>How often have you done something and kept doing something and gone on with whatever you're doing on a basis of a sensory misperception? This is extremely rare. So there's this kind of paranoia that philosophy starts with, that takes this rare, odd experience and turns it into the basis for the whole thing, practically.
Hmm, perhaps philosophy is wrong about this particular mistake being common, but certainly there are some common mistakes that make us do bad philosophy, like falling into eternalism or nihilism, which has been common throughout history and the world, and, like, not only something that ancient Greeks happened to be guilty of and we westerners inherited it from them.
And it seems like your overarching project is to deal with those mistakes, whatever they are, or at least clearly expose them, and you seem kind of optimistic about that, but I don't understand why you're optimistic, have you ever explained this anywhere? Does this have something to do with insights from Buddhist practices?
Interesting question; I hadn't thought about that! I'm not sure "optimistic" is exactly the right word, if that means "predicting a good outcome."
As you say, everyone has always been somewhat confused, and (barring science fiction scenarios) presumably we always will be. And who knows how the future will go?
However, a lot of specific confusions, and even some quite general ones, have gotten sorted out over centuries. So positive change is possible.
And, the specific sorts of confusions I address, and the antidotes to them, are ones that are rarely pointed out. So, just doing that may help.
And, surprisingly many people have said that it *does* help them personally. So, if gradually the antidotes are recognized more broadly, we can all be confused less often and about fewer things!
Right, we do seem to become less confused about stuff over time, but 'centuries' seems like the right timeframe for this sort of thing. My impression, though, was that you're sort of promising a substantial improvement over status quo in terms of de-confusion, through completion of your big projects. Is this a fair impression, or a misunderstanding on my part?
I'm not promising anything! Or even predicting anything.
One consideration, when choosing projects, is the tradeoff between the likelihood of success and the value of success. I tend toward low probability with high potential value. Few people are able to take that risk. I have had enough success that I don't need to prove anything, so I can attempt projects that will probably fail. Projects to change fundamental ways we think are in that category! It seems like the most useful thing I can do, because few people have the opportunity to work on it, so there may be low-hanging fruit that has gone unnoticed and unpicked.
Some changes in fundamental ways of thinking take centuries, but others can go quite quickly. The European Enlightenment made a lot of progress in a small number of decades. The 1960s-70s "revolution in consciousness" had large, widespread effects within just a few years. In general, such things seem to go ever-faster.
At any rate, significant change within our lifetimes seems possible. Whether those changes will be for good or ill (or more likely, some of each) is hard to predict.
Hey! Trigonometry is great! When I discovered how elegantly geometry can be converted into algebra, it was one of the most vivid "appreciation of formal structures" moments for me. But I do agree that basic probability is much more practically important in the modern world, and pretty much everybody is profoundly ignorant of it.
The AI-produced text is not terrible. It's readable and contains many of the juicy mind-gasms that I get to grasp which originate from your mind when you know something very specific, like "this is this way, and this happened because of x, so that means this." This stuff that comes from your meandering thought process while you're talking about questions in an open-ended way and allowed to go on tangents is very interesting.
People's names are misspelled, but I can often recognize them from previously seeing them in Circle. That's not a big deal on its own.
On the web, there's a Transcript button at the right end of the line of buttons beginning with the heart/like one, under the title and author avatar. It's not very visible!
I can't find a way to access the transcript in the app. There probably is one? But it seems to be well-hidden!
>How often have you done something and kept doing something and gone on with whatever you're doing on a basis of a sensory misperception? This is extremely rare. So there's this kind of paranoia that philosophy starts with, that takes this rare, odd experience and turns it into the basis for the whole thing, practically.
Hmm, perhaps philosophy is wrong about this particular mistake being common, but certainly there are some common mistakes that make us do bad philosophy, like falling into eternalism or nihilism, which has been common throughout history and the world, and, like, not only something that ancient Greeks happened to be guilty of and we westerners inherited it from them.
And it seems like your overarching project is to deal with those mistakes, whatever they are, or at least clearly expose them, and you seem kind of optimistic about that, but I don't understand why you're optimistic, have you ever explained this anywhere? Does this have something to do with insights from Buddhist practices?
> I don't understand why you're optimistic
Interesting question; I hadn't thought about that! I'm not sure "optimistic" is exactly the right word, if that means "predicting a good outcome."
As you say, everyone has always been somewhat confused, and (barring science fiction scenarios) presumably we always will be. And who knows how the future will go?
However, a lot of specific confusions, and even some quite general ones, have gotten sorted out over centuries. So positive change is possible.
And, the specific sorts of confusions I address, and the antidotes to them, are ones that are rarely pointed out. So, just doing that may help.
And, surprisingly many people have said that it *does* help them personally. So, if gradually the antidotes are recognized more broadly, we can all be confused less often and about fewer things!
Right, we do seem to become less confused about stuff over time, but 'centuries' seems like the right timeframe for this sort of thing. My impression, though, was that you're sort of promising a substantial improvement over status quo in terms of de-confusion, through completion of your big projects. Is this a fair impression, or a misunderstanding on my part?
I'm not promising anything! Or even predicting anything.
One consideration, when choosing projects, is the tradeoff between the likelihood of success and the value of success. I tend toward low probability with high potential value. Few people are able to take that risk. I have had enough success that I don't need to prove anything, so I can attempt projects that will probably fail. Projects to change fundamental ways we think are in that category! It seems like the most useful thing I can do, because few people have the opportunity to work on it, so there may be low-hanging fruit that has gone unnoticed and unpicked.
Some changes in fundamental ways of thinking take centuries, but others can go quite quickly. The European Enlightenment made a lot of progress in a small number of decades. The 1960s-70s "revolution in consciousness" had large, widespread effects within just a few years. In general, such things seem to go ever-faster.
At any rate, significant change within our lifetimes seems possible. Whether those changes will be for good or ill (or more likely, some of each) is hard to predict.
Hey! Trigonometry is great! When I discovered how elegantly geometry can be converted into algebra, it was one of the most vivid "appreciation of formal structures" moments for me. But I do agree that basic probability is much more practically important in the modern world, and pretty much everybody is profoundly ignorant of it.
Ok, I found it and I read it.
The AI-produced text is not terrible. It's readable and contains many of the juicy mind-gasms that I get to grasp which originate from your mind when you know something very specific, like "this is this way, and this happened because of x, so that means this." This stuff that comes from your meandering thought process while you're talking about questions in an open-ended way and allowed to go on tangents is very interesting.
People's names are misspelled, but I can often recognize them from previously seeing them in Circle. That's not a big deal on its own.
Where is the transcript of this?
On the web, there's a Transcript button at the right end of the line of buttons beginning with the heart/like one, under the title and author avatar. It's not very visible!
I can't find a way to access the transcript in the app. There probably is one? But it seems to be well-hidden!
Ah, yeah. I was using the app. I'll have to access it on the web.