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bramflakes comments on Rationality Quotes May 2014 - Less Wrong
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What like?
For my part, I've found the economic notions of opportunity cost and marginal utility to be like this.
That's maths too.
The specific application of the math does add value.
Most obviously for the opportunity costs, on the math side you only have to understand the "minus" symbol, which pretty much everyone already does. With marginal utility you have to understand the "derivative", but you still have to apply it in a situation ouside of math class.
It's applied math, not the pure math that the OP was talking about. Furthermore, these can be useful ideas even when used purely qualitatively; then it's not even applied math (except in a sense that everything is math, if we make the math sufficiently imprecise).
A good deal of the sequences seem to fall in this category. Conservation of expected evidence, for instance.
"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"
— Theodosius Dobzhansky
The fact that a theory that can be stated in ten words frames an entire discipline is quite incredible. Compared to group theory and probability, it sure seems like an easier uploading process as well.
"Mathematics is about proving theorems based on axioms and other theorems" also frames a whole discipline.
A frame tells you something about a disciple but it doesn't tell you everything.
What are the ten words or less in which evolution can be stated?
warped by random change
what replicates stays around
always evolving
(More constraints! More constraints!)
change without motion
the lament of the red queen
coevolution
"Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."
-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
I think that Darwin would himself acknowledge that "fittest" is a more accurate rendition than "strongest," but whether the quote can be rendered in this way without breaking the ten words constraint comes down to a question of whether "unfittest" counts as a legit word.
I think "fit" has become a free-floating standard rather than meaning "fitting into a particular environment".
Maladapted, as an adjective? Though I suppose that's cheating a bit since it's a sense of adaptation that draws on an evolutionary metaphor.
"We have what replicated better; noise permanently affects replicative ability"?
Natural Selection: the differential survival of replicators with heritable variation.
When it comes to general concepts cybernetics is something to which a lot of people on LW don't have much exposure and cybernetics as central as knowing probability theory for understanding how the world works.
Basically any subject in which I invested a decent amount of thought produces lessons that are applicable to other topics. I even learned a lot in an activity like Salsa dancing that's useful in other contexts.
What introductory material about it would you recommend?
Unfortunately I don't have a good recommendation. Formally I learned about it in a physiology lecture at university and the professor said that there isn't a good textbook that he could use to teach us.
While searching around I found An Introduction of Cybernetics by Ross Ashby. It's might not be perfect but I think it's probably a good enough introduction.