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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Arlyn Culwick‏ @arlynculwick Jun 11
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      Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr

      Arlyn Culwick Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      There's a beautiful ethical corrollary to this: https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1270887688820813824?s=19 … Doing science is like "joint attention," the process by which humans become aware of other people's perspectives *by* focusing on the same object. By it, we are led out of solipsism into other-awareness.

      Arlyn Culwick added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      So growing solipsism, in the context of a ego being shrunk by an instrumental connection with reality is a sign of a *growing* scientific sensibility. (not a necessary result of "doing STEM"... in fact shallow talent can grow the ego in a narrow prowess/procedural identity sense)
      Show this thread
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    2. Arlyn Culwick‏ @arlynculwick Jun 11
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      Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr

      In joint attention, we gain awareness of another person's perspective through focus on an object. In science, we gain awareness of another object by focusing on the signs by which we experience the object. Both lead us out of solipsism by checking experience against a mediator.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    3. Arlyn Culwick‏ @arlynculwick Jun 11
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      Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr

      As joint attention is the servant of other-awareness, science is the servant of being-awareness. Both humble and strengthen us. Both keep us from self-worship (that is, unless we get confused and start worshipping science or joint attention!) Worship the deity, not the priest.

      1 reply 1 retweet 0 likes
    4. Arlyn Culwick‏ @arlynculwick Jun 11
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      Replying to @arlynculwick @vgr

      Arlyn Culwick Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      I love how so often we have to pursue a question down to the farthest depths before finding real value. Reality doesn't come with a how-to. It's almost like it's set up to favour worshippers and true lovers. No one else has the will to go deep enough.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1270880712338497536?s=19 …

      Arlyn Culwick added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      This particular example is particularly powerful for me. Spent my PhD years working on interferometric space telescopes for exosolar terrestrial planet detection. The stack of assumptions underlying the instrumentation is *incredibly* deep.
      Show this thread
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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      Replying to @arlynculwick

      Interesting counter but no. I would not describe my position as moderate realism. I’m merely moderately polite towards prevailing conventions of consensus realism. My definition of solipsism is a more robust one: I cannot be sure of the nature of anything outside my in mind.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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      “Hail being” is where *you* land pursuing this line of development, but it’s not the only place to land. What you’re calling other awareness and joint attention are still bracketed for me with not-my-mind doubt and subject to something closer to solipsism and Cartesian skepticism

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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      Solipsism isn’t “driving” things. It’s the least unstable core at the core of flux. Your attempt to locate a “cause” for scientific sensibility in a particular place in the western tradition (second scholasticism over cartesianism) suggests we are not talking about the same thing

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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      To me “STEM” is merely a historically specific chapter in the evolution of being-and-world that relates the least-unstable core (provisionally but not absolutely labeled me-being in time) to the most-unstable.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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      Replying to @vgr @arlynculwick

      It is not the sort of thing that can be “caused” by behaviors assumed of very strong entities you label “minds” (plural) doing historically situated philosophy. It’s like saying the bottom of a valley (of doubt) “causes” slopes rising up around it. No it’s all one doubt landscape

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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      “Being” may be the least unstable thread in the being-and-world flux but it is still incredibly shaky ground. Solipsism is best understood as staying attached to it anyway. Other minds are no more than dubious claims of the existence of other valleys that are like “me”.

      2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 11
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      Replying to @vgr @arlynculwick

      This is much clearer in the eastern tradition, where the conflicts between the various versions of advaita and dvaara, as well as Buddhist voidism, arose out of different ways of trying to resolve this. It is notable that the doctrine of Maya is a specific consequence of trying.

      8:19 AM - 11 Jun 2020
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      • Arlyn Culwick
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