Open thread, Sep. 19 - Sep. 25, 2016

2 DataPacRat 19 September 2016 06:34PM

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.


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Tell me what hat to buy

4 DataPacRat 08 August 2015 03:10PM

For years, I've taken being a classic nerd, geek, and hacker as a point of pride - eg, consciously trying to judge people by the code they produce, or whatever else they write, as opposed to judging them on their appearance, to the point that I prefer /not/ to know what my favourite authors look like. I've tried to make what strengths I can out of the resulting weaknesses, such as reducing decision fatigue by keeping a single hair-style for many years, wearing whichever t-shirt is on top of the clean shirt pile, and so on.

I'm no longer satisfied with this. I want to become stronger.

Last month, I bought a dozen button-up, collared shirts... and have noticed slight, but consistent changes in my workflow when I wear them. I want to leverage whatever other clothing-based self-improvements are within my budget.

For some years, I've worn a floppy boonie hat to shade my delicate eyes from the burning rays of the sun. (I've even been seen wearing it with a photographer's vest instead of a daypack while tromping around my hometown.) I'm thinking of trying out the 'Crasche' safety inserts mentioned in the recent Open Thread while hiking far from medical help, which would require a baseball-like cap with a sweatband. Given my proclivity for taking something that works and sticking with it for years, I might be wearing that cap for a very long time.

Thus, a multi-layered question: Which hat should I buy? Which factors should I take into account... and which shouldn't I? Are there any subreddits, forums, or other online discussion groups whose members would be willing to take this question seriously and with only a minimum of mockery?

Seeking advice: Writing skills and workspaces

3 DataPacRat 13 June 2015 07:42PM

Yesterday, I set a personal deadline: If I haven't started writing more "S.I." by Canada Day, then I'm going to start writing up the fast-finish version of the plotline to at least tie up the story and stop having it hanging over me.

Never underestimate the power of precommitment.

Now that I've started thinking in terms of my writing more of SI as a simple fact, I've realized that, due to complicated/personal/private home-life stuff, in order to actually have a reasonable chance of even writing the short ending, I need a new low-distraction work-space, and nowhere in my home is suitable. The most likely candidates are my local public library when it's open (Tue-Sat, 10am-5/6/9pm), and, elsewhen, a particular local coffee-shop with a customer-available power outlet. And, in fact, my not noticing the lack of a suitable low-noise typing location may have induced an ugh field that kept me from even trying to catch up with suggestions and comments to SI even as my depressive episode has waned.

It occurs to me that there may be further options I'm not considering; and that there may even be other aspects to the process of writing which could be hindering my progress. And so, I come here, to inquire of the local hivemind: What advice can you offer?



For example, I currently have two and a half devices to type with: A Thinkpad laptop, an iPhone with a touchscreen keyboard, and an iPhone with a (folding) full-size Bluetooth keyboard. Should I look into some other input device?

Or: Is there some aspect of nutrition or hydration that I should pay more attention to?

Or: How significant is the audio environment? Should I pick a particular soundscape or playlist and hook up the headphones, or would there be minimal effect compared to a library's shuffling or coffeeshop's satellite radio?

Or: Would turning off my connection to the internet, save when I'm looking up some reference, be useful or annoying?



Can you escape Heat Death with MWI?

-4 DataPacRat 14 March 2014 06:12PM

The universe is running down - there are only so many sources of negentropy that can be used for the work of life and intelligence. But thermodynamics is a statistical process, an average of a great many small processes. The standard model of MWI makes a certain hash of statistics - in a vanishingly small number of Everett branches, those statistical averages go right out the window: all the air in a room flies to one side, or an egg unscrambles itself.

 

In those universes in which life continues to survive after all the stars burn out, and all other known sources of useful energy have been turned into waste heat... might it be possible for said life to continue to survive in at least some timelines, by feeding on thermodynamic miracles?

And, at least as important, which forms of thermodynamic miracles are the most common, and which are most potentially useful? (After all, in any given volume of space ,a few electrons appearing out of relative nothingness is much more likely than an entire Boltzmann Brain appearing, and depending on how stable the matter-energy substrate that life at the time is using to maintain itself between miracles, said substrate might decay before some kinds of miracles ever occur...)

 

Edit: Question posed in recent 'Open Thread' at http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/jww/open_thread_1824_march_2014/api5

How to become a PC?

15 DataPacRat 26 January 2014 06:49PM

"Cryonics has a 95% chance of failure, by my estimation; it would be downright /embarrassing/ to die on the day before real immortality is discovered. Thus, I want to improve my general health and longevity."

That thought has gotten me through three weeks of gradually increasing exercise and diet improvement (I'm eating an apple right now) - but my enthusiasm is starting to flag. So I'm looking for new thoughts that will help me keep going, and keep improving. A few possibilities that I've thought of:

Pride: "If I'm so smart, then I should be able to do /better/ than those other people who don't even know about Bayesian updates, let alone the existence of akrasia..."

