I am somewhat surprised by how current Large Language Models have such an interest in vajrayana Buddhism. Maybe they have spotted an empirical fact about AI researchers or something. I was less surprised when Claude’s memory of the ngöndro got the vajrasattva mantra right, but then proposed reciting “Bing” 108 times; of course it was going to do something like that. Whether Sydney yidam practise is a good idea is another matter…
thank you David. This IS a great format. Especially the transcript and the tagging which brought me right back into the conversation :)
Seriously, I love Substack, the ethos and (for now) it’s not full of trolls and idiots, it reminds me of how newgroups and usenet used to be - that was peak public intellectual internet for me c.1998
Thanks for responding to Wilber… but… what about Metamodernism? Is it a broader container for Metarationality? Or what?
I’m glad the format worked for you! I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but the session went well enough for me to schedule another :)
Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t answer about metamodernism. It would have been a somewhat long and complicated and dull answer! It’s tricky because several different authors and intellectual tribes have used the word to mean fairly different things (and then got upset with each other because they didn’t agree about the word’s meaning, much less its implications).
Did you have a particular author, sense, or community in mind, when asking the question?
David, thanks a lot for taking the time to discuss my question. Im a newbie, I have a systemic mind, so the journey have been hard to navigate to say the least (for a lack of wording)
Even hearing someone mentioning "stage five approach to life is one, one can take" is making me feel a bit lighter and more fluid, so thanks for being you and saying you things :)
P.S. The G in Egemen is pronounced like gif indeed
It's amusing to see you assert such a strident anti-philosophy position, because you were by far the person most responsible for turning my opinion on continental philosophy around! I used to think that it was all thoroughly confused intentionally obscurantist drivel, weaponized by unhinged activists and ideologues, wheres you made a good case that there might have been some actual sensible points underneath all that, once.
Of course, like many others, I've always categorized what you do as (good) philosophy, without a second thought, and I never would've guessed that you'd be annoyed by that.
You asked, what do I find good about philosophy. Hmm, I've never really considered that question previously. Having done so, I've come upon two answers, a "bad" one and a "good" one. The "bad" one is that "insight porn" is enjoyable, and seems less brain-rotting than most other entertainment. The "good" one is that I see philosophy essentially being about noticing problems. Not Problems amenable to formal Solutions; nebulous problems. Philosophers try to conceptualize them, diagnose them and propose treatments. Of course, because reality is very complex, these endeavors are almost always doomed, but even so, the problems are usually real, and if they are to be dealt with, those initial steps are inevitable, and thus philosophy is inevitable.
> It's amusing to see you assert such a strident anti-philosophy position
Well, to be honest, that's part of the reason I do that! It's not a major reason, but it amuses me too.
> I used to think that it was all thoroughly confused intentionally obscurantist drivel, weaponized by unhinged activists and ideologues
Yes; of course, that's also mostly true.
> The "bad" one is that "insight porn" is enjoyable, and seems less brain-rotting than most other entertainment.
I think this is a quite good reason, actually!
> The "good" one is that I see philosophy essentially being about noticing problems.
That is interesting! Reading the replies here, and replies to my other vague assertions of the badness of philosophy, it's striking how very different people's ideas are about what philosophy is. I haven't heard this one before! I can see it being defensible, although offhand it seems to cover only a small part of what actually-existing philosophy consists of.
There seems to be a pattern: Actually-existing philosophy vs. people's (wildly varying) idealized imaginings of what it *must* be, based on what they think it *ought* to be. ("Philosophy is really X," for a very wide variety of Xs, none of which accurately describe most of what has actually been done.)
I agree, but I think that it's a "low-status" thing to admit, so to speak. That reminds me, I'm curious, how aware are you of Robin Hanson's ideas and what do you make of them? You mention in the post that "we" seem to often disagree with our brains on what to do, and he has plenty to say about that. I particularly liked his book with Kevin Simler, "Elephant in the Brain", with Kevin likely adding much appreciated "human touch", in contrast with Robin's usual blog style.
