The Best Book Ever.

This is eyes opening book that should be required reading on every university in the world. I mean not just for students but professors too.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Long but worth it

I think I understood about 70% of the book but it was enough to make me feel like I have super powers.

For the most part, I found the book highly accessible, largely entertaining and extremely useful.

Would recommend it to anyone who wants to know how to use their mind more effectively.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

Subtly life-changing

some parts can get boring and repetitive but in other parts yudkowsky was upheaving my entire worldview with precision. very satisfying to listen to

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Clear, Important and Enjoyable

Yudkowsky rips through traditional ideas of rationality and clearly ties together Bayesian probability theory, cognitive psychology, epistemology, computer science, thermodynamics and quantum physics into an understandable and coherent picture of decision making systems.

Despite the length, I could not stop listening to this book. I've bought physical copies of the available books (RAZ:1 and RAZ:2) and I will likely buy more when they become available. The content of RAZ compares to Godel, Escher, Bach, although Yudkowsky doesn't have quite the artistic flair that Hofstadter has.

The serial-position effect from psychology says that memory recall for information dips in the middle of a list of points, so I will sneak my criticisms into this paragraph. RAZ is organised into a collection of 6 books which are created from essays written on LessWrong. As a result it can be a bit repetitive (Although it can sometimes help that important points are repeated). The thesis would seriously benefit from being condensed into 500-600 pages. I advise buying the Kindle edition alongside the audiobook and listening at 2x playback speed. I took notes and highlighted important points, and I plan to do my own small write-up of what I have learned.

I worry that for readers of a non-technical background Yudkowsky blows over topics in probability theory, computer science and physics too quickly. The insights might not be so readily available if you can't picture the processes that he discusses, but I think it's worth it for any non-techincal people to try to grapple with these ideas as much as they can. I can promise that if you put the effort in to learn some of this stuff you will be rewarded with a precise way to think about complex, interesting topics.

I can't emphasise enough just how clear-minded Yudkowsky is about the topic of rationality. He understands it deeply and doesn't hold back in showing how much he cares. Rationality isn't simply about "being right"; it's about thinking carefully to achieve the things that you want to achieve.

But don't be mistaken in thinking that this is a self-help book. The majority of the time is spent discussing how to make sense of reality. The corollary is that if you want to make changes in the world, hug reality tight, you can't navigate if your map doesn't reflect the territory, and learn to take joy in the merely real.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

Writing style is just bad

I was sold on the subject and a few good reviews. But after listening for 20 mins I gave up. instead of philosophical book I got a badly written sales book. Writing is so jumpy, imprecise, all over the place I just quit. Mind you I am sort of a person who would read a bad book just to determine how bad is it, but I just could not stomach this.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful