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Some people think that the universe is fine-tuned for life perhaps because there exists a huge number of universes with different laws of physics and only under a tiny set of these laws can sentient life exist. What if our universe is also fined-tuned for the Fermi paradox? Perhaps if you look at the set of laws of physics under which sentient life can exist, in a tiny subset of this set you will get a Fermi paradox because, say, some quirk in the laws of physics makes interstellar travel very hard or creates a trap that destroys all civilizations before they become spacefaring. If the natural course of events for sentient life in non-Fermi-tuned universes is for space faring civilizations to expand at nearly the speed of light as soon as they can, consuming all the resources in their path, then most civilizations at our stage of development might exist in Fermi-tuned universes.
Yes, you can apply the Anthropic principle to the Fermi paradox, if you make some assumptions, but even then the case is nowhere near as clear-cut as applying it to the 'fine-tunenes' of the universe.
"Spiritual" doesn't necessarily imply a belief in anything supernatural: as Wikipedia puts it,
Since the 19th century spirituality is often separated from religion, and has become more oriented on subjective experience and psychological growth. It may refer to almost any kind of meaningful activity or blissful experience, but without a single, widely-agreed definition.
I've sometimes marked myself in the "atheist and spiritual" category in the surveys, though not always since I've been a little unsure of what exactly is meant by it. When I have, I've taken "spiritual" to refer to practices like engaging in meditation (possibly with the intention of seeing through the illusion of the self), seeking to perceive a higher meaning in everything that one does, enjoyment of ritual, cultivation of empathy towards other people, looking to connect with nature, etc.
I'm sceptical that this interpretation makes sense in a question about religious views, but I guess it may explain it.
What's up with a whole 10% being 'Atheist and spiritual'? It doesn't seem to be a family thing, as you get only 4.9% with that belief in the family section, and the numbers don't match up with the P(Supernatural) question.
I was worried about this last year when it was 8.1%, and the number seems to be increasing. Is this Will Newsome's post-rationality faction or what?
Meetup : London First 2015 Meetup, 04/01/2015
Discussion article for the meetup : London First 2015 Meetup, 04/01/2015
LessWrong London is having its first Meetup of 2015 this Sunday (04/01) at 2:00 PM. We are meeting at our usual venue - The Shakespeare's Head by Holborn tube station. There is no fixed topic of discussion nor is there anything planned so be prepared for anything. There will be a sign identifying us and if you have any problems feel free to contact me on 07425168803.
About London LessWrong: We run this meetup almost every week; these days we tend to get in the region of 5-15 people in attendance. By default, meetups are just unstructured social discussion about whatever strikes our fancy: books we're reading, recent posts on LW/related blogs, logic puzzles, toilet usage statistics.... Sometimes we play The Resistance or other games. We usually finish around 7pm, give or take an hour, but people arrive and leave whenever suits them.
If you want more information about the meetup or anything else come by our google group or alternatively our facebook group.
Discussion article for the meetup : London First 2015 Meetup, 04/01/2015
Not exactly a resolution, but given the time of the year it is close enough.
I am also responsible to get better, because I can, and because only a better version of me will be able to solve certain problems and help in some circumstances. Tsuyoku Naritai!
You might check IRC - #lesswrong, maybe #slatestarcodex, someone is probably willing to help, and you might make a friend.
I think that's actually the motivation for the offshoot channel #lw-support
Are all interpretations of QM equally wrong?
Is there not one that is less wrong?
Is there not one that is truer to the themes of rationalism?
What is the difference between rationalism and empiricism?
You haven't seen that one big sequence that mostly argues for one of the QM interpretations, have you?
I am against more frequent threads, as it'd likely make things harder to find and the individual discussions shorter and shallower.
What's the big problem with people waiting a few days to post when they want full exposure, anyway? It is a useful schelling point, and it ensures that those comments will get said exposure for a full week.
Many people use open threads to share links to various articles. Perhaps it is media threads that should be more frequent? E.g. Maybe we should have Written Media Threads and Visual Media Threads? Or perhaps open threads should have topics? For example, Open Thread for asking for advice, Science Open Thread, Social Science Open Thread, Futurism and Transhumanism Open Thread, Artificial Intelligence Open Thread, Open Thread to share links to various blog posts, long form articles, Open Thread that is similar to Reddit's Best Of (people would link to insightful comments from outside of LessWrong), etc. Some special threads, e.g. Group Rationality Diary are already like specialized open threads.
Having open threads every day would clutter Discussion and it would make finding anything very hard. "Open Thread" is a very non-informative title.
I think that one of the reasons why too few people comment on old threads is that LessWrong post sorting algorithm, being based on Reddit, doesn't move the threads that have recent comments to the top. At the moment the only way to notice that the old thread is now active (unless someone replied to your comment) is to notice its activity in "Recent Comments" section.
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Statistics seems to satisfy all/almost all of those.