Comment on Open thread, 11-17 August 2014

Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:59:13 GMT

Fun question!

Under 8: my sister and I were raised atheist, but we constructed what amounted to a theology around our stuffed animals. The moral authority whom I disappointed most often, more than my parents, was my teddy bear. I believed in parts of our pantheon and ethics system so deeply, devoutly, and sincerely that, had I been raised in a real religion, I doubt my temperament would have ever let me escape.

Around 8: My mother rinsed out milk bottles twice, each time using a small amount of water. I asked her why she didn't rinse it out once using twice as much water. She explained that doubling the water roughly doubled the cleansing power, but rinsing the bottle twice roughly squared the cleaning power. The most water-efficient way to clean a milk bottle, I figured, would involve a constant stream of water in and out of the bottle. I correctly modeled how the cleaning rate (per unit water) depends on the current milk residue concentration, but I couldn't figure out what to do next or if the idea even made sense.

Around 14: Composition is like multiplication, and unions (or options, or choices)) are like addition.

University: (1) use Kolmogorov complexity to construct a bayesian prior over universes, then reason anthropically. When you do this, you will (2) conclude with high probability that you are a very confused wisp of consciousness.

Discuss