I read with excitement, confusion, and admiration.
Excitement because he writes about what matters most, but which is often passed over; and admiration because he reaches insights that seem accurate and unusual.
Confusion because our ideas often coincide, but we come to them differently. His main framework of thought is analytic philosophy, which I know reasonably well and don’t see the value in.
I’m less confused after reading his most recent post. His bio noted that he has spent over a year of his life on silent meditation retreat. I don’t remember his referring to that even obliquely in earlier posts. There’s a bit of explicit reference in this new one.
This makes me suspect that our similar takes on how-things-are come from weeks spent sitting on the floor in silence, watching as the sun rises and casts shadows that move, hour by hour, imperceptibly across the floor, until they’ve completed a circuit and it grows dark again.
In some way I barely understand, that results in seeing all things more clearly.
This essay might be read as gesturing in the direction of that clearer seeing—
and its implications for our future relationships with superintelligent AI.
