I wonder how many people upvoted this post less for the ideas expressed and more because they like robots.

I think I upvoted it for the ideas, but can't honestly guarantee that the "oooh, shiny cool robot analogy appeals to my geeky heart" factor wouldn't have made me upvote even if I found the ideas uninteresting.

Orthodox Jews believe a single author - god, with Moses doing the writing (some allow the possibility of Joshua writing the very last verses). 33 authors would be blasphemy-level deviation for them.

This thread is getting long enough to be a little inconvenient to monitor, though the bright green edges on new comments help a lot.

Maybe it's time for a True Rejection Challenge, part 2.

I've sent an overview of your situation to all my friends who are doctors or training to be doctors. I will let you know their opinion. (I've also included information from your meat and vegetables post).

I strongly suggest you do not wait for them to get back to me and consult with local experts as soon as possible.

Also, if anyone in the LW community has medical training or knows someone who does who would be willing to offer an opinion on this, I encourage them to do so.

I believe I need to teach myself QM and Thermo to a sufficient level to do well on the GREs.

Yes, that will be necessary to do well on the test. You should also be prepared to review classical mechanics and E&M. Having a good set of freshman-level physics textbooks is helpful, because many of the problems are at that level. I recommend the two-volume set by Resnick, Halliday, and Krane.

You should check out the physicsgre.com forums. You will be able to find a fair amount of advice threads for people in similar situations (lacking the full complement of upper-level physics courses, in need of research experience, etc.), as well as a lot of general advice about the physics GRE test. You can also try starting your own thread on that forum to solicit more advice. The consensus is that going to grad school in physics without the undergrad in physics is difficult and requires a lot of effort, but it's not impossible if one is dedicated and takes the initiative.

In general, a career in physics is going to require a lot of self-study. Grad students often end up working on such specialized research problems that the only way to learn about the topic is to read lots of published papers, which are often much more difficult to understand than textbooks.

For quantum mechanics, I recommend Griffith's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics. I am not sure why you haven't been working problems all the way through, but if it's because you don't have the correct solutions against which to check your answers, the manual for Griffith's textbook is easy to find. Unfortunately, I really don't know of a good undergraduate-level thermodynamics textbook.

For the general GRE test, buy a commercial test-prep book (personally, I prefer Barron's) and go through it cover to cover. Take the diagnostic test, figure out where your areas of weakness are, study them by working through the sections in the book that address them, and then take more practice tests. (Repeat if necessary.)

I think you would have an easier time finding a professor who would let you work in eir research group, or a college that might let you audit classes, if you were in an English-speaking country. The language barrier will be difficult to overcome for both of those activities. This would also help with the problem of loneliness. In addition, if you take the general GRE in the US, you can take it on the computer instead of on paper, which some find to be a more intuitive format. (At the least, it's nicer for writing the essays.)

Things I really need to do but can't seem to make myself do them:

there are clothes rotting in my washing machine. I had a migraine and couldn't hang them up, and the migraine lasted about a week, and now there's fungus growing on them. I've read online that this can be fixed by washing them 3-4 times and then hanging them in the sun to dry. Adding vinegar to the washing machine can help. The washing machine is right next to the bathtub, and I can't bathe properly because the smell is overpowering and makes me dizzy and light headed.

1) I'm still sore and constantly on the verge of a migraine. There's no guarantee that if I start a load I'll be able to hang it up.

2) Medicines sometimes help the migraines but not very much. I mostly have to ride them out. It may be a week yet till I can be sure that I can hang it up to dry.

3) There are noise restrictions in my building, so I can't make lots of noise after 8pm. This means that I'd need to get up early in order to wash the clothes. I got up early for a few days, but it made the headache worse, and it rained anyway, so not much sunlight.

4) I think the real reason is that when I do eventually take them out of the washing machine (having been washed X more times), I will have to touch them with my hands.

5) I can't really afford to replace them. Some of the items in the washing machine I could get over losing (I do have other shirts), but others are items I don't own enough of as it is.

