Final exams are almost over, and I can’t seem to focus on studying for my last final exam, fuck. Just wanted to highlight something interesting I saw on Twitter

rationalists have a hammer called “truth seeking”, which is often really useful for hitting nails shaped like claims or beliefs. this leads them to see things like religion, astrology, tarot, etc as sets of beliefs, when they are (imo) better understood as activities

🧵

— naia (@nbouscal) December 11, 2023

All I’m going to say is that I’ve learned that I can actually just enjoy time with friends who don’t care at all about truth seeking or being rational and be less lonely in college by actively restructuring my waking hours to pursue those shared group bonding experiences when they’re around and then spend the alone hours reading thoughts of random people on the internet and letting the mind wander into that kind of exploratory thought space. You can pursue the truth and also live with active agents who conduct activities that don’t exactly seem rational because as long as you’re having fun with doing silly things that don’t necessarily obstruct your path to truth seeking, it’s merely a side quest, why should you care about ruining their exploratory fun filled with irrationalities. Stupid fun is fun and doesn’t always get in the way of your “main quest” of truth seeking, if you want to view things like that.

However, I think this only works with people who are able to turn off / pause certain parts of their minds on will and then turn those parts back on / resume them in other more convenient times in which you will be successful in pursuing your own individual intellectual desires vs. the intellectual or non-intellectual desires of the friend group dynamic. If you are unable to turn off your drive to seek the truth at all times at the expense of breaking social dynamics and stepping on other people’s toes who are litearlly not purposefully obstructing your path to truth seeking, then that’s just being a prude; you can just not hang out with them or learn how to engage other parts of yourself.