Assuming the weather is nice (it usually is, even if it might be a little on the cold side this time of year), it's quite easy to just meet in a park, no prep needed. Just put up a sign or flag or something so people can find the spot. Dolores Park is quite popular for this purpose, but almost any public park works.
Maybe a bit late here, but I would come to a meetup in SF on Jan. 15 if it's happening! And a friend of mine said they'd come too so that's +2 total if that makes a difference.
Thanks! I decided not to go ahead with this. Sorry about that! Thank you for your interest. I expect I'll be back in the area again occasionally, so there will be other opportunities then.
>...how rationality actually works, and why. It works because of meaninglessness. That's the trick! It's the decontextualization and the stripping of purpose. You take whatever the real world thing is and you turn it into an equation, which is inherently meaningless.
I understand that an elevator pitch isn't supposed to be rigorous, but this description doesn't seem quite right. It's plausible that this is a trick relevant to "how" rationality works, but on the "why" question is just passes the buck. Why should meaningless equations have any bearing on what we actually care about?
In short, it works because *we make* it work. We coerce some bit of the world into more-or-less acting like the equation says it should.
Of course, this is usually difficult and often impossible. Then a question is "why is it possible to do this at all," and the answer is "there is no single universal answer to that; we *make* rationality work in lots of different ways, which work for different understandable reasons in different cases." The summary at that URL briefly describes some of them.
This is a pragmatic engineering attitude to rationality. It contrasts with the metaphysical attitude of theoretical physics: "we *discover* Laws that are really, truly, metaphysically true of True Reality." That attitude was powerfully generative for a couple centuries. However, it mostly doesn't work except in fundamental physics, and since that field hit a wall half a century ago, it maybe doesn't work even there.
Right, I'm aware of your position, I was just criticizing that particular paragraph. I also disagree somewhat about metaphysics, but agree with your meta-anti-philosophical position that arguments about metaphysics are pointless. And also agree, of course, that powerfully generative attitudes are welcome whatever their provenance...
I would attempt to come to a January 15th “everything except Vajrayana" meetup in SF. I could ask around about venues, but it would probably help to have a guess as to necessary capacity.
Maybe a reasonable estimate of capacity will emerge soon … I haven’t a clue. There’s almost 5,000 subscribers to this substack, and 93% appear to live in the Bay Area, but I don’t think anyone will want an informal gathering of 4,650 attendees … nobody would show up for that because it’d be way too many people
Assuming the weather is nice (it usually is, even if it might be a little on the cold side this time of year), it's quite easy to just meet in a park, no prep needed. Just put up a sign or flag or something so people can find the spot. Dolores Park is quite popular for this purpose, but almost any public park works.
Maybe a bit late here, but I would come to a meetup in SF on Jan. 15 if it's happening! And a friend of mine said they'd come too so that's +2 total if that makes a difference.
Thanks! I decided not to go ahead with this. Sorry about that! Thank you for your interest. I expect I'll be back in the area again occasionally, so there will be other opportunities then.
Thanks for the reply. I hope we can do it sometime in the future!
I'd greatly enjoy the Vajrayana complement conversation in SF
The Mission has great cheap ethnic restaurants
Dolores Park day time is very good too
>...how rationality actually works, and why. It works because of meaninglessness. That's the trick! It's the decontextualization and the stripping of purpose. You take whatever the real world thing is and you turn it into an equation, which is inherently meaningless.
I understand that an elevator pitch isn't supposed to be rigorous, but this description doesn't seem quite right. It's plausible that this is a trick relevant to "how" rationality works, but on the "why" question is just passes the buck. Why should meaningless equations have any bearing on what we actually care about?
> Why should meaningless equations have any bearing on what we actually care about?
Right, yes, this was just explaining why Book Three is titled "Wielding the Power of Meaninglessness."
There's a summary explanation of "why it works" at https://metarationality.com/rationality#work
In short, it works because *we make* it work. We coerce some bit of the world into more-or-less acting like the equation says it should.
Of course, this is usually difficult and often impossible. Then a question is "why is it possible to do this at all," and the answer is "there is no single universal answer to that; we *make* rationality work in lots of different ways, which work for different understandable reasons in different cases." The summary at that URL briefly describes some of them.
This is a pragmatic engineering attitude to rationality. It contrasts with the metaphysical attitude of theoretical physics: "we *discover* Laws that are really, truly, metaphysically true of True Reality." That attitude was powerfully generative for a couple centuries. However, it mostly doesn't work except in fundamental physics, and since that field hit a wall half a century ago, it maybe doesn't work even there.
Right, I'm aware of your position, I was just criticizing that particular paragraph. I also disagree somewhat about metaphysics, but agree with your meta-anti-philosophical position that arguments about metaphysics are pointless. And also agree, of course, that powerfully generative attitudes are welcome whatever their provenance...
I would attempt to come to a January 15th “everything except Vajrayana" meetup in SF. I could ask around about venues, but it would probably help to have a guess as to necessary capacity.
Thank you very much!
Maybe a reasonable estimate of capacity will emerge soon … I haven’t a clue. There’s almost 5,000 subscribers to this substack, and 93% appear to live in the Bay Area, but I don’t think anyone will want an informal gathering of 4,650 attendees … nobody would show up for that because it’d be way too many people