6) i am very allergic to bleach and have trouble breathing if i walk through an area where it was used within the last half hour. so i cannot use it on my clothes. but vinegar should do the trick.

7) if i leave it much longer, the fungus will eat holes in my clothes. and leave stains. but some of the articles of clothing may not be too stained any may be wearable around the house, once they are fungus free.

Similarly, the floor in the apartment is filthy. Absolutely filthy. Covered in all sorts of stuff. It's a really hard carpet to clean (you have to brush it to coax the dirt out before you can vacuum it, or the vacuum doesn't do anything). But vacuum cleaners are loud and the noise would drive my pain levels up even higher. i can't vacuum, because i would have to devote an entire day to it (literally. have done so in the past and it still wasn't fully clean, just cleaner), and i dont have the stamina for a day of it. this is really the same problem as the laundry except that it's less bad and less urgent.

1. is already my default solution, but there are no friends or wolfbe friends to be shipped TO, and "population centre" is way to vague

2. Don't find things like that interesting and don't have the time for a hobby like that.

3. I don't really think there is anything to know. The word was never made to stand up to any serious scrutiny and is just a kludged pointer in a general direction.

1. about most stuff verily so, although I can't count on them to be rational. Think sort of like rationalist!Harry's situation from MoR.
2. very much in favor
3. yes.

I don't have any standardised "evaluation process", it depends on the opportunity cost and probabilities of various outcomes for the particular case.

1) Heuristics: It correlates a LOT with reading LW, and also in general sharing interests and internet-cultural background with me, as well as being generally smart/nice/artistic/a formidable specialist at some specific field.

I don't know what you mean by evaluation process. It's more like a hidden property I collect evidence for or against, so I'll hopefully eventually become fairly certain but new evidence can always change my mind. Also the interestingness of people can change as they learn more or I learn more etc.

It's not rally a very high grade concept that probably doesn't correspond well to any natural category or predict anything other than my attitude towards someone.

2) #REDACTED#

3) #REDACTED#

I'm getting unconformable with how much I'm revealing about myself.

I would like to go to grad school for physics and philosophy.

The Situation:

1. I did my bachelors in Economics at a very good American university, but I only did moderately well.

2. I took mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and wave phenomena. I also took theoretical multi-var, linear algebra, and abstract algebra, basic statistics, econometrics. In philosophy I've only taken a course on Kant's ethics.

The Constraints:

1. I have not taken quantum mechanics, statistical thermodynamics, or any science-relevant philosophy (i.e. metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of ...).

2. I've not taken the GRE, either general or subject. The Physics GRE covers QM and Thermo.

3. I have no formal research experience working under anyone.

4. I am currently working roughly 9-6 Monday through Friday with about a half hour commute on either end. It takes me about an hour to get ready in the morning.

5. I am currently living in Beijing, China as an American expatriate. My Chinese is decent, but not fluent enough to have deep conversations or to make day-to-day interactions easy. I take about 3.5 hours of Mandarin instruction a week with probably 2 hours of out of class homework.

6. In order to combat depression, reduce stress and maintain my health, I try to cook lunch every morning as well as go swimming. Since the nearest pool that is open in the morning is a 30 minutes away I have been getting up at 5 AM and have been arriving at the office a little after 9 AM.

7. I feel very lonely as my family and friends are almost all in the U.S. or U.K. still. As such I need to devote some amount of time to both socializing face-to-face here and to communicating with friends and family back home. This was recently exacerbated by my father having major surgery (which was successful) and by my persistent if now mild feelings of unrequited romantic love.

The Problem:

I believe I need to teach myself QM and Thermo to a sufficient level to do well on the GREs. I also need to brush up on the other subjects which I haven't touched in about 5 years.

However, I find I do not have the time / motivation / ability to teach myself these subjects. I have been making some progress reading through textbooks, but I have found that without working through problems all the way to their conclusion I don't really learn or internalize the ideas and practices.

Additionally, I'm concerned about demonstrating sufficient worthiness in other ways i.e. via recommendations, research, experience, etc.

I am open to inquiries regarding my motivation for this goal to help point towards near substitutes.