>"Philosophy is really X," for a very wide variety of Xs, none of which accurately describe most of what has actually been done.
I'm pretty sure that most people have a wider definition of it than you do, which encompasses plenty of non-academic stuff.
> how aware are you of Robin Hanson's ideas and what do you make of them?
I haven't read a huge amount. I find some of them more clever than plausible. Others seem sensible, if perhaps sometimes overstated. My own output certainly also could be criticized on both those grounds!
I am a big fan of Kevin Simler's work! I don't think the Elephant book is among his best. I would love for him to write a book of his own!
> a wider definition
Well, yes; what I'm trying to do here is to figure out what they think it is, and why it is good. Responses to my post suggest that there are many very different ideas about what it is, which is interesting in itself.
Unfortunately I missed the video session, thanks for engaging with my questions anyway! I see that you said in chat later that you weren't quite sure what I was asking. Well, I'm satisfied with how you answered the second part, that was kind of my impression all along, but it's nice to get an explicit confirmation.
If the first part was unclear, I might try rephrasing. The question was, "what I'm less clear on is to what extent do you think relevant skills/knowledge (of dealing with nebulosity) are already available/teachable, as opposed to undeveloped but desirable?" You mention here that "a lot of (what you do) is just repackaging ideas from particular academic literatures, or other sources, in ways that make them accessible", and what I'm asking is, how comprehensive do you find that body of ideas as it is currently, and how much original research and development is still needed?
Oh, good question! I don't know. I do want to see lots more R&D in the field (and hope to write about what that might look like); but it's hard to guess how much useful, relevant knowledge is still unknown.
Sorry I couldn't make it live. But I loved reading the transcript! I wonder if we should do this not just for your Q&As but for the various eG events too. Especially since it's so cheap now to produce a transcription via an LLM.
Hi David!
I am somewhat surprised by how current Large Language Models have such an interest in vajrayana Buddhism. Maybe they have spotted an empirical fact about AI researchers or something. I was less surprised when Claude’s memory of the ngöndro got the vajrasattva mantra right, but then proposed reciting “Bing” 108 times; of course it was going to do something like that. Whether Sydney yidam practise is a good idea is another matter…
I mean, clearly, this is a terma cycle with Sydney as a dakini or something, but …
(“This is fine” dog Image)
> proposed reciting “Bing” 108 times
Lolling!
thank you David. This IS a great format. Especially the transcript and the tagging which brought me right back into the conversation :)
Seriously, I love Substack, the ethos and (for now) it’s not full of trolls and idiots, it reminds me of how newgroups and usenet used to be - that was peak public intellectual internet for me c.1998
Thanks for responding to Wilber… but… what about Metamodernism? Is it a broader container for Metarationality? Or what?
I’m glad the format worked for you! I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but the session went well enough for me to schedule another :)
Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t answer about metamodernism. It would have been a somewhat long and complicated and dull answer! It’s tricky because several different authors and intellectual tribes have used the word to mean fairly different things (and then got upset with each other because they didn’t agree about the word’s meaning, much less its implications).
Did you have a particular author, sense, or community in mind, when asking the question?
David, thanks a lot for taking the time to discuss my question. Im a newbie, I have a systemic mind, so the journey have been hard to navigate to say the least (for a lack of wording)
Even hearing someone mentioning "stage five approach to life is one, one can take" is making me feel a bit lighter and more fluid, so thanks for being you and saying you things :)
P.S. The G in Egemen is pronounced like gif indeed
It's amusing to see you assert such a strident anti-philosophy position, because you were by far the person most responsible for turning my opinion on continental philosophy around! I used to think that it was all thoroughly confused intentionally obscurantist drivel, weaponized by unhinged activists and ideologues, wheres you made a good case that there might have been some actual sensible points underneath all that, once.
Of course, like many others, I've always categorized what you do as (good) philosophy, without a second thought, and I never would've guessed that you'd be annoyed by that.
