LazyDave

It indeed cannot be objectively examined (afaik), but it can be subjectively examined, which is why I know that I have consciousness, but cannot say the same about anyone else. That being said, I do assign an incredibly high probability that others do indeed have it.

Wow, I find that really surprising; I am hardly in tune with the "proper" terms one should use these days, but the flight attendant thing has been second nature to me for at least 10 years, and thought it was for everybody. I'd be really curious as to why you only became aware of it recently; do you not fly very often? I want to stress that I am not criticizing you or anything, my curiosity is just piqued.

Yeah, I've noticed that when the word used for something is intentionally changed, oftentimes it is because the thing being referred to is viewed negatively by many. In addition, once the new word has widespread adoption, use of the old word is a signal that you indeed do view what it refers to negatively. A recent example is some politician who talked about what the NAACP should do if they wanted to help "colored" people; it was widely derided as a racist statement, even though he was simply expanding part of the acronym of the organization he w... (read more)

I'm not sure about its origins, but in the MSM I've only seen the term described as something members of the "alt-right" use to describe the group in question (obviously in a pejorative way), so generally when I use the term I enclose it in scare quotes (as I evidently do with "alt-right" for some reason), as I do not want to improperly signal that I hold certain beliefs.

Thanks; sorry about the duplicate question post, I had not been able to find the "replay" version of this particular article.

I think it is a good way to map what people have commonly called "superposition," but the sentence should probably be "The system is in the superposition STATE1 + STATE2, relative to STATE 3, where STATE 3 roughly factors out". STATE 3 in this case is usually an observer. I mean, if I flip a "quantum coin" and I have not told you if it is heads or tails, then the coin (and I) is in a superposition of "HEADS + TAILS" relative to you, but due to decoherence on my end, it is not in a superposition relative to me. For me this was an important concept to learn, as it helped me see that "many worlds" is a local and non-discrete phenomenon.

And another quantum-related question. - In The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene (p. 196), he describes a setup of the two slit experiment where half of the particles have their "which way" information recorded, thus causing decoherence and not showing an interference pattern, and the other half of the particles are not measured, and thus do show an interference pattern. After the fact one can look at which photons were not measured, and these do indeed form the interference pattern.

However, he then goes on to explain an identical setup, with ... (read more)

So this is sorta off-topic for this thread, but I cannot see where one can start a new one. I posted the following questions at http://lesswrong.com/lw/q2/spooky_action_at_a_distance_the_nocommunication/, as I cannot find the "rerun" version of it. Anyway, here goes. FWIW, the topic was about EPR experiments.

For all these types of experiments, how do they "aim" the particle so it hits its target from far away? It would seem that the experimenters would know pretty much where the particle is when it shoots out of the gun (or whatever), ... (read more)

(I can't find the "rerun" version of this page, so am posting my questions here).

1. For all these types of experiments, how do they "aim" the particle so it hits its target from far away? It would seem that the experimenters would know pretty much where the particle is when it shoots out of the gun (or whatever), so would not the velocity be all over the place? In the post on the Heisenberg principle, there was an example of letting the sun shine through a hole in a piece of paper, which caused the photons to spread pretty widely, pretty

In a previous post in this series, it was stated that if you shot the particles towards the mirrors at different times, but that difference was vanishingly small, then you would still see the same results, except for there would be a correspondingly vanishingly small chance that you would see both detectors register a single particle, since configurations were "smudgy". Why would not the same apply to two electrons that were distinguishable, but their differences were vanishingly small?

Bots only win at 1v1 limit poker. No bot can play professional no-limit poker, especially at a full table.

I believe that they can win LIMIT poker at a full table; does not have to be 1-1 in that case.

The a priori argument that using money is important doesn't stand up under closer >examination. If you are incapable of generalizing from in-game currency to dollars, you >won't be capable of generalizing from poker to other activities. And player behavior >does not seem to be grossly different - take for example the fact that prediction markets >work the same with real money or fake money.

It may not be much different for prediction markets, but it is VERY different for online poker. Even if you play exactly the same with or without money, y... (read more)

Would it be rational for the Poker houses to try to cheat the rule-breakers?

While I can't vouch for every single poker site out there, the chances of them trying to cheat you are almost nil. The amount of marginal income they would make compared to the risk of a tarnished reputation makes it a foolish play (note that to cheat you, they would need to not only rig the game, but have a shill in there to divert the money to).

I used to count cards at blackjack. And when I did it in Reno, at a certain stage a >new dealer would be brought to the table (ou

So in the following transformation:

X1Y1 -> X2Y1 X1Y2 -> X4Y1 X1Y3 -> X6Y1 X1Y4 -> X8Y1

You say that while true entropy has not increased (it stays at 2 bits), apparent entropy has, due to the observer not keeping track of X and just lumping its possible states into X2-X8. If this is the case, why doesn't observed entropy decrease as well, since phase space is preserved with the following?

X2Y1 -> X1Y1 X4Y1 -> X1Y2 X6Y1 -> X1Y3 X8Y1 -> X1Y4

Considering the vast number of non-human animals compared to humans, the probability of being a human is vanishingly low. Therefore, chances are that if I could be an animal, I would be.

I do not really think you need an anthropic argument to prove that "you" couldn't be an animal; it is more a matter of definition, i.e. by definition you are not an animal. For example, there is no anthropic reason that "I" couldn't have been raised in Alabama, but what would it even mean to say that I could have been raised in Alabama? That somebody ... (read more)

OK, I may have misunderstood his meaning. I thought he was saying that there were things he would never mention, as it would alienate people, as opposed to just not mentioning it in this post.

Morendil, I absolutely agree. It may very well be that the ills outweigh the good (though I happen to personally doubt it). I'm just saying that the weighing should be done independently of the rationality of religion (which I think we can all agree is about 0). I just fear that it is too easy for there to be a negative halo effect around religion, which is understandable seeing that this is a forum about rationality.

" 'God made me pregnant' sounded a tad more likely in the old days before our models of the world contained (quotations of) Y chromosomes. "

I don't know about that; the whole point about the "virgin birth" was that it was miraculous, i.e. physically impossible. Had they known about DNA, the story would have included God creating some DNA for "his" side of the deal. Saying that knowledge of DNA would have made the virgin birth less believable is like saying greater knowledge of classical physics would have made people more skeptical of Jesus walking on water. Impossible == Impossible.

"And of course I could easily go on to name some beliefs that others think are wrong and that I think are right, or vice versa, but would inevitably lose some of my audience at each step along the way - just as, a couple of decades ago, I would have lost a lot of my audience by saying that religion was unworthy of serious debate. "

So are you admitting to just going for "cheap credit"? In your post you encourage people to stick their intellectual necks out, but seem reluctant to do so yourself.

This may be a bit pedantic, but isn't the A->C relationship wholly contained in the A->B and B->C relationship? In other words, the only way A->C works is via B; there is no "extra" information in the A->C relationship.