Comment author: gwern 26 July 2016 01:26:12AM 20 points [-]

I've written an essay criticizing the claim that computational complexity means a Singularity is impossible because of bad asymptotics: http://www.gwern.net/Complexity%20vs%20AI

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 26 July 2016 09:40:08PM *  3 points [-]

  • One screwup that you didn't touch on was the 70%. 70% is the square root of 1/2, not 2. If it's 2x as smart as its designers and the complexity class of smartness is square, then this new AI will be able to make one 40% smarter than it is, not 30% less smart. Imagine if the AI had been 9 times smarter than its designers... would its next generation have been 1/3 as smart as it started? It's completely upside-down.

  • Two 'Crawlviati' attributions are inside the quotes.

  • You didn't really call out certain objections as stronger than others. I would be surprised if giving up determinism was half as useful as giving up optimality. And changing the problem is huge. I think that, though this would not impact the actual strength of the argument, calling certain items out after the list before the next section would give it a rhetorical kick.

Comment author: Elo 26 July 2016 11:16:13AM -10 points [-]

In case you missed:

Recently I published:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/np5/adversity_to_success/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/nsf/should_you_change_where_you_live_also_a_worked/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/nsn/the_problem_tm_analyse_a_conversation/

I collect bot-voted down-spam by our resident troll Eugine (who has never really said why he bothers to do so). Which pushes them off the discussion list. Spending time solving this problem is less important to me than posting more so it might be around for a while. I am sorry if anyone missed these posts. But troll's gonna troll.

Feel free to check them out! LW needs content. Trying to solve that problem right now while ignoring the downvoting because I know you love me and would never actually downvote my writing. (or you would actually tell me about why - as everyone else already does when they have a problem)

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 26 July 2016 07:10:45PM -10 points [-]

Wow, that is a lot of downvotes on neutral-to-good comments. Your posts aren't great, but they don't seem like -10 territory, either.

I thought we had something for this now?

Comment author: Wes_W 07 June 2016 06:24:42AM 6 points [-]

From the point of view of physics, it contains garbage,

But a miracle occurs, and your physics simulation still works accurately for the individual components...?

I get that your assumption of "linear physics" gives you this. But I don't see any reason to believe that physics is "linear" in this very weird sense. In general, when you do calculations with garbage, you get garbage. If I time-evolve a simulation of (my house plus a bomb) for an hour, then remove all the bomb components at the end, I definitely do not get the same result as running a simulation with no bomb.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 08 June 2016 10:08:52PM 1 point [-]

Well, actually, physics appears to be perfectly linear... if you work purely quantum level. In which case adding R is just simulating R, and also simulating you, pretty much independently. In which case no, it isn't garbage. It's two worlds being simulated in parallel.

Comment author: Romashka 31 May 2016 09:44:11PM 0 points [-]

Yes, of course, it is reasonable; I have just not read any report on this, whether positive or negative. Will have to repair that gap.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 01 June 2016 12:04:49PM 0 points [-]

I thought the point of this post was the meta-level of whether such phrases ever make sense, not the more object-level of whether they make sense in this case.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 31 May 2016 08:40:58PM *  0 points [-]

What counts as rational fiction? Should the characters be rational, or should they just face rational consequences? ETA: found the description of the purpose, at http://rationalfiction.io/story/rational-fiction

Friendship is Optimal doesn't quiite seem to fit. The consequences are rational, but the other characteristics don't apply. Some of the followup fics might fit.

ETA: NOW I get it - you mention a bunch of things but haven't created writeups for them (yet).

Comment author: Romashka 31 May 2016 06:37:27AM 0 points [-]

No, it does not. The less faith people put into the 'evolutionary explanation', the more water it holds. Everything that is not forbidden is allowed; as long as the two versions both exist, there is no better one.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 31 May 2016 08:38:36PM 0 points [-]

Everything that is not forbidden is allowed; as long as the two versions both exist, there is no better one.

This reads as trying to sound wise. Population and diversity of habitats are a big deal for evolutionary fitness.

