since I don't know what "philosophy" really is (and I'm not even sure it really is a thing).

I find it's best to treat philosophy as simply a field of study, albeit one that is odd in that most of the questions asked within the field are loosely tied together at best. (There could be a connection between normative bioethics and ontological questions regarding the nature of nothingness, I suppose, but you wouldn't expect a strong connection from the outset) To do otherwise invites counter-example too easily and I don't think there is much (if anything) to gain in asking what philosophy really is.

In most countries, including the USA, it is prohibitively difficult to completely avoid committing crimes. For example, you commit a crime whenever you:

• Drive over the speed limit
• Sing "Happy Birthday" to someone
• Watch a movie at home with friends (depending on the media)
• Make off-color jokes in public
• Drink alcohol (depending on location)
• Post certain kinds of jokes on Twitter
• Create software of almost any kind

Most of the laws that define such actions as crimes are rarely enforced here in the USA -- until you happen to draw an attention of some moderately powerful person or entity, at which point the enforcement kicks in. However, it would be difficult (though not, I suppose, impossible) to lead a normal life without committing any such minor crimes.

Is there anyone going to the April CFAR Workshop that could pick me up from the airport? I'll be arriving at San Francisco International at 5 PM if anyone can help me get out there. (I think I have a ride back to the airport after the workshop covered, but if I don't I'll ask that seperately.)

I tend to think this is the wrong question.

Here's roughly what happens: there are various signals (light, air waves, particulates in the air) that humans have the capacity to detect and translate into neural states which can then be acted on. This is useful because the generation, presence, and redirection of these signals is affected by other objects in the world. So a human can not only detect objects that generate these signals, it can also detect how other objects around it are affected by these signals, granting information that the human brain can then act upon.

All of this is occurring in reality: the brain's neural firings, the signals and their detection, the objects that generate and are affected by the signals. There is no "outside reality" that the human is looking in from.

If you break it down into other questions, you get sensible answers:

"Does the human brain have the capacity to gain information from the ball without a medium?" No.

"Is the human brain's information about the ball physically co-located with some area of the brain itself?" Sure.

"Is the signal detected by the sense-organs co-located with some area of the brain itself?" Potentially at certain points of interaction, but not for its entire history, no.

"What about the neural activity?" That's co-located with the brain.

"So are you trying to say you are only 'Directly acquainted' with the signal at the point where it interacts with your sense-organ?" I don't think calling it 'directly acquainted' picks out any particular property. If you are asking if it is co-located with some portion of my brain, the answer is no. If you are asking if it is causing a physical reaction in some sensory organ, the answer is yes.

I just hope that the newly-dubbed Machine Intelligence Research Institute doesn't put too much focus on advertising for donations.

That would create a MIRI-ad of issues.

Sorry, if I don't let the pun out it has to live inside my head.

Today, the general attitude towards scientific discovery is that all research should be shared and disseminated as widely as possible, and that scientists are not themselves responsible for how their work is used. And for someone who is interested in science for its own sake, or even for someone who mostly considers research to be a way to pay the bills, this is a tempting attitude. It would be easy to only focus on one’s work, and leave it up to others to decide what to do with it.

The reasoning is that if you discover something which could have potentially harmful applications, it's better that there is public discussion about it rather than it becoming a toy in the hands of corporations or government agencies.

If you conceal or halt your research, somebody else is going to repeat the same discovery soon. If all ethically concerned scientists stop pursuing some line of research, then non-ethically concerned scientists will be the only ones doing it.

As for conducting dangerous research in secret, you will not be able to prevent leaks, and the chances that you screw up something are much higher if you act without public oversight. Moreover, it is unethical for you to do experiments that potentially put other people at risk without their informed consent.

I guess you are writing this because your emplyer the Singularity Institute (or whatever they are called now) use the "secret dangerous knowledge" excuse to handwave its conspicuous lack of published research. But seriously, that's not the right way of doing it:

If you are a legitimate research organization ethically concerned by AI safety, the best way to achieve your goals is to publish and disseminate your research as much as possible, in particular to people who may be building AIs.
Because, let's face it, if AGI is technically feasible, you will not be the first ones to build one, and even if by some absurdly improbable coincidence you were, the chances that you get it right while working in secrecy are negligible.

Of course, in order to publish research, you must first be able to do research worth publishing. As I said before, for the SI this would be the "flour on the invisible dragon" test.

I usually turn to the Principle of Explosion to explain why one should have core axioms in their ethics, (specifically non-contradictory axioms). If some principle you use in deciding what is or is not ethical creates a contradiction, you can justify any action on the basis of that contradiction. If the axioms aren't explicit, the chance of a hidden contradiction is higher. The idea that every action could be ethically justified is something that very few people will accept, so explaining this usually helps.

I try to understand that thinking this way is odd to a lot of people and that they may not have explicit axioms, and present the idea as "something to think about." I think this also helps me to deal with people not having explicit rules that they follow, since it A) helps me cut off the rhetorical track of "Well, I don't need principles" by extending the olive branch to the other person; and B) reminds me that many people haven't even tried to think about what grounds their ethics, much less what grounds what grounds their ethics.

I usually use the term "rule" or "principle" as opposed to "axiom," merely for the purpose of communication: most people will accept that there are core ethical rules or core ethical principles, but they may have never even used the word "axiom" before and be hesitant on that basis alone.

"[10065] No route to host Error"

I figure the easiest way to delay a human on the other end of a computer is to simulate an error as best I can. For a GAI, this time is probably invaluable.

But surely in math, of all subjects, it's easily possible to construct problems that cannot be solved without thinking and understanding, that do not reduce to mere memory and recognition of a known question "5x5". Then students who want the "right" answer will be forced to understand.

This isn't absolute, of course. When learning elementary multiplication, pretty much all you can ask about is multiplying, and there are only a few dozen pairs in the 10x10 multiplication table, and students generally just remember them, they don't calculate. But by the time you're up to arbitrary size multiplication or long division, you need to apply an algorithm; that's a step of understanding, because you can see that the algorithm also produces the results you memorized earlier. And so on.

When students are at the 5x5 level, I don't think there is an answer to "why is 25 the right answer?" that they could understand - it just is the right answer, a brute fact about life, just like the sky is blue and sun comes up every day. But that doesn't continue forever.

In my personal experience schools go way too far in the other direction, and keep asking for rote memorization when it's already possible to ask for understanding.

I understand the difference. What I don't understand is the odd conjunction.

so concerned with getting the right arithmetic answers that they weren't thinking about arithmetic.

I parse this as saying: because they were so (strongly) concerned with getting the right answers, they weren't thinking. If they had been less concerned with getting the right answers, they would have been thinking more.

What is the idea here? That if they didn't spend so much time, effort, or worry on memorizing, then they would have had more time to think?