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I don't understand. Since existence of God is explicitly included in the question about the existence of supernatural things, everybody should have put P(God) < P(Supernatural), and therefore the median also is lower (since for every entry P(God) there is a higher entry P(Supernatural) by that same person). So the result above should be weak evidence that a significant proportion of the LW'ers fell prey to the conjunction fallacy here, right?
No, I think that a god that does not interfere with the physical universe at all counts as not supernatural by the wording of the question.
My point was that the median of the difference of two data sets is not the difference of the median. (although it is still evidence of a problem)
In response to
2014 Survey Results
P Supernatural: 6.68 + 20.271 (0, 0, 1) [1386]
P God: 8.26 + 21.088 (0, 0.01, 3) [1376]
The question for P(Supernatural) explicitly said "including God." So either LW assigns a median probability of at least one in 10,000 that God created the universe and then did nothing, or there's a bad case of conjunction fallacy.
Conjunctions do not work with medians that way. From what you quoted, it is entirely possible that the median probability for that claim is 0. You can figure it out from the raw data.
In response to
Open thread, Dec. 22 - Dec. 28, 2014
It seems that the link on the About page for the welcome thread is still pointing to the previous WT. I would appreciate it if someone with editing access to the About page could update the link. I also wonder if it would be possible to have the link point to the newest post with a certain tag, e.g. the "welcome" tag, thus making it point to the newest WT automatically.
Thanks!
If this is possible, I think it would also be nice to have a link I can bookmark which takes me straight to the most recent open thread's comments.
A countably infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first mathematician orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third orders one third of a beer. The bartender says "whoa, I'm going to run out of beer!".
An uncountably infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first mathematician orders no beer. The second orders no beer. The third orders no beer. The bartender says "whoa, I'm going to run out of beer!".
In response to
How to deal with Santa Claus?
Another important question if you choose to tell the truth, is what do you do about other adults that lie to your own kids.
Would it be reasonable to request other adults not to lie to your children?
Would it be reasonable to ask lying adults to correct themselves or even apologize to your children?
In response to
How to deal with Santa Claus?
Just tell her the truth. Don't lie to children.
Children have deepseated evolved instincts to trust what adults tell them. One owes it to them to return that instinct with the truth.
The only real question should be then whether you ask her not to tell other kids.
The only real question should be then whether you ask her not to tell other kids.
I really do not like the idea of encouraging children to lie to their peers. If forced to choose between lying to children about Santa, and encouraging them to lie, I think I would choose to lie to them.
In response to
How to deal with Santa Claus?
In response to
Open thread, Dec. 22 - Dec. 28, 2014
Something I'm looking for:
A list of habits to take up, to improve my life, that are vetted and recommended by the community. Preferably in order of most useful to least useful. Things like "start using Anki", "start meditating", etc.
Do we have list like this compiled? If not, can we create it? I'm a big believe in the things this community recommends, and have already taken up using Anki, am working on Meditation, and am looking for what other habits I should take up.
FYI, I thought of this as I was reading gwern's Dual N-Back article, in which he mentions it's probably not worth the time, as there are much higher-potential activities to do.
(Here's the relevant excerpt from gwern: N-BACK IN GENERAL
To those whose time is limited: you may wish to stop reading here. If you seek to improve your life, and want the greatest ‘bang for the buck’, you are well-advised to look elsewhere. Meditation, for example, is easier, faster, and ultra-portable. Typing training will directly improve your facility with a computer, a valuable skill for this modern world. Spaced repetition memorization techniques offer unparalleled advantages to students. Nootropics are the epitome of ease (just swallow!), and their effects are much more easily assessed - one can even run double-blind experiments on oneself, impossible with dual N-back. Other supplements like melatonin can deliver benefits incommensurable with DNB - what is the cognitive value of another number in working memory thanks to DNB compared to a good night’s sleep thanks to melatonin? Modest changes to one’s diet and environs can fundamentally improve one’s well-being. Even basic training in reading, with the crudest tachistoscope techniques, can pay large dividends if one is below a basic level of reading like 200WPM & still subvocalizing. And all of these can start paying off immediately.)
I suggest you make it happen. Start with a discussion level post suggesting habits, then a week later, make a discussion level post asking everyone to rank them.
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I think this issue is all about identifying clusters in a list of points in a large vector space. In particular, you want a method to identify these clusters which is independent of linear transformations on the space. (Replacing one questions with n^2 questions corresponds to multiplying the weight of that question by n) I do not know much about this, but this seems like it is doomed to fail. In particular, it seems like if the points are in any kind of general position, then the whole thing looks like a large simplex, and there is no way to tell the difference between points. You will probably always be able to change the "clusters" by sdding whatever questions you want.
I think the way past this is to allow each individual to choose their own weighting on the questions signifying how "important" that issue is to them. I think there is an important difference between two people who agree on all issues but prioritize them differently, and it is not a problem that they can agree with a movement to different degrees.