thomblake comments on An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction - Less Wrong

53 Post author: Alex_Altair 11 July 2012 08:05AM

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Comment author: Kawoomba 09 July 2012 08:07:27PM 2 points [-]

Why are his comments in this thread getting downvoted? They show a quite nuanced understanding of S. I. and raise interesting points.

If there is no requirement for the observed data to be at the start of the string that is output, then the simplest program that explains absolutely everything that is computable is this:

Print random digits. (This was actually a tongue-in-cheek Schmidhuber result from the early 2000s, IIRC. The easiest program whose output will assuredly contain our universe somewhere along the line.)

Luckily there is such a requirement, and I don't know how MWI could possibly fit into it. This unacknowledged tension has long bugged me, and I'm glad someone else is aware of it.

Comment author: thomblake 10 July 2012 03:02:20PM 3 points [-]

private_messaging is a troll. Safely assume bad faith.

Comment author: shminux 10 July 2012 06:48:22PM *  2 points [-]

private_messaging is a troll

Wikipedia:

a troll is someone who posts inflammatory extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion

Let's see:

  • inflammatory: check
  • extraneous: sometimes, not in this case
  • off-topic: not exactly
  • intent to provoke/disrupt: not in my estimation

so, maybe 25-30% trollness.

Safely assume bad faith.

I never get this impression from his posts. They seem honest (if sometimes misguided) not malicious to me.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 10 July 2012 06:57:13PM 0 points [-]

Can you say more about how you distinguish messages intended to provoke emotional response from those that are merely inflammatory?

Comment author: shminux 10 July 2012 09:14:41PM 1 point [-]

Intent makes a difference for me. private_messaging seems to want to get his point across (not counting an occasional rant), without regard to the way his comments come across. I did not detect any intent of riling people up for its own sake.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 10 July 2012 09:16:07PM 1 point [-]

(nods) That's fair. Thanks for the clarification.

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