Russell <strike>gives too much credit to radical empiricism</strike> fails to warn against the dangers of going too far in the direction of radical empiricism, which is really just as bad as radical rationalism.

Philosophers came to be divided into two camps: those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world by deducing it exclusively from concepts, which come from inside his head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts (the Rationalists)—and those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge from experience, which was held to mean: by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts (the Empiricists). To put it more simply: those who joined the mystics by abandoning reality—and those who clung to reality, by abandoning their mind.

FTNI, by Ayn Rand

I often find that I'm not well read enough or perhaps not smart enough to decipher the intricate language of these eminent philosophers. I'd like to know is Russell talking about something akin to scientific empiricism? Can someone enlighten me? From my shallow understanding though, it seems like what he is saying is almost common sense when it comes to building knowledge or beliefs about a problem domain.

What about compression?

If you can scan it, maybe you can simulate it? And if you can simulate one, wait some years and you can simulate 1000, probably connected in some way to form a single "thinking system".

the overuse of "quantum" hurt my eyes. :(

Am I the only one who is confused why this comment (currently at -3) has drifted to the top when sorted with the new "Best" algorithm? That seems to be either a mistake or a bad algorithm.

I like it, but what's it got to do with rationality?

And many charming people are also bad.

Thank you, Professor Quirrell.

It is absurd to divide people into charming or tedious. People either have familiar worldviews or unfamiliar worldviews.

On the face of it I would absolutely disagree with Wilde on that: to live a moral life one absolutely needs to distinguish between good and bad. Charm (in bad people) and tedium (in good people) get in the way of this.

On the other hand, was Wilde really just blowing a big raspberry at the moralisers of his day ? Sort of saying "I care more about charm and tedium than what you call morality". I don't know enough about his context ...

I don't know that you can really classify people as X or ¬X. I mean, have you not seen individuals be X in certain situations and ¬X in other situations?

&c.

That's excellent advice for writing fiction. Audiences root for charming characters much more than for good ones. Especially useful when your world only contains villains. This is harder in real life, since your opponents can ignore your witty one-liners and emphasize your mass murders.

(This comment brought to you by House Lannister.)

Of course, one can argue that some kinds of knowledge -- like the kinds you and I know? -- are vastly more important than others, but such a claim is usually more snobbery than fact.

— Nick Szabo, quoted elsewhere in this post. Fight!

This is one of the obvious facts that made me recoil in horror while reading Neuromancer. Their currency is BITS? Bits of what?

I think this is just a misuse of the word "information". If the bits aren't equal value, clearly they do not have the same amount of information.

Do you have a source? Einstein gets quoted quite a lot for stuff he didn't say.

Genii seem to create problems. They prevent some in the process, and solve others, but that's not what they're in for: it's not nearly as fun.

Context, please?

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befal himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it. But what makes this difference? When our passive feelings are almost always so sordid and so selfish, how comes it that our active principles should often be so generous and so noble? When we are always so much more deeply affected by whatever concerns ourselves, than by whatever concerns other men; what is it which prompts the generous, upon all occasions, and the mean upon many, to sacrifice their own interests to the greater interests of others? It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves. It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection, which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our own characters.

-Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

… and I’d get back like $20,000. And I could save hundreds of people from dying of starvation with that money.

According to GiveWell, you could save ten people with that much.

Does that apply to that explanation as well?

Does it apply to explanations made in advance of the actions? For example, this evening (it is presently morning) I intend buying groceries on my way home from work, because there's stuff I need and this is a convenient opportunity to get it. When I do it, that will be the explanation.

In the quoted article, the explanation he presents as a paradigmatic example of his general thesis is the reflex of jumping away from rustles in the grass. He presents an evolutionary just-so story to explain it, but one which fails to explain why I do not jump away from rustles in the grass, although surely I have much the same evolutionary background as he. I am more likely to peer closer to see what small creature is scurrying around in there. But then, I have never lived anywhere that snakes are a danger. He has.

And yet this, and split-brain experiments, are the examples he cites to say that "often", we shouldn't listen to anyone's explanations of their behaviour.

If you were to have asked me why I had jumped, I would have replied that I thought I’d seen a snake. The reality, however, is that I jumped way before I was conscious of the snake.

I smell crypto-dualism. "I thought there was a snake" seems to me a perfectly good description of the event, even given that I jumped way before I was conscious of the snake. (He has "I thought I'd seen a snake", but this is a fictional example, and I can make up fiction as well as he can.)

The article references his book. Anyone read it? The excerpts I've skimmed on Amazon just consist of more evidence that we are brains: the Libet experiments, the perceived simultaneity of perceptions whose neural signals aren't, TMS experiments, and so on. There are some digressions into emergence, chaos, and quantum randomness. Then -- this is his innovation, highlighted in the publisher's blurb -- he sees responsibility as arising from social interaction. Maybe I'm missing something in the full text, but is he saying that someone alone really is just an automaton, and only in company can one really be a person?

I believe there are people like that, who only feel alive in company and feel diminished when alone. Is this is just an example of someone mistaking their idiosyncratic mental constitution for everybody's?

The sentiment is correct (diligence may be more important than brilliance) but I think "all amusements and other employments" might be too absolute an imperative for most people to even try to live by. Most people will break down if they try to work too hard for too long, and changes of activity can be very important in keeping people fresh.

Or at least confirmation bias makes it seem that way.

Yes, and also a point to check whether the quote has been posted to LW already.

That quote is supposed to be paired with another quote about holism.

ADBOC. Literally, that's true (but tautologous), but it suggests that understanding the nature of their sum is simple, which it isn't. Knowing the Standard Model gives hardly any insight into sociology, even though societies are made of elementary particles.

Take, say, physics, which restricts itself to extremely simple questions. If a molecule becomes too complex, they hand it over to the chemists. If it becomes too complex for them, they hand it to biologists. And if the system is too complex for them, they hand it to psychologists ... and so on until it ends up in the hands of historians or novelists.

Noam Chomsky

Why do I find that funny?

I had an itch on my elbow. I left it to see where it would go. It didn’t go anywhere.

-- The comments to that entry.

When I stumbled on that blog some years ago, it impressed me so much that I started trying to write and think in the same style.

Could you add the link if it was a blog post, or name the book if the source was a book?

A common piece of advice from pro Magic: the Gathering plays is "focus on what matters." The advice is mostly useless to many people though because the pros have made it to that level precisely because they know what matters to begin with.

It does not! It does not! It does not! ... continued here

I wonder how common it is for people to agentize accidents. I don't do that, but, annoyingly, lots of people around me do.

Sounds like a job for...Will_Newsome!

EDIT: Why the downvotes? This seems like a fairly obvious case of researchers going insufficiently meta.

That's not what "reinventing the wheel" (when used as an insult) usually means. I guess that the inventor of the tyre was aware of the earlier types of wheel, their advantages, and their shortcomings. Conversely, the people who typically receive this insult don't even bother to research the prior art on whatever they are doing.