Vladimir_Nesov comments on Ben Goertzel: The Singularity Institute's Scary Idea (and Why I Don't Buy It) - Less Wrong

32 Post author: ciphergoth 30 October 2010 09:31AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 31 October 2010 01:53:35PM *  0 points [-]

As I said, explanations exist. Don't confuse with actual good understanding, which as far as I know nobody managed to attain yet.

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 31 October 2010 03:03:57PM 0 points [-]

I obviously assume "not too tiny".

Comment author: XiXiDu 31 October 2010 07:22:17PM 2 points [-]

I just noticed that there is a post over at Overcoming Bias talking about what I had in mind:

How much should small groups of people be allowed to risk the future of humanity with low probability? Not everyone agrees that the risk from alien contact is negligible: even a very low probability times a great harm can be relevant. … Should we be equally concerned with occultists trying to summon world-changing supernatural powers? There are probably many more people today who believe in supernatural entities than mere aliens, and that some interactions with them could be harmful. Yet there are no attempts at formulating risk scales for ritual magic. … Even if we were to analyse them rationally, we need to have an ‘ultraviolet cut-off’ for the infinite number of possible-yet-exceedingly-unlikely possibilities we could worry about. How to rationally decide on this cut-off seems problematic.

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 31 October 2010 06:25:07PM -2 points [-]

Again, I don't think this terminology is adequate.

Let's not dwell on terminology, where the denoted concepts remain much more urgently unclear.

Comment author: Perplexed 31 October 2010 06:50:24PM 2 points [-]

Would you please consider offering an opinion as to whether Porter or Xixidu is anywhere close to describing the denoted concept?