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I personally believe we live within a historiographical paradigm that blindspots large fundamental parts of intellectual history because it has been deemed to b

I personally believe we live within a historiographical paradigm that blindspots large fundamental parts of intellectual history because it has been deemed to be too "philosophical" or "religious" unfortunately therefore ignoring the undercurrents or foundations of math and science which are very much "alchemical", "esoteric", "spiritual" or straight up weird. Today's list based interfacing with the internet, the nature of bite sized information surfing, the resulting fuzzy attention, and the property-based worldview makes it very difficult to transcend this paradigm of mechanical / single-threaded cognition without crossing some pretty deep and frightening oceans so to speak. Most importantly _every one_ of the great forefathers of thought were entangled in philosophical and mystical thinking which were not _only_ "silly magical endeavours" only worthy of X century but actually central to their worldview and absolutely central to the development of "how the western world is" today. Also most of them were polymaths, and so much more intelligent and broad scoped than what we give them credit for. That we see pop cultural icons like Neil Degrasse Tyson tweet that Philosophy is not a real science and is basically "stupid" is telling and a monumental crime against the history of "thought" in my eyes. Anyway I highly recommend the very scientific and very well made podcast the "Secret History Of Western Esotericism" for a deep dive into the genealogy of all of western thought that shakes things up a bit while giving a nice broad overview of philosophy from before the greeks until today : https://shwep.net https://shwep.net As a huge history/philosophy/math buff myself I think the world is in serious need of new historical paradigm that acknowledges that the borders between what we call Math/Philosophy/Science/Religion/Language is way more fluid than what we currently have written in our history books, and that such a reconnection to the historical roots of philosophy would be like reattaching humanity's umbilical cord after trying to separate our selfs too early from both nature and history somewhere after the enlightenment. I have struggled a bit with what I would call "coding brain" which makes it harder for me to appreciate abstract poetry or the improvisational character of social relations after a whole day of deep coding or deep math. Think Julian Jaynes crazy theories, something to do with brainwaves or left and right halves. I really have no idea why you get as locked in as you do, it's probably an evolutionary mechanism so you don't go crazy, something that shamans, philosophers and mathematicians have in common. If you force yourself (which almost no one does) to read through great poetry for a whole day, your reality tunnel begins to change from box-like to more fluid synchronistic, associative etc. Then take it one step further and begin to read "difficult" philosophy like Heidegger, Deleuze, or Kant, - really contemplate what they are saying while you read slowly (even less people do this) - and I promise you a whole new world will open up. Also try to develop visual / spatial thinking like Euclid to Einstein also employed. New modes of thinking get unlocked to use a modern methaphor. Sounds a bit crazy, but anyway that's where philosophy, math, poetry and thinking in general get real interesting!

teddyh 8y ago
You might be interested in Dancing With The Gods by Eric S. Raymond: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html
- v_x_zebert 8y ago
  Thank you very much, what an interesting man! This is very much in line with my conclusions so far. To me this is the real mind of a Hacker. Someone who experiments with everything on equal terms through metacognition and embodied experimentation instead of falling into either yuppie capitalist materialism or becoming a soul suckingly boring taxonomy specialist slave. (yes I'm partially talking to myself here) To me this quote pretty much sums it all up: "Rituals are programs written in the symbolic language of the unconscious mind. Religions are program libraries that share critical subroutines. And the Gods represent subystems in the wetware being programmed. All humans have potential access to pretty much the same major gods because our wetware design is 99% shared. Only...that cold and mechanistic a way of thinking about the Gods simply will not work when you want to evoke one. For full understanding, the Apollonian/scientific mode is essential; for direct experience, the Dionysian/ecstatic mode is the only way to go."
- lihaciudaniel 8y ago
  I always hate people like this. They remind me of "Life of Pi", You should read Bertrand Russell on mysticism, they have oneness with the universe simplifying it like a guru saying: " All things are connected" (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDfxTj9TKYsYiWH5o/the-virtue-of-narrowness https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDfxTj9TKYsYiWH5o/the-virtue...)
  - kossTKR 8y ago
    Isn't that a little agressive? His text did not say he was a guru. Also if you read it through it was just a call to try to engage in the more Dionysian mindset. I really don't see how that can be bad? He's not from an organisation, or selling anything. Did you see how much reading he has done from a broad scope of fields? I would have respect and be interested in anyone who has read even half of what he has read. Why is parts of the new atheist crowd always so quick to violently dismiss people even if they are extremely well read? I would never do the same. For example i disagree with Dennet on a lot of things but i still have respect. Also i am not religious. If your knowledge of "spirit" stems from pop culture phenomenon like Life of Pi, and your entrance to philosophy is through the new-atheist / neo-enlightenment crowd of course you won't understand all of philosophy - just as if you angle your way in from any exclusive school of thought. The whole point of his text is that if you don't actually read the Philoshophy, and do it with a broad scope, or do the actual ritual you won't "get" it. Just like you won't get meditation by reading about it as Sam Harris points out. In my eyes Eliezer Yudkowsky is very clever, but outside a narrow field he is just wrong and perfect example of the militant unemphatic new-atheism crowd which are historically revisionist and ultimately chauvinistic in their approach to philosophy. But that is just my opinion and you don't have to agree, *so i don't get the downvotes honestly. This is also why many actual philosophers agree that his blog is a bit too sophistic: (although i agree he has some very interesting and well written posts! ) https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/425h9e/why_is_there_such_hate_for_less_wrong_in_reddits/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/425h9e/why_i... I say start with your own curiosity instead of hopping on a bandwagon, doing that always leads you astray, that's at least how it has been for me, just as Eric writes - try to actually read the texts without too much framing, try to meditate, try to adopts different mindsets, try to have historical hyperstitional dialogues etc. This means reading the cannon yourself, engaging in meta analysis from different angles, both leftwing, rightwing, positivistic and hermeneutic. Read history through different lenses. That's the whole point, to get actual eureka moments from new modes of thinking instead of labelling yourself a rationalist or whatever and then reading only second or third hand sources while constantly having an agenda in the back of your mind (we all do this). We don't like organised religion, snake-oil salesmen or depak chopra either so the whole "lets put everything from neo-platonism to wishy washy pop astrology" into the same trash can and set it on fire is extremely saddening to many historians/philosophers.