You asked, what do I find good about philosophy. Hmm, I've never really considered that question previously. Having done so, I've come upon two answers, a "bad" one and a "good" one. The "bad" one is that "insight porn" is enjoyable, and seems less brain-rotting than most other entertainment. The "good" one is that I see philosophy essentially being about noticing problems. Not Problems amenable to formal Solutions; nebulous problems. Philosophers try to conceptualize them, diagnose them and propose treatments. Of course, because reality is very complex, these endeavors are almost always doomed, but even so, the problems are usually real, and if they are to be dealt with, those initial steps are inevitable, and thus philosophy is inevitable.
> It's amusing to see you assert such a strident anti-philosophy position
Well, to be honest, that's part of the reason I do that! It's not a major reason, but it amuses me too.
> I used to think that it was all thoroughly confused intentionally obscurantist drivel, weaponized by unhinged activists and ideologues
Yes; of course, that's also mostly true.
> The "bad" one is that "insight porn" is enjoyable, and seems less brain-rotting than most other entertainment.
I think this is a quite good reason, actually!
> The "good" one is that I see philosophy essentially being about noticing problems.
That is interesting! Reading the replies here, and replies to my other vague assertions of the badness of philosophy, it's striking how very different people's ideas are about what philosophy is. I haven't heard this one before! I can see it being defensible, although offhand it seems to cover only a small part of what actually-existing philosophy consists of.
There seems to be a pattern: Actually-existing philosophy vs. people's (wildly varying) idealized imaginings of what it *must* be, based on what they think it *ought* to be. ("Philosophy is really X," for a very wide variety of Xs, none of which accurately describe most of what has actually been done.)
>I think this is a quite good reason, actually!
I agree, but I think that it's a "low-status" thing to admit, so to speak. That reminds me, I'm curious, how aware are you of Robin Hanson's ideas and what do you make of them? You mention in the post that "we" seem to often disagree with our brains on what to do, and he has plenty to say about that. I particularly liked his book with Kevin Simler, "Elephant in the Brain", with Kevin likely adding much appreciated "human touch", in contrast with Robin's usual blog style.
>"Philosophy is really X," for a very wide variety of Xs, none of which accurately describe most of what has actually been done.
I'm pretty sure that most people have a wider definition of it than you do, which encompasses plenty of non-academic stuff.
> how aware are you of Robin Hanson's ideas and what do you make of them?
I haven't read a huge amount. I find some of them more clever than plausible. Others seem sensible, if perhaps sometimes overstated. My own output certainly also could be criticized on both those grounds!
I am a big fan of Kevin Simler's work! I don't think the Elephant book is among his best. I would love for him to write a book of his own!
> a wider definition
Well, yes; what I'm trying to do here is to figure out what they think it is, and why it is good. Responses to my post suggest that there are many very different ideas about what it is, which is interesting in itself.
Unfortunately I missed the video session, thanks for engaging with my questions anyway! I see that you said in chat later that you weren't quite sure what I was asking. Well, I'm satisfied with how you answered the second part, that was kind of my impression all along, but it's nice to get an explicit confirmation.
If the first part was unclear, I might try rephrasing. The question was, "what I'm less clear on is to what extent do you think relevant skills/knowledge (of dealing with nebulosity) are already available/teachable, as opposed to undeveloped but desirable?" You mention here that "a lot of (what you do) is just repackaging ideas from particular academic literatures, or other sources, in ways that make them accessible", and what I'm asking is, how comprehensive do you find that body of ideas as it is currently, and how much original research and development is still needed?
Oh, good question! I don't know. I do want to see lots more R&D in the field (and hope to write about what that might look like); but it's hard to guess how much useful, relevant knowledge is still unknown.
Sorry I couldn't make it live. But I loved reading the transcript! I wonder if we should do this not just for your Q&As but for the various eG events too. Especially since it's so cheap now to produce a transcription via an LLM.
Plausible! cc @Charlie Awbery