I thought I'd answer this one real quick, before anyone asks. Point 1: Wrong question. Try this instead: how do you teach ethics to AI? Well, how do you teach ethics to anything? What do we know that we teach ethics to? Children. We teach ethics to children. How do we teach ethics to children? …
When people talk about the problem of suffering, they usually mean this: -) God is good.-) God created the world.-) There is suffering in the world.-) Suffering is bad.--) Problem! How can a good God create bad things? Or something like that. To be frank, I find this question so misguided I find it difficult …
[3000 words] I propose we think of our relationships in the following way. Every interaction can be boiled down to two elements: radiating softly outward like a blossom, or retracting back while leaving behind one's sharpest points, like a clam or a thorn. I would say that this is the easiest way to see beyond …
[1000 words] It depends on the time-scale we're looking at. In the short term, I want to keep writing this. In the little-bit-longer term, I want various specific things. In my lifetime, I want the usual generalities. I want to experience as much joy as possible, and for the pain to at least be as …
[1000 words] Hey. David. David. David. David. David. David. David. David. David. David. David. David. Davd. David. David. What? I wanna get high. OK. So let's get high. Mhm. Come on David. If we can't smoke weed, let's go buy some beer, and get drunk. If not, let's just stop doing this complicated stuff and …
[15000 words] [I know. I'm sorry. It's not as long as it sounds.] This essay proceeds in two parts. In the first, I'll try and explain what the self is. In the second, I'll draw out a few conclusions about how that would affect our lives. It might be a little weird at points, but …
I was at the house of some friends of mine, across town. It was an extremely beautiful, sunny Spring day. We were sitting in the garden, drinking, listening to music... And then the acid hit, so to speak. I finally snapped out of it, woke up -- realized what was going on. The world was …
This is the third in a series of blog posts about the theory and practice of Vipassana (Insight Meditation), as specifically taught by SN Goenka. In the first post, I tried to laid out the basic nature of the method, and its benefits, as best I could. In the second, I tried to enumerate and …
Continue reading Why it’s fine that Vipassana is kinda culty
In my previous post, I described the content of one of Goenka's 10-day "Vipassana" meditation courses, and offered a quick explanation about what goes on there. I ended with an observation that, in addition to its core content, the courses also had some drawbacks. What I meant by this is, essentially: In addition to training …
I recently got back from one of those 10-day meditation courses in the Goenka tradition of the Vipassana movement. And there are three things I want to say about it -- each in its own blog post. Basically, think of the 10-day course like an hour-long radio programme. You see, his whole shtick is one …
David Leon 