3531 more words →)
This is an important consideration. I just can't figure out how to test it.
Thank y'kindly. I upvote any and all comments that correct mistakes that would've made me look like a sub-lingual doof otherwise.
Furthermore, it is possible to let the head-land simulations run and remain emotionally abstracted from the results.
This is wise. Getting the necessary distance would indeed work, as would improving head-land accuracy, though I'm dubious about the extent to which it can be improved. In any case, I'm not quite to either goal myself yet. And if your own head-land making accurate predictions, that's a good thing; I just can't get those kinds of results out of mine. Yet.
I'd like to make it that, but we'll see what I can do.
Nah; it was supposed to read "in which I construct." I just fumbled the editing.
Glad to hear it. I aim to please.
Sounds like the concept of "agility" could be generalized richly indeed.
I second this request.
Thanks. I expect most of my posts here will be more Useful Practice than True Theory, but only just; my hope is that the Less Wrong community won't spare the downvotes if I stray too far from rationality and too close to self-help territory.
Thanks; duly noted. I plan to write a few posts on the "road testing" of Less Wrong and Less Wrong-y theories about rationality and the defeat of akrasia, so these are helpful pointers.