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Current genetic engineering, yes, but 50 or 100 years from now? Remember, we're talking not about what's viable now, but rather what's plausible and a unicorn is very plausible biologically -- it's merely technical difficulties which prevent us from creating one.
Meetup : West LA: Futarchy
Discussion article for the meetup : West LA: Futarchy
How To Find Us: The Westside Tavern in the upstairs Wine Bar (all ages welcome), located inside the Westside Pavillion on the second floor, right by the movie theaters. The entrance sign says "Lounge".
Parking: Free for three hours.
Discussion: This week we will attempt to tackle Robin Hanson's proposal for solving coordination problems on a massive scale, Futarchy. This will be a freestyle discussion, so it's probably best to at least read a little of the recommended reading to know what's going on. However, this is not required.
Recommended Reading:
- Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs by Robin Hanson.
- Questions about Futarchy by Andrew Gelman.
- Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs? by Robon Hanson.
- Where do I disagree with Robin Hanson? by Tyler Cowen.
Discussion article for the meetup : West LA: Futarchy
Meetup : West LA: Bias Bias
Discussion article for the meetup : West LA: Bias Bias
How to Find Us: We are meeting at the old location again this week, in the upstairs wine bar at Westside Pavillion.
Discussion: The phrase "bias bias" could mean many things. Perhaps one might employ the term to point to the tendency to accuse others of bias before oneself. Perhaps, as in this paper, it could refer to the tendency of statisticians to be overly concerned with eliminating statistical bias and under-concerned about variance. What I want to discuss is the risk that, if we are observing other decision-makers from the outside with less knowledge about the situation than them, we will almost always find predictable irregularities in their decision-making which we cannot explain via our understanding of the situation. This will, I think, tend to be true whether they're "biased" in a significant sense or not. In other words: we're very likely to have less knowledge about the situation than the people making the decisions, and this is very likely to mislead us into thinking they're making biased decisions which are harming them, if we approach the question without sufficient awareness. This doesn't mean we can't assess bias, but it does sound a note of caution in doing so. Even in cases where the reasoning from our perspective seems very clear, the decision-maker may have other considerations to take into account.
Recommended Reading: I don't know of anything written specifically on this, but the recent breaking Chesterton’s fence in the presence of bull seems relevant here.
No prior exposure to Less Wrong is required; all are welcome.
Discussion article for the meetup : West LA: Bias Bias
Touché!
It seems worth considering that I might benefit from specifically practicing being imaginative, or otherwise modifying my "two modes" thought pattern.
This does not seem very plausible as a genetic modification
Given narwhals, I don't see much in the way of biological problems with unicorns.
I think it's implausible with current or near-future genetic engineering. I am far from an expert on this, but I believe we can transfer chemical/metabolic capabilities between organisms, and I believe we can transfer many trats haphazardly, but to put a horn in a specific place and leave everything else untouched? This would involve designing a whole new growth point ("growth point" may not be quite the right concept). You'd have genes that activate only when on the forehead, in a very specific pattern which does not presently exist. Sure, if we could manipulate genes like code we could take the code for this from another animal -- all the activation patterns needed to grow a horn. But then we'd need to find a way to turn them on only at the specific point desired.
The easiest way might be to try and cross in rhino genes. This could produce a hybrid animal with some horse features and some rhino features. It would have many aspects of the rhino shape all throughout the body, and eliminating these without reducing the horn would be difficult. And a rhino horn isn't really like a unicorn horn.
Perhaps narwal genes, but that sounds even more haphazard.
the distinction does not seem so clear in your mental processes
Well, in certain ways it exists. If I'm trying to figure out how to fix a broken thingy, my imagination tends to stick within the realm of the plausible. But in other ways, not necessarily -- for example, I don't see much, if any, difference between imagining a deer standing in the middle of a forest meadow and imagining a unicorn in the same place.
I guess you can even conceptualize progress as movement of "things" from the realm of the fantastical into the realm of the plausible.
