alt Hacker NewsI dunno if it's so wild, but maybe I'm zooming out way too much. The example that came to my mind was "mathematics", something that doesn't "exists" but we "see" it everywhere and humanity got massively improved thanks to it. Electricity would be another example :) I guess how wild the claim is depends on how charitable you read it.
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imtringued • today at 10:24 AM
People don't see math or electricity with their eyes and it is simultaneously hard to argue that their physical counterpart doesn't exist. Your examples are things you can't see but exist.
Your analogy is exactly backwards.
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Right, and I think any serious civilizational benefit of drugs in the sub-hallucinatory regime is at least unproven, and benefit in the hallucinatory regime doesn't exist. That's sorta what I mean: "where big, false; where true, not big."