That's interesting! I got the same answer but I visualized it differently. (Imagine, for each possible subpattern, i.e. "plus shape" or "dots", considering which items it appears in. In each case the answer is four, forming a rectangle. Two of the rectangles should extend into the ninth item, the one we're looking for.)

The enemy of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

Harrap's First Law

In fact, a book has already been written describing hell very similarly. But even in that book, there were three people. And cushions.

The point Eliezer is addressing is the one that RichardKennaway brought up separately. Causal models can still function with feedback (in Causality, Pearl works through an economic model where price and quantity both cause each other, and have their own independent causes), but it's a bit more bothersome.

A model where the three are one-time events- like, say, whether a person has a particular gene, whether or not they were breastfed, and their height as an adult- won't have the problem of being cyclic, but will have the pedagogical problem that the causation is obvious from the timing of the events.

One could have, say, the weather witch's prediction of whether or not there will be rain, whether or not you brought an umbrella with you, and whether or not it rained. Aside from learning, this will be an acyclic system that has a number of plausible underlying causal diagrams (with the presence of the witch making the example clearly fictional and muddying our causal intuitions, so we can only rely on the math).

In my opinion, the best fix would be to steelman the argument as much as possible.

The concept of inferential distance suggests to me that posts should try and make their pathways as short and straight as possible. Why write a double-length post that explains both causal models and metabolism, when you could write a single-length post that explains only causal models? (And, if metabolism takes longer to discuss than causal models, the post will mostly be about the illustrative detour, not the concept itself!)

It should be pointed out here that biological genuses, families, orders, and so on do not exist. If you discover a new continent full of organisms not previously known, there is no observation you can make to decide whether two of their species are, or are not, members of the same genus. It would be a wrong question. Every classification above the species level exists solely for the convenience of biologists talking about the organisms they are studying. Even at the species level, where we can talk about interbreeding populations, multiple definitions are possible and edge cases exist (sometimes so large as to make the very idea of a tree of descent moot).

The higher-level classifications may (but do not always) correspond to subtrees of the evolutionary history, but their ranking into genuses, orders, subfamilies, and so on in the 40-odd different levels available in current taxonomical practice is a product of human convenience, nothing more.

So the statement that some genus includes only one species is not a statement of biology. It is a statement about biologists.

Well I guess this is another flaw of classification. Species is defined as "Species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups" (Futuyma, 1998). The reproductive isolation can be genetic, or it can be simply geographical or habitual. There is no criteria that says two distinct species cannot interbreed, even though some species can and others cannot. For example dogs, wolves, and coyotes can all interbreed, but within the Felidae genus there are cat species that cannot interbreed.

What I was saying is that humans are the only living member of the Homo family. Homo sapiens exist as a single species because to some degree their is no limitation on our interbreeding. Sure there are many cultural norms and customs that have discouraged inter-racial, inter-class, inter-ethinicity breeding, but it has not stopped these things. I would argue (along with some evolutionary biologists) that the fact that homo sapiens exist in one giant gene pool is pretty unique among animals given the wide amount of territory that we populate.

Of course I can; humans aren't particularly special, at least not in relevant ways.

Humans are incredibly special. Humans are the only single species mammal. In that sense given the diversity of human ethnicities, humans are the most specialized-unspecialized species in the world (specialized in the sense that the species allows for the vast degrees of ethnic traits to be completely compatible with any human; unspecialized in the sense that we remain neutral enough to adapt to almost any environment and have not biologically chained ourselves to a particular habitat). Humans are the only species that we know of that creates a shared reality of perception (meaning that if I point at something, you know not to look at my finger but look for what I am pointing too; we are able to see our goals, victories, and aspirations as shared with a larger social entity). Humans are the only creature with a cultural paradox (A cultural paradox is where what is prescribed by their tribe often times is detrimental to their survival, but to go against the tribe is equally if not more detrimental.).

Biological classification is useful for organizational purposes, but the categories created are often times severely lacking. In this case, I think humans are so different from most other mammals that it is not useful to use them as an insight into human nature/ the development of the human species.

I don't think only humans have these extra sexes. Could you direct me to the comparative analysis of Mammalian reproductive systems that discusses hermaphrodites in other species? I am sure most gonochronistic animals have cases of hermaphrodites or other genetic mutations.

You are right, outbreeding is not what I meant. That is why I split the word up, hoping to convey my point. Intentional elimination is a good way to say it. If Hermaphrodites were not so stigmatized they would not be abandoned/killed/maimed as children; if they were not on average abandoned/killed/maimed as children then there would be a decent size population of hermaphrodites able to develop a stable social station; if there were a stable hermaphrodite community their genes would spread; if there genes spread their would be more hermaphrodites. I think the intentional elimination of hermaphrodites has made a huge impact on the demographic of humanity, do you disagree?

Also I don't think you can use the fact other gonochronistic mammals have not developed more sexes as a reason why humans would not.

Psi doesn't even explain consciousness or qualia.

[edit] Oops, necro. Disregard me.

[edit edit] okay! nevermind that then :D

...or it could just be that extremely complex systems like gender unavoidably go haywire during fetal development or a mutation hits, and this results in a normal background rate of around 1:3000?