[extropy-chat] Re: John Wright Finds God

[Dirk Bruere]

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
>>
>> Is it "overwhelming evidence" or overwhelming Experience of Meaning, 
>> Love, Truth, Power, Knowing?    Why this over-the-top Experience but 
>> without filling in the thought and reason and questions fully?   Why 
>> this occasional perfect spiritual storm but not solid understanding?  
>> Why would the Divine arrange things like this?   Why have the 
>> purported Truth go gamboling among us to occasionally knock one of us 
>> who seek it or not flat on our ass?    Why not share this awesome 
>> truth of the way-it-really-is across the spectrum with all human 
>> beings?   Why this capricious hide-and-seek and cosmic peek-a-boo?
>>
>> This looks deeply suspicious to me.   And yet please understand that 
>> I to this day feel like a lout to say so after the Depth of what I 
>> have experienced.
>
>
> Samantha, you are an inspiration to rationalists.
>
> I considered John Wright's dilemma, not quite in the form he posed.  I 
> asked myself:  "If I was overpowered by religious ecstasy, would my 
> rationality survive?  Am I that strong?"  I've previously considered 
> this question, in the form of wondering whether any conceivable 
> discipline could enable a trained rationalist to defeat schizophrenia. 
> Religious ecstasy is a lesser test.
>
> If my future self had an overpowering religious experience, one 
> obvious reaction of my future self might be, "Hm, I must be having a 
> temporal lobe mini-seizure."  But that feels to me like cheating; what 
> if I hadn't studied neurology?  I thought of arguments that my 
> hypothetical slightly more ignorant future self might consider:
>
I had such thoughts after I experienced something like this.
The answer I have come up with is straightforward.
Don't put it into a cultural context (or if you do, recognise that it is 
scaffolding that you are deliberately putting in place there). Second, 
validity of insight is measured by utility.

Otherwise, as the Zen saying goes, continue to cut wood and carry water.

-- 
Dirk

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