Sloth: "If I stop now, it's going to be /so much/ harder and more painful to start up again, instead of just keeping on keeping on..."

Desire: "I already like hiking and camping - if I keep this up, I'll be able to carry enough weight to finally take that long trip I've occasionally considered..."

Curiosity: "I'm as geeky a nerd as you can find. I wonder how far I can hack my own body?"

Pride again: "I already keep a hiker's first-aid kit in my pocket, and make other preparations for events that happen rarely. How stupid do I have to be not to put at least that much effort into making my everyday life easier?"

 

Does anyone have any experience in such self-motivation? Does this set of mental tricks seem like a sufficiently viable approach? Are there any other approaches that seem worth a shot?

How do you tell proto-science from pseudo-science?

5 DataPacRat 27 November 2013 07:15PM

There are a great many ideas which don't have enough carefully-measured evidence to be sufficiently confirmed as scientific fact and accepted as such by the scientific community (a recent joke was "While the Higgs Boson has not been discovered yet, its mass is 125 GeV"), but don't have enough carefully-measured evidence to be ruled out yet, either. Do any of the tools of the LW community help narrow down which ones are more worthy of consideration than others?

Eg:

* Cryonics as an arguably reasonable bet for its cost: proto-science

* Cryonics as a surefire way to achieve immortality: nigh-certainly pseudoscience (unless it's the method by which your Everett Immortality keeps you alive)

* Using math to demonstrate that taking classical physics and adding determinism results in MWI-style quantum physics: proto-science.

* Using math to demonstrate that quantum physics proves Christianity is true, from a certain point of view: pseudo-science

* Tubulin might self-organize into microtubules capable of computation on a sub-neuron scale: Possibly proto-science

* Tubulin architecture is 'quantum' in nature and that is what gives rise to consciousness: Probably pseudo-science

* 'Quantum consciousness' means anything is possible: Downright silly

* The E8 Lie group can provide a system for organizing the properties of subatomic particles: Proto-science, perhaps

* Heim theory is useful for predicting particle masses: Pseudo-science, probabilistically

* Using the Bullet Cluster to claim that dark matter is a better theory than Modified Newtonian Dynamics: proto-science

* Claiming that dark matter is made of 'anapoles': Proto-science, perchance

* Suggesting that dark matter is actually gravitational leakage from MWI 'parallel universes': You tell me. (But if it's true, then since I can't seem to find any previous serious discussion of this idea, I get to name part of it after myself, right? :)  )

 

These may not be the best examples, but they're the closest ones I can think of to the boundary. If you know of any better ones, feel free to comment with them.

Classical vs MWI Probability Nomenclature

2 DataPacRat 23 November 2013 04:23PM

"I estimate 5% odds of X happening" can mean at least two things:

* I have about 1-in-20 confidence that all future timelines from this point contain X, and about 19-in-20 confidence that none do.

* I estimate about 1-in-20 future timelines contain X, and 19-in-20 future timelines don't.

Looked at this way, the usual way of quantifying probability seems to be a lot like quantifying area - the first bullet-point by having a 1x20 rectangle, the second by having a 20x1 one. (This also seems valid for having, say, 50% confidence that 1-in-10 future timelines contain X.) It seems like it might be worth having an easy and understandable way to differentiate between these different forms of '5% odds', but any easy way I've been able to think of is barely understandable, and vice versa. Are there any existing standard ways to do this that I'm unaware of? If not, does anyone reading this have any decent answers?

 

I'm not opposed to coming up with a new word for personal use to help get in the habit of thinking in certain ways; such as bei'e in Lojban to remind myself to think of probability logarithmically. I don't mind doing the same with a word meaning 'such-and-such a fraction of future MWI branches', if that's the best solution, or even just a useful tool; I'd just like to know what the full range of useful approaches really are, first, and any potential loopholes therein or drawbacks thereof.

Lotteries & MWI

0 DataPacRat 18 November 2013 10:46PM

I haven't been able to find the source of the idea, but I've recently been reminded of:

Lotteries are a way to funnel some money from many of you to a few of you.

This is, of course, based on the Multiple Worlds Interpretation: if the lottery has one-in-a-million odds, then for every million timelines in which you buy a lottery ticket, in one timeline you'll win it. There's a certain amount of friction - it's not a perfect wealth transfer - based on the lottery's odds. But, looked at from this perspective, the question of "should I buy a lottery ticket?" seems like it might be slightly more complicated than "it's a tax on idiots".

But I'm reminded of my current .sig: "Then again, I could be wrong." And even if this is, in fact, a valid viewpoint, it brings up further questions, such as: how can the friction be minimized, and the efficiency of the transfer be maximized? Does deliberately introducing randomness at any point in the process ensure that at least some of your MWI-selves gain a benefit, as opposed to buying a ticket after the numbers have been chosen but before they've been revealed?

How interesting can this idea be made to be?

Non-standard cryo ideas

11 DataPacRat 09 November 2013 05:42PM

What plans could a prospective cryonicist try out, beyond simply signing up, that could increase the odds of eventually having a pleasant re-animation experience?

