MichaelVassar

For progress to be by accumulation and not by random walk, read great books

This recent blog post strikes me as an interesting instance of a common phenomenon. The phenomenon looks like the following; an intellectual, working within the assumption that the world is not mad, (an assumption not generally found outside of the Anglo-American Enlightenment intellectual tradition) notices that some feature of the world would only make sense if the world was mad. This intellectual responds by denouncing as silly one of the few features of this vale of tears to be, while not intelligently designed, at least structured by generalized evolution rather than by entropy. The key line in the post is > "Conversely in all those disciplines where we have reliable quantatative measurements of progress (with the obvious exception of history) returning to the original works of past great thinkers is decidedly unhelpful." I agree with the above statement, and find that the post makes a compelling argument for it. My only caveat is that we essentially never have quantitative measures of progress. Even in physics, when one regards not the theory but the technique of actually doing physics, tools and modes of thought rise and fall for reasons of fashion, and once widespread techniques that remain useful fall into disuse. Other important techniques, like the ones used to invent calculus in the first place, are never adequately articulated by those who use them and thus never come into general use. One might argue that Newton didn't use any technique to invent calculus, just a very high IQ or some other unusual set of biological traits. This, however, doesn't explain why a couple of people invented calculus at about the same time and place, especially given the low population of that time and place compared to the population of China over the many centuries when China was much more civilized than Europe. It seems likely to me that in cases like the invention of calculus, looking at the use of such techniques can contribute to their development in at l

85Mar 2, 2010

MichaelVassar

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Singularity Institute pitch and new project plus other organizations in our ecosystem

A week ago I made a pitch for the Singularity Institute to a crowd of interested potential donors, along with a number of leaders of other non-profit organizations with relatively radical and innovative goals. The videos are here, and should be a good introduction to a significant part of the...

Dec 17, 20108

Singularity Non-Fiction Compilation to be Written

Call for Essays:<http://singularityhypothesis.blogspot.com/p/submit.html> The Singularity Hypothesis A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment Edited volume, to appear in The Frontiers Collection<http://www.springer.com/series/5342>, Springer Does an intelligence explosion pose a genuine existential risk, or did Alan Turing, Steven Hawking, and Alvin Toffler delude themselves with visions 'straight from Cloud Cuckooland'? Should the notions of...

Nov 28, 201023

A speculation on Near and Far Modes

Katja's recent post on cryonics elicited this comment from Steven Kaas, "If cryonics is super-far and altruism is seen as more important in far mode, why isn’t buying cryonics for others seen as especially praiseworthy? Your list of ways in which cryo is far-mode seems too much of a coincidence...

Jul 21, 201022

Signaling Strategies and Morality

I am far from convinced that people in general wish to be seen as caring more about morality than they actually do. If this was the case, why would the persistent claim that people are -- and, logically, must be -- egoists have so long survived strong counter-arguments? The argument...

Mar 5, 201020

Priors and Surprise

I don’t want to be too dogmatic about this claim, but Godzilla is unrealistic. I don’t want to be too non-dogmatic about this claim either. OK then, just how dogmatic should I be? I have all sorts of reasons for thinking that skyscraper sized lizards or dinosaurs don’t actually exist....

Mar 3, 201023

For progress to be by accumulation and not by random walk, read great books

Mar 2, 201085

New Year's Predictions Thread

I would like to propose this as a thread for people to write in their predictions for the next year and the next decade, when practical with probabilities attached. I'll probably make some in the comments.

Dec 30, 200932

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MichaelVassar

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MichaelVassar

For progress to be by accumulation and not by random walk, read great books

New Year's Predictions Thread

Priors and Surprise

Singularity Non-Fiction Compilation to be Written

MichaelVassar

Singularity Institute pitch and new project plus other organizations in our ecosystem

Singularity Non-Fiction Compilation to be Written

A speculation on Near and Far Modes

Signaling Strategies and Morality

Priors and Surprise

For progress to be by accumulation and not by random walk, read great books

New Year's Predictions Thread

For progress to be by accumulation and not by random walk, read great books

New Year's Predictions Thread

Priors and Surprise

Singularity Non-Fiction Compilation to be Written

Singularity Institute pitch and new project plus other organizations in our ecosystem

Singularity Non-Fiction Compilation to be Written

A speculation on Near and Far Modes

Signaling Strategies and Morality

Priors and Surprise

For progress to be by accumulation and not by random walk, read great books

New Year's Predictions Thread