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Oh, incidentally, just commenting that's a good date, it's the anniversary of a certain One Small Step. :)
Flashlights could be a bunch of portable methods and heuristics that can help on a wide range of problems, not just under one streetlight. Polya's book is an example, as are some of the methods of statistical learning and Feynman's "visualize a hairy green sphere" trick.
Science itself would be a major "flashlight", I guess?
In response to
Can we dodge the mindkiller?
Nobody's mentioned electoral reform yet? The current incentive structures for the US two-party system are laughably bad right now.
I've been wondering whether it's worthwhile to try and get people in Silicon Valley behind a local electoral reform (alternative vote or proportional representation or whatever, at the municipal level), on the theory that this is the only way to get momentum for larger-scale reform. Plus, there are plenty of things that seriously need reforming on the local level, but are dominated by the cartel of the few folks who currently vote in municipal elections. (Zoning being an obvious example; NIMBYism toward housing development in the Bay Area takes a staggering toll on everyone but homeowners.)
Alternative vote is Instant Runoff Voting, right? If so, then it's bad, for it fails the monotonicity criterion. That means that raising one's vote re a particular candidate doesn't necessarally do the obvious thing.
Personally, I favor Approval Voting, since it seems to be the simplest possible change to our voting system that would still produce large gains.
(Also, would be nice if we (the US, that is) could switch to algorithmic redistricting and completely get rid of the whole gerrymandering nonsense.)
I meant that everyone I've discussed the subject with believes that self-interest exists as a motivating force, so maybe "additional" would have been a better descriptor than "new."
Hrm... But "self-interest" is itself a fairly broad category, including many sub categories like emotional state, survival, fulfillment of curiosity, self determination, etc... Seems like it wouldn't be that hard a step, given the evolutionary pressures there have been toward cooperation and such, for it to be implemented via actually caring about the other person's well being, instead of it secretly being just a concern for your own. It'd perhaps be simpler to implement that way. It might be partly implemented by the same emotional reinforcement system, but that's not the same thing as saying that the only think you care about is your own reinforcement system.
I guess I don't see the problem with the trivializing gambit. If it explains altruism without needing to invent a new kind of motivation why not use it?
Why would actual altruism be a "new kind" of motivation? What makes it a "newer kind" than self interest?
He wasn't endorsing that position. He was saying "pebblesorters should not do so, but they pebblesorter::should do so."
You didn't understand what TheOtherDave said. He was talking about the same usage you are talking about and commenting that it is in contrast to Eliezer's past usage (and past advocacy of usage in conversations about how he uses should-related words.)
In response to
Causal Universes
Re your checking method to construct/simulate an acausal universe, won't work near as I can tell.
Specifically, the very act of verifying a string to be a life (or life + time travel or whatever) history requires actually computing the CA rules, doesn't it? So in the act of verification, if nothing else, all the computing needed to make a string that contains minds actually contain the minds would have to occur, near as I can make out.
I'm startled by this comment.
I mean, I understand that it was the thing to do that Pebblesorters would endorse, that part isn't startling, but I didn't think you endorsed that "Pebblesorter::(should, right, moral, etc.)" way of speaking.
Does this reflect a change in your position, or have I misunderstood you on this all along?
He wasn't endorsing that position. He was saying "pebblesorters should not do so, but they pebblesorter::should do so."
ie, "should" and "pebblesorter::should" are two different concepts. "should" appeals to that which is moral, "pebblesorter::should" appeals to that which is prime. The pebblesorters should not have killed him, but they pebblesorter::should have killed them.
Think of it this way: imagine the murdermax function that scores states/histories of reality based on how many people were murdered. Then people shouldn't be murdered, but they murdermax::should be murdered. This is not an endorsement of doing what one murdermax::should do. Not at all. Doing the murdermax thing is bad.
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Liposuction.
The laws of thermodynamics don't require a fat cell to release lipids because you're hungry or exercising; the fat cells can just physically not react until your muscles run out of glucose or your brain overrules your attempt to starve yourself to death. Similarly, there's no rule that fat cells can't die or shrink and the waste be dumped out through urine.
Thermodynamics is not any more useful than quantum mechanics in understanding obesity. It is moralizing disguised as an invocation of natural law.
Mm... I guess what this would be a case of I agree with the connotations of what you're saying, but not with the explicitly stated form, which I'd say goes a bit too far. It's probably more fair to say "energy-in - energy-spent - energy-out-without-being-spent = net delta energy" is part of the story, simply not the whole story.
It doesn't illustrate the ways in which, say, one might become unwell/faint without sufficient energy-in of certain forms, even if one already has a reserve of energy that is theoretically available to their metabolism, for example.
It's probably a useful thing to keep in mind when trying to diet, for those that can usefully diet that way, but it's not the whole story, and other info (much of it perhaps not yet discovered) is also needed. (And certainly using it as an excuse to moralize/shame is completely invalid.)
But I wouldn't call it useless, merely insufficient. What is useless is to pretend that there aren't really important variables that can influence the extent to which one can usefully directly apply the thermodynamics. (People who ignore the ways that other variables can influence the ability to usefully apply the thermodynamic facts and thus condescendingly say "feh, just eat less and exercise more, this is sufficient advice for all people in all circumstances" are, of course, being poopyheads.)