teddyh 8y ago

You might be interested in Dancing With The Gods by Eric S. Raymond: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html

v_x_zebert 8y ago
Thank you very much, what an interesting man! This is very much in line with my conclusions so far. To me this is the real mind of a Hacker. Someone who experiments with everything on equal terms through metacognition and embodied experimentation instead of falling into either yuppie capitalist materialism or becoming a soul suckingly boring taxonomy specialist slave. (yes I'm partially talking to myself here) To me this quote pretty much sums it all up: "Rituals are programs written in the symbolic language of the unconscious mind. Religions are program libraries that share critical subroutines. And the Gods represent subystems in the wetware being programmed. All humans have potential access to pretty much the same major gods because our wetware design is 99% shared. Only...that cold and mechanistic a way of thinking about the Gods simply will not work when you want to evoke one. For full understanding, the Apollonian/scientific mode is essential; for direct experience, the Dionysian/ecstatic mode is the only way to go."
lihaciudaniel 8y ago
I always hate people like this. They remind me of "Life of Pi", You should read Bertrand Russell on mysticism, they have oneness with the universe simplifying it like a guru saying: " All things are connected" (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDfxTj9TKYsYiWH5o/the-virtue-of-narrowness https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDfxTj9TKYsYiWH5o/the-virtue...)
- kossTKR 8y ago
  Isn't that a little agressive? His text did not say he was a guru. Also if you read it through it was just a call to try to engage in the more Dionysian mindset. I really don't see how that can be bad? He's not from an organisation, or selling anything. Did you see how much reading he has done from a broad scope of fields? I would have respect and be interested in anyone who has read even half of what he has read. Why is parts of the new atheist crowd always so quick to violently dismiss people even if they are extremely well read? I would never do the same. For example i disagree with Dennet on a lot of things but i still have respect. Also i am not religious. If your knowledge of "spirit" stems from pop culture phenomenon like Life of Pi, and your entrance to philosophy is through the new-atheist / neo-enlightenment crowd of course you won't understand all of philosophy - just as if you angle your way in from any exclusive school of thought. The whole point of his text is that if you don't actually read the Philoshophy, and do it with a broad scope, or do the actual ritual you won't "get" it. Just like you won't get meditation by reading about it as Sam Harris points out. In my eyes Eliezer Yudkowsky is very clever, but outside a narrow field he is just wrong and perfect example of the militant unemphatic new-atheism crowd which are historically revisionist and ultimately chauvinistic in their approach to philosophy. But that is just my opinion and you don't have to agree, *so i don't get the downvotes honestly. This is also why many actual philosophers agree that his blog is a bit too sophistic: (although i agree he has some very interesting and well written posts! ) https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/425h9e/why_is_there_such_hate_for_less_wrong_in_reddits/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/425h9e/why_i... I say start with your own curiosity instead of hopping on a bandwagon, doing that always leads you astray, that's at least how it has been for me, just as Eric writes - try to actually read the texts without too much framing, try to meditate, try to adopts different mindsets, try to have historical hyperstitional dialogues etc. This means reading the cannon yourself, engaging in meta analysis from different angles, both leftwing, rightwing, positivistic and hermeneutic. Read history through different lenses. That's the whole point, to get actual eureka moments from new modes of thinking instead of labelling yourself a rationalist or whatever and then reading only second or third hand sources while constantly having an agenda in the back of your mind (we all do this). We don't like organised religion, snake-oil salesmen or depak chopra either so the whole "lets put everything from neo-platonism to wishy washy pop astrology" into the same trash can and set it on fire is extremely saddening to many historians/philosophers.