I always hate people like this. They remind me of "Life of Pi",
You should read Bertrand Russell on mysticism, they have oneness with the universe simplifying it like a guru saying: " All things are connected" (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDfxTj9TKYsYiWH5o/the-virtue...)
Isn't that a little agressive? His text did not say he was a guru. Also if you read it through it was just a call to try to engage in the more Dionysian mindset. I really don't see how that can be bad? He's not from an organisation, or selling anything.
Did you see how much reading he has done from a broad scope of fields? I would have respect and be interested in anyone who has read even half of what he has read. Why is parts of the new atheist crowd always so quick to violently dismiss people even if they are extremely well read?
I would never do the same. For example i disagree with Dennet on a lot of things but i still have respect. Also i am not religious.
If your knowledge of "spirit" stems from pop culture phenomenon like Life of Pi, and your entrance to philosophy is through the new-atheist / neo-enlightenment crowd of course you won't understand all of philosophy - just as if you angle your way in from any exclusive school of thought.
The whole point of his text is that if you don't actually read the Philoshophy, and do it with a broad scope, or do the actual ritual you won't "get" it. Just like you won't get meditation by reading about it as Sam Harris points out.
In my eyes Eliezer Yudkowsky is very clever, but outside a narrow field he is just wrong and perfect example of the militant unemphatic new-atheism crowd which are historically revisionist and ultimately chauvinistic in their approach to philosophy.
But that is just my opinion and you don't have to agree, *so i don't get the downvotes honestly.
I say start with your own curiosity instead of hopping on a bandwagon, doing that always leads you astray, that's at least how it has been for me, just as Eric writes - try to actually read the texts without too much framing, try to meditate, try to adopts different mindsets, try to have historical hyperstitional dialogues etc.
This means reading the cannon yourself, engaging in meta analysis from different angles, both leftwing, rightwing, positivistic and hermeneutic. Read history through different lenses. That's the whole point, to get actual eureka moments from new modes of thinking instead of labelling yourself a rationalist or whatever and then reading only second or third hand sources while constantly having an agenda in the back of your mind (we all do this).
We don't like organised religion, snake-oil salesmen or depak chopra either so the whole "lets put everything from neo-platonism to wishy washy pop astrology" into the same trash can and set it on fire is extremely saddening to many historians/philosophers.
This is very much in line with my conclusions so far. To me this is the real mind of a Hacker. Someone who experiments with everything on equal terms through metacognition and embodied experimentation instead of falling into either yuppie capitalist materialism or becoming a soul suckingly boring taxonomy specialist slave. (yes I'm partially talking to myself here)
To me this quote pretty much sums it all up:
"Rituals are programs written in the symbolic language of the unconscious mind. Religions are program libraries that share critical subroutines. And the Gods represent subystems in the wetware being programmed. All humans have potential access to pretty much the same major gods because our wetware design is 99% shared.
Only...that cold and mechanistic a way of thinking about the Gods simply will not work when you want to evoke one. For full understanding, the Apollonian/scientific mode is essential; for direct experience, the Dionysian/ecstatic mode is the only way to go."
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html