I learned about the actual atomic model, what with how atoms form molecules and all the standard model descriptions, fairly late. I can't remember the age, but I had already fully learned arithmetic and played a lot with real numbers, and the number zero being what it is, I had already spent a fair amount of time philosophizing over "the nature of nothingness" and what a true zero might really represent, and come to the conclusion that there's an infinity of "zero" numbers in-between any nonequal real numbers, and as applied to geometry this would translate to an infinity of infinitely small points.

Before learning the actual model as described in classrooms, all my knowledge of atoms came from hearsay and social osmosis and modern culture and various popular medias (TV, pop-sci magazines, etc.)

All I remember was that I had already been told atoms were "the tiny lego blocks of the world" and "so infinitely tiny that they're impossible to see no matter how big a microscope you make". From the terms "infinitely", "tiny", "impossible", and "blocks", and armed with my knowledge about zero applied to geometry, I found natural to infer that the tiny building blocks of the smallest possible size were tiny zero-space points that only have "position" by way of somehow "measuring" their relative distance to other tiny zero-space points. Now that I think about it, that "measuring" term was my first-ever use of a mental placeholder for "THIS IS MAGIC, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT WORKS! LET'S DO SCIENCE!"

In retrospect, spending so much time thinking philosophically about the "zero" number and the careless wordings of those that told me about the Atomic Model are probably what made me think this way.

A Newtonian physics simulator simulates infinitely small conceptual points and/or quantum-cubes in an euclidean space at fixed positions. Not "billiard balls", AFAIK. I've always found the "balls" concept supremely absurd and immediately assumed they were talking about conceptual zero-space point entities.

Otherwise, it seemed very inconsistent to me that the smallest indivisible pieces of reality would have a measurable curved surface and measurable volume (whether physically possible to make these measurements or not). The idea of anything statically perfectly circular or spherical existing in nature was, to my young 13-year-old-mind, obviously inconsistent with the idea that the shortest possible route between two points is a line and that pi happens to be an irrational number ("I mean, infinitely non-regular! How the hell could that happen an infinite amount of times for each surface of a potential infinity of tiny objects bouncing around?!", would I have said back then). It also seemed like it would fuck up gravity somehow, though I can't recall the exact train of thought I had back then.

Of course, this is just for the "billiard balls" thing. I agree that it was (and still is in some cases) a very useful model and even the balls make it simpler to explain because it is simplex to most human minds, so on that part I think it's a fair example. I would, however, have been thoroughly surprised and shaken to learn that it was truly how-things-are that there were tiny literal spheres/balls moving about, rather than conceptual concentrations that represent zero-volume points in space.

I'm a little late to the party, but I thought I'd mention something that hasn't gotten brought up yet.

I have some experience at leading/organizing groups like this. Something to consider when dealing with sequential learning is how to deal with people who are absent. Ideally, of course, you'll have a core group of people who want to do nothing more than attend every session diligently, take notes, and study the material as soon as they wake up, and before they retire at night. This, however, isn't going to happen. Life intrudes; people will miss some sessions.

Creating a plan to keep people updated and current when they miss things, or how to remind them of what they've already learned (something LW could improve upon, in my opinion) will allow everyone to stay together. Consider creating a summary to give them to take home. Likely, you'll be doing a summary any way at the end of your talk (if you aren't planning this, please do), and that ought to be sufficient. Also, you may want to leave room at the end and beginning of your sessions for questions about the concepts.

Also, make an effort to apply whatever concept you're working on to people's daily lives. One of the reason people find the extra material more useful than a lot of the core sequences as that they're more immediately applicable to what we deal with, while it takes more creativity to figure out why some of the more basic or obscure steps matter right now. You may consider challenging people to look for examples of the current concept in their daily life, papers, or current events and bring it to share next time.

I hope something in here was useful. What you're doing sounds really awesome - let us know how it goes!

Men are in more positions of power than women or children. And by more, I mean across all cultures and all times and by a large margin. This was not stated in the above. Stating so might further illuminate the psychology of power.

Voting patterns can change with time and with respect to different issues.

I estimate the chance of getting uploaded or having the effects of aging reversed before society collapses (at least to the point that such a person would die) is about, oh, one in ten thousand. Given that estimate and my sense of the cost, then that is an implication of what I am saying.

Forewarning: this is something of a rant and not carefully argued... Hey, someone with (at least somewhat) similar views. Great to hear from you. I skimmed the other discussion, and regret I didn't see it earlier. I don't worry about an inability to die if you don't like life, and think the population issue isn't so bad by itself (I worry about the disproportionate number of old people (even if healthy) and the rarity of children. But "unknown consequences" weighs very heavily. The status quo bias isn't such a bad thing as a defense against hubris. And while I can't prove it, I think a society where people live to (even) 200 is extreme hubris, playing with fire. Individuals have an incredibly strong motivation to keep themselves alive. If it runs against the common good (which it could in any number of ways) it would be very hard to stop. I'm not sure how LWers got so terribly afraid of death -- usually atheists accept death. And, while I'm at it, I think The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant is one of the most maddening pieces of sophistry around. It could be a textbook case for "kill the enemy" emotional manipulation. I scratch my head at how a group that starts out in search of rationality ended up as starry-eyed transhumanists. But I tend to think that rationality wouldn't really resolve differences related to life extension. It's different probability estimates and different utility curves. So an unpopular view like this gets voted into invisibility, and the community keeps its unanimity. What to do? Probably go off to some other corner of the web of like-minded people, and stop trying to change minds... End of rant.

My plea is to keep life-extension therapies far from the market until all the conditions are in place to solve the problems of cost and making sure that the path is clear to extending healthy life, not decrepitude. This should include an enthusiastic, positive attitude towards life instead of weariness and depression.

Can you give more specific examples of what life-extension therapies you would want kept off the market?

As an example, let's say your plea is granted, and you are put in charge of a currently non existent "Longevity International For Eternity" Bureau, and you get to approve, ban, cancel or delay any or all treatments as you see fit. It's a lifetime appointment and you don't have to worry about popularity if you don't want to, but you can if you want. Can you give more information about what you would do?

It may be useful to actually type out how you use the above thought experiment to explain Bayes. That would make it more useful for those of us still confused or unsure about what Bayes means (hey, I'm a newbie, be nice), and it would help people critique the example in how it teaches the theorem.

For example, why is it better to ask, "If a 3 is pulled, is it more likely to be an 8-sided dice or not?" than to ask, "If a random dice is rolled, is it more likely to be a 3 or not?"

I, personally, tell the difference by paying attention to and observing reality without making any judgments. Then, I compare that with my expectations based on my judgments. If there is a difference, then I am thinking I am interacting instead of interacting.

Over time, I stop making judgments. And in essence, I stop thinking about interacting with the world, and just interact, and see what happens.

The less judgments I make, the more difficult the Turing Test becomes; as it is no longer about meeting my expectations, but instead satisfying my desired level of complexity. This, by the nature of real-world interaction, is a complicated set of interacting chaotic equations; And each time I remove a judgment from my repertoire, the equation gains a level of complexity, gains another strange attractor to interact with.

At a certain point of complexity, the equation becomes impossible except by a "god".

Now, if an AI passes THAT Turing Test, I will consider it a real person.