Zack_M_Davis comments on Open Thread: November 2009 - Less Wrong

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Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 15 November 2009 07:31:51PM *  1 point [-]

Just great. I had a song parody idea in the shower this morning, and now I'm afraid that I'm going to have to write a rationalist version of Fiddler on the Roof in order to justify it.

"Mapmaker, mapmaker,
Make me a map,
Text me a truth,
Fax me a fact ... "

Comment author: Alicorn 15 November 2009 07:49:29PM *  3 points [-]

If I were a Bayesian! Yabadibidibidibidibidibidibidum! All day long, I'd update (bi-di-bum), if I were a Bayes-i-an! I wouldn't have heuristics! Yabadibidibidibidibidibidibidum! If I were a little rational - eidlde-de-deidl Bayesian.

Absence of evidence, evidence of ab-sence! One is not the other, though - look out the door and (evidence of absence!) see the grass instead of snow!

Eliezer, we've waited all our lives for the Singularity. Wouldn't now be a good time for it to come? (We'll have to wait for it someplace else...)

Is this the prior I began from? Is this the reasoning at play?

Utility? (Util-what?) Utility... (Utility...) Well? (But our functions aren't luminous and our values do not scale! You're insane, you're confused, you're reading too much Mill!)

Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 15 November 2009 08:26:49PM 1 point [-]

A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Bayesiana, every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking her neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous? We stay because we've got something to protect. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: precision!

Precision, precision! Precision!
Precision, precision! Precision!

[...]

Who, day and night, must scramble for tenure
Do his calculations, write a dozen papers,
And who has the right of the lowest-level science
To have the final word of all?

The physicist, the physicist! Precision!

Comment author: Alicorn 15 November 2009 09:14:03PM *  0 points [-]

Who must know the way to make a proper argument,

A valid argument, a sound argument?

Who must root out fallacy to make an argument

So she can derive a true conclusion?

The logician, the logician! Precision!

Comment author: Jordan 15 November 2009 07:55:44PM 1 point [-]

For some reason the tune I had in my head while I was reading this switched from "If I Were Rich Man" to "Bohemian Rhapsody".

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