Thank you for this! I've been trying to understand various 'paths up the mountain' for several years now, and Hinduism was riding closer to the top of the list i need to read more about. Would you recommend "The Hindu Way of Life" as accessible to someone with a decent background in several world religions, who has a goal of getting a better understanding of Hinduism?
I've been trying to 'roll my own' system based upon my understandings of physics and computation, and i came up with what sounds like a very similar argument to this:
> " . a mighty forest with a thousand waving arms each fulfilling its function and all directed by the spirit of God.""
Here's some examples of my argument that this makes sense if there is some objective truth, but it's computationally intractable:
> When you think of all the different religions of the world – Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Jainism, Baháʼí and others – what do you think of? Do you think of a bunch of different ways of being wrong? Or do you see organisms in a mimetic ecosystem, each of which contributes to the diversity of human thinking?
> You will completely accept that the people around you will have different senses of what is Good, and that these differences are a feature, not a bug, because you are part of an ensemble of hundreds of trillions of different lossy models of the Good. You will care much more about the health of the ensemble than about the processor cycles devoted to your own personal model.
Mostly i just wanted to say, thanks for this substack!
Sandeep, thank you for doing this. As a Foreign born confused desi (not an ABCD), and of a generation older than you, it’s surprising how much I relate to your stories. This could help so many people out there!
Thanks for the wonderful write-up. This was very enlightening. I'm forwarding this to my teenage son who is also growing up in the US and tends to believe the world history and the negative portrayal of India that is being taught in schools here!
Thank you for this! I've been trying to understand various 'paths up the mountain' for several years now, and Hinduism was riding closer to the top of the list i need to read more about. Would you recommend "The Hindu Way of Life" as accessible to someone with a decent background in several world religions, who has a goal of getting a better understanding of Hinduism?
I've been trying to 'roll my own' system based upon my understandings of physics and computation, and i came up with what sounds like a very similar argument to this:
> " . a mighty forest with a thousand waving arms each fulfilling its function and all directed by the spirit of God.""
Here's some examples of my argument that this makes sense if there is some objective truth, but it's computationally intractable:
from https://apxhard.com/2020/11/27/a-moral-system-from-scientific-rationality/:
> When you think of all the different religions of the world – Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Jainism, Baháʼí and others – what do you think of? Do you think of a bunch of different ways of being wrong? Or do you see organisms in a mimetic ecosystem, each of which contributes to the diversity of human thinking?
from https://apxhard.com/2021/01/18/the-hypnotoad-pill/:
> You will completely accept that the people around you will have different senses of what is Good, and that these differences are a feature, not a bug, because you are part of an ensemble of hundreds of trillions of different lossy models of the Good. You will care much more about the health of the ensemble than about the processor cycles devoted to your own personal model.
Mostly i just wanted to say, thanks for this substack!
Excellent writing!
Sandeep, thank you for doing this. As a Foreign born confused desi (not an ABCD), and of a generation older than you, it’s surprising how much I relate to your stories. This could help so many people out there!
Thanks for the wonderful write-up. This was very enlightening. I'm forwarding this to my teenage son who is also growing up in the US and tends to believe the world history and the negative portrayal of India that is being taught in schools here!
A great read!