[ExI] A science-religious experience

[efc at disroot.org]

On Sun, 23 Feb 2025, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat wrote:

> Daniel said:
> > I fully acknowledge that science cannot tell us about the values we 
> should choose. But I do not acknowledge that those values have to be 
> belief. For me they can be ideas, principles, and are open to revision 
> or change, given evidence, new states in the world etc. Which are only 
> some of the things that set them apart from belief for me.
>
> Bingo.
> I'm in favour of getting  rid of the word 'belief'. It does us no 
> favours, and leads to confusion and miscommunication.

Agreed!

> A long time ago, I came up with an idea called 'relativity of 
> importance', which has basically shaped my values ever since. Simple 
> idea, I'm sure many others have had it too. Ask yourself "what's the 
> most important thing you can think of?", then "Is there anything more 
> important to you than that?", and keep asking that question until you 
> come to a stop.
> Then you have a list, in order, of the things that are important to you. 
> Then behave in accordance with it.

Yes, I do something similar, but I call it goal setting and prioritization. I
think many humans do this consciously or sub-consciously when setting goals or
working through ethical dilemmas.

> In my opinion, religion doesn't even belong in the realm of philosophy, 
> but rather psychology (or even psychiatry). Including religion in 
> discussions about philosophy, ethics, etc., is basically equivalent to 
> including homoeopathy in discussions about medicine, astrology in 
> discussions about astronomy, alchemy in discussions about chemisty, etc. 
> Religion is probably the biggest con trick in all of history.

See my previous post about positive psychology and transpersonal psychology. I
think the study of religion, and application of what it can teach us, has a nice
home in those two branches of psychology.

> Daniel asked:
> > What philosophers (if any) inspire you? It would be interesting to 
> hear if I missed any good ones out there. =)
>
> In general, philosophers don't inspire me at all, but there are some who

Oh, that was unexpected! But maybe you are more inspired by scientists?

> have had what seem like good ideas, and many that have what seem like 
> very bad ones, but most, to my mind, just seem terminally confused, or 
> at least confusing.

Ah, maybe inspire was too strong a word.

> Bacon, Hume, Locke, Spooner (Lysander, not Archibald!, & particularly 
> for 'Vices Are Not Crimes'), all had some good ideas (as well as some 
> bad ones, especially Bacon), and of contemporary philosophers, I only

Yes, there definitely are some ninjas in that group!

> rate one, Dennett, although even he is dead now.

Yes... Dennett was quite a jedi master!

> There are other people who, while not describing themselves as 
> philosophers for the most part, do have ideas that are philosophically 
> important, and that I agree with: Hitchens, Dawkins (I once desribed him 
> as "the most sensible bloke on the planet"), Harris, Moravec. Minsky, 
> Kurzweil, Korzybski, Hofsdtater, Wiley (Keith Wiley, of 'A Taxonomy and 
> Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading' fame, ISBN 9780692279847 - very highly 
> recommended), Max More, Anders Sandberg, Aubrey de Grey.

I haven't actually read Dawkins. I think, based on what I have heard, that I
would agree with a lot he says.

> Ok, but why 'bet'? I think that 'something you think is true' would be 
> better. 'Something you think is probably true' is better still.

I like the concept of degrees of belief. Another interesting question is if you
can ever be right in claiming 0 and 1 in terms of probability?