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Some people thrive for decades (including Stephen Hawking) tube fed with nutritionally complete enteral formulas. Semi-annual blood tests pick up any deficiencies, and supplements are added if needed. Several companies make "Soylent", the one I am familiar with is Abbott Nutrition.
But there is a significant difference between taking a medical formula under doctors supervision and mixing up the most common nutrition ingredients and claiming it to be a cure-all-be-all food. Didn't the guy forget to include iron in his first mixture?
Another 'Soylent' equivalent I know of is Sustagen Hospital Formula.
In response to
Newcomb's Problem and Regret of Rationality
I've always been a one-boxer. I think I have a new solution as to why. Try this: Scenario A: you will take a sleep potion and be woken up twice during the middle of the night to be asked to take one box or both boxes. Whatever you do the first time determines whether $1m is placed in the potentially-empty box. Whatever you do the second time determines what you collect. The catch is that the sleep potion will wipe all your memories over the next twelve hours. You're told this in advance and asked to make up your mind. So you'll give the same answer each time [or if you employ a mixed strategy, employ the same mixed strategy, because you don't know if you've already been woken up].
If you say "one box" each time, you collect $1,000,000 If you say "both boxes" each time, you collect $1,000.
So you know, given this, that you do better to say "one box". Do two-boxers agree with this?
Scenario B: Same as scenario A, except that instead of being woken up twice during the night, you will be woken up once and asked which boxes you will take. Your thoughts now are read by an expert mind-reading device. Whatever you plan to say will be used to determine whether there is $1m or $0 in the box you surely take. I think that you still take one box. Do two-boxers agree with this?
Scenario C: Same as scenario B, except that instead of having your thoughts read now, your thoughts are predicted by an expert thought-predicting device. This is then used to determine what will be placed in the box of uncertain contents. I hold that having your thoughts known at the time and known before you will think them are identical for the purposes of this problem. [mind-blowing in many respects, I agree, but irrelevant for this problem.] Ergo I take one box. Do two-boxers agree?
As a 1.4999999999999 boxer (i.e. take a quantum randomness source for [0, 1], take both boxes if 0, one box if 1, one box if something else happens), I don't think scenario C is convincing.
The crucial property of B is that as your thoughts change the contents of the box change. The casualty link goes forward in time. Thus the right decision is to take one box, as by the act of taking one box, you will make it contain the money.
In C however there is no such casualty. The oracle either put money in both boxes, or it did not. Your decision now cannot possibly affect that state. So you cannot base your decision in C on its similarity to B.
A good reason to one box, in my opinion, is that before you encounter the boxes it is clearly preferable to commit to one boxing. This is of course not compatible with taking two boxes when you find them (because the oracle seems to be perfect). So it is rational to make yourself the kind of person that takes one box (because you know this brings you the best benefit, short of using the randomness trick).
In response to
comment
by
on
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84
I tried looking up Vetinari's clock, but I only found a bunch of people building them. Which book is it from?
In response to
comment
by
on
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84
It's from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havelock_Vetinari
Lord Vetinari also has a strange clock in his waiting-room. While it does keep completely accurate time overall, it sometimes ticks and tocks out of sync (example: "tick, tock... ticktocktick, tock...") and occasionally misses a tick or tock altogether, which has the net effect of turning one's brain "into a sort of porridge". (Feet of Clay, Going Postal).
but the Groundhog Day Attack and (at least) one False Memory Charm is quite enough mind-messing for me to believe she did it.
I don't think a False Memory and whatever persuasive words were used in the Groundhog Day attack would have sufficed for her to cold-bloodledly murder a 11-year old classmate, even if she had seen him openly declare a desire to rape Hannah Abbot. (she might have hot-bloodedly murder him then, but not cold-bloodedly so).
I think you underestimate the power of the GHD. If Hermione really believed she had to kill Draco or he will, for example, murder every student in Hogwarts the next day, I'm pretty sure she would cold-bloodedly kill him.
An idea: We're discussing lethal magic, of the sort that even Quirrell is unlikely to have taught. Has anyone checked that she even knows the Blood-Cooling Charm? She reads a lot, and Quirrell is unlikely to have left a hole that obvious in his plan, but this seems like something that may be worth checking.
Spells that extract the history of spells casted using a wand are canon, afaik (or was that just the most recent spell?)
I would expect they were casted on hermiones wand and the usage was confirmed.
BTW, what would you consider evidence for a genuine attempt to lull the government into a false sense of security (in an analagous situation)?
Lack of sabotage is obviously evidence for a fifth column trying to lull the government, given the fifth column exists, since the opposite - sabotage occuring - is very strong evidence against that.
However lack of sabotage is still much stronger evidence towards the fifth column not existing.
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