The reason the measurement 'boggled the mind' a few posts back is because YOU would have to go out and perform the experiment - you would have to collect the data, you would have to categorize the situations, etc. It's too much. Also, the orchid example was a toy example. The question is too specific to even admit a statistical answer. But Lichen vs Fungus and Algae? Just take a bunch of samples and stick them down together and separately, over a wide range of locations and situations. Since you'd actually be sampling the overall space of interest instead of hyper-focusing in narrowly on orchid batch A vs orchid batch B, you can get an actual answer, like "In environments A, B, C, D, E, the algae thrive alone and the fungus die alone, but lichen thrive. In environments F, G, H, I, J, The algae and fungus die alone but lichen thrive. In environments K and L the algae alone survive but both fungus and lichen die. ..."

The only thing mind-boggling about this is the work involved in making the measurement, not trying to figure out whether the question makes sense.

Also, this rather resembles what has been done - without proper monitoring, to be sure, and insufficient separation of the lichen components when it expands into new territories, and when either component expands into a new territory without the other no effort is made to bring the other along... but aside from those weaknesses, this is more or less what evolution has been doing. Trying everything and seeing what works best, as you say.

IF lichen dominates the performance of either component in any environment at all, then the statement that 'the sum is greater than the parts' is to some extent justifiable. The more such environments there are, the more it applies. If the two components do really badly except together, then it's very reasonable!

Comment author: Romashka 29 May 2016 04:14:08AM 0 points [-]

No. Sorry. I meant 'whether a comparison between the parameters for the f&a and for the lichen is meaningful at all, given different methods of [sampling, cultivation, quantification] 'searching' for all three, different ways of reproduction for all three, and different dissemination strategies for all three'.

It is sometimes difficult to compare two populations of the same species, for example for orchids. Suppose there are twenty adult-to-senescing plants in the location A, and no young plants visible at all, and ten struggling adult plants plus three possibly young ones in location B. What population has better prospects? The three young plants might actually be underdeveloped adults; the dust-like seeds, however uncommonly maturing, might germinate considerably far away; and both young and old plants can just sit under the ground eating their mycorrhiza for years and be, therefore, uncountable.

Now compare the difficulty of this estimation with the difficulty of the f&a vs. lichen one. The second boggles the mind.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 30 May 2016 11:32:19PM 0 points [-]

Measuring it would be a ridiculously exhaustive task, but it seems like evolution has already performed the measurement for us.

Comment author: Romashka 25 May 2016 05:14:43PM 0 points [-]

The question is not is it whether this is accurate, but rather whether this is meaningful at all. I think it isn't. I do not expect, therefore, that it can be proved, and any other defence seems to me to be circular, but I might be wrong.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 28 May 2016 11:15:58PM 0 points [-]

Whether 'the range and coverage and total population' is meaningful at all? I can't even understand how this being meaningful could be in question.

Comment author: Romashka 24 May 2016 04:56:21PM 1 point [-]

But what effect? You can determine, for example, how much CO2 do the fungi and algae produce when taken together not as lichen, but they won't occupy the same habitats (and so their CO2 emissions will cause different effects in the environment, and totalling them would not be correct). I mean that yes, obviously you will obtain some values, and they even might be lower than for the lichen containing the exact same amounts of both. It just won't have any practical sense.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 25 May 2016 11:50:24AM 0 points [-]

The effect here is just being able to survive and thrive in a place. Their range and coverage and so forth grow a lot.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 24 May 2016 04:32:52PM 4 points [-]

I understand synergy as when Effect(A) + Effect(B) < Effect (A & B). Basically, when you get nonlinearity in response.

This would not only be if you try to use it as medicine as you say, but also in their own capabilities.

So in this case, if you consider the algal component of lichen, take them alone, and see where they can live and what they can do, and if you consider the fungal component of lichen, take them alone and see where they can live and what they can do, your results will be (if the claim is correct) that these will not be half as widespread or capable as the two together are.

It seems pretty clear to me that this is what is meant. Does it make sense? Is this also an incorrect statement of biology?

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