To show what I mean, here are the main ideas I've managed to come up with so far. None of these particular ideas are a standard part of a cryonics preservation package. Some are easier to implement than others, some are more likely to have an effect than others, some have potentially greater effect than others.

* Arranging for as much information about oneself (photo albums, emails, grade school report cards, etc) as possible to be placed on archival media and stored along with one's body. Reasoning: If the cryo-preservation procedure causes brain damage, and technology advances sufficiently before re-animation, then this information potentially allows for that damage to be at least partially reconstructed.

* Requesting additional data about the cryo-preservation procedure used on oneself be archived. Eg, requesting that, to whatever degree doesn't interfere with the procedure, it be videoed.

* Making arrangements for an animal body to be cryo-preserved with the same procedure one's own body was preserved with. A lab chimp would be ideal, but difficult to arrange for a number of reasons; more likely, a more common animal of around human mass would be feasible, such as a dog or goat. Even a few lab-rats might help. Reasoning: It gives future re-animators an additional opportunity to experiment with re-animation techniques, before attempting to re-animate a person.

* Noting down one's preferences and requests for future re-animators. Eg, from "I'd appreciate having a cat nearby to pet and calm down as I wake up" to "If you have to rebuild my body from scratch anyway, and it's within cultural norms, I would appreciate being gender _____" to "If you create a digital/electronic/computer/data copy of my mind, I would like a copy of that to be placed in offline, air-gapped storage, so that if every active copy of my mind is destroyed, there will always be that original backup available to re-instantiate myself." Or just more general ideas, such as, "My goal is to live forever, and I would prefer whatever means most likely lead to that happening to be tried."


I'm not nearly as creative as I wish I could be; so I'm hoping that the local group-mind here might be able to offer further ideas, or improvements or refinements to the above ones.

So: What extras can you think of?

Prisoner's Dilemma vs the Afterlife

11 DataPacRat 24 September 2013 04:59PM

I've had a thought I don't recall having encountered before described quite this way; but, given my past experiences with such thoughts, and the fact that it involves evo-psych, I currently peg my confidence in this idea at around 10%. But just in case this particular idea rose to my attention out of all the other possible ideas that didn't for a reason, I'll post it here.

 

One of the simpler analyses of the Prisoner's Dilemma points out that if you know that the round you're facing is the last round, then there's no reason not to defect; your choice no longer has any influence over future rounds, and whatever your opponent does, you gain a higher score by defecting on this particular round than by cooperating. Thus, any rational algorithm which is attempting to maximize its score, and can identify which round is the last round, will gain a higher score by adding a codicil to defect on the last round.

Expanding that idea implies that if such a "rational" algorithm is facing other seemingly rational algorithms, it will assume that they will also defect on the last round; and thus, such an algorithm faced with the /second/-last round will be able to assume that its actions will have no influence on the actions of the last round; and, by a similar logic, will choose to defect on the second-last round; and the third-last; and so forth. In fact, if the whole game has a maximum length, then this chain of logic applies, leading to programs that are, in effect, always-defect. Cooperative strategies such as tit-for-tat thus tend to arise when the competing algorithms lack a particular piece of information: the length of the game they are playing.

 

Depending on where a person is born and lives (and various other details), they have roughly a fifty percent chance of living to 80 years of age, a one-in-a-million chance of making it to 100 years, and using LaPlace's Sunrise Formula, somewhere under one-in-a-hundred-billion odds of making it to 130 years. If a person assumes that their death is the end of them, then they have a very good idea of what their maximum lifespan will be; and depending on how rational they are, they could follow a similar line of reasoning to the above and plan their actions around an "always defect" style of morality. (Eg, stealing whenever the profit outweighs the risk times the punishment.)

However, introducing even an extremely vague concept of an afterlife, even if it's only that some form of individuality survives and can continue to interact with someone, means that there is no surety about when the 'game' will end - and, thus, can nudge people to act cooperatively, even when there is no physical chance of getting caught at defecting. Should this general approach spread widely enough, then further refinements could be made which increase cooperative behaviour further, such as reports on what the scoring system of the afterlife portion of the 'game' are; thus increasing in-group cooperative behaviour yet further.

Interestingly, this seems to apply whether the post-mortal afterlife is supernatural in nature, or takes the form of a near-term technological singularity, or a cryonicist who estimates a 5% chance of revival within a millennium.

 

What I would like to try to find out is which shapes of lifespan estimation lead to what forms of PD algorithms predominating. For example, a game with a 50% chance of continuing on any turn after turn 100, versus one with a 95% chance every turn, versus one with a straight 5% chance of being effectively infinite. If anyone reading this already has a set of software allowing for customized PD tournaments, I'd like to get in touch. Anyone else, I'd like whatever constructive criticism you can offer, from any previous descriptions of this - preferably with hard figures and numbers backing it up - to improvements that bring the general concept more into line with reality.

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