For me, there is a big difference. It's something like a mode of thinking -- "is it plausible? could it happen? push toward the real" vs "is it interesting? is it exciting? freely explore the space". The first mode of thinking sees the unicorn and starts thinking: This does not seem very plausible as a genetic modification. Is the horn grafted on, perhaps? Does that work with the skull structure of a horse, or is there not enough foundation to stick it to? What about the skin healing, next to the horn? How does that work? Would it heal over properly, or remain like an open wound?
The second mode says -- just how magical is this unicorn? There are a lot of levels to this. It could be anything from a horse with a horn to a godlike thing which can zap stuff in and out of existence. If it's the godlike thing, it probably isn't very smart or goal-driven; otherwise it would reshape everything to its whim. Maybe it only uses the powers in defense, and occasionally on a whim.
In response to
Fiction Considered Harmful
It could be that, like sleep, the benefits of reading fiction aren't obvious and aren't on the surface. IOW, escapism might be like dreaming - a waste from one point of view (time spent) but still something without which we couldn't function properly, so therefore not a waste, but a necessary part of maintenance, or summat.
Yeah, I'd be very interested in evidence concerning these things.
In response to
Aumann Agreement Game
I like this very much. Did the game work in practice as you describe in the example?
Essentially, yes! There were often a few more revisions than this, and the trolling was more subtle.
In fact-oriented imagination, I'm imagining things that could be true in the real world
"Could be true in the real world" -- given how you mention alien planets -- is a very low bar. Tolkien could be true on some alien planet (especially if you're a fan of MWI). And don't forget Clarke's Third Law.
and dislike fantastical ideas which are not trying to be plausible
Ah, here is an interesting word: "plausible". Notice how it's not a limit of what could actually be -- it's a limit on what a person can imagine :-/
I would guess that if imagining is frowned upon, the boundaries of "plausible" will contract.
What would it look like if rationalists/rationalism steered toward a future society in which fictive discourse was in a similar category to lying?
I think it would look like stagnation.
I take this as a statement that the distinction does not seem so clear in your mental processes.
Which is interesting.
I think it would look like stagnation.
Yeah... I am now of this position as well.
In response to
Fiction Considered Harmful
Fiction is just imagination set to words.
Are you willing to argue against imagination?
In my mind, at least, there is a fairly large distinction between fact-oriented imagination and fictive imagination. In fact-oriented imagination, I'm imagining things that could be true in the real world (including future/past, alien planets, etc). In fictive imagination, deviations are allowed.
Am I willing to argue against non-fact-oriented imagination? Probably not, but let's consider it. What would it look like if rationalists/rationalism steered toward a future society in which fictive discourse was in a similar category to lying?
I'm imagining that the society would still have something like entertainment. This may not be the case, of course, since a society very much in the future is rather difficult to imagine. The entertainment would be more fact-based, like sports, biographies and documentaries. Speculative (imaginative) conversations between friends are fact-oriented; people prefer to talk about hard-science-fiction style speculation rather than soft, and dislike fantastical ideas which are not trying to be plausible.
Is something essential missing?
My feeling is that fiction provides some kind of release that fact does not -- it feels more restful to me. I'm suspicious of this feeling, because I don't think I'm actually more rested after reading fiction, but it's hard to say. Highly fact-oriented discussions can be a lot of fun (especially in situations where discussion is typically not fact-oriented), but it feels "heavy"; there's this big web of constraints to deal with.
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This is fair, because you're using the technique to redirect us back to the original morality issue.
But i also don't think that MBlume was completely evading the question either. The question was about ethical principles, and his response does represent an exploration of ethical principles. MBlume suggests that it's more ethical to sacrifice one of the lives that was already in danger, than to sacrifice an uninvolved stranger. (remember, from a strict utilitarian view, both solutions leave one person dead, so this is definitely a different moral principle.)
This technique is good for stopping people from evading the question. But some evasions are more appropriate than others.
Agreed.