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Not about anything important, and that scares me.
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Have you changed your mind recently?
Is there anything important you think you should change your mind about?
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Stupid Questions February 2015
I was reading about the St. Petersburg paradox
I was wondering how you compare two games with infinite expected value. The obvious way would seem to be to take the limit of the difference of their expected value, as one tolerates less and less likely outcomes.
Is there any existing research on this?
I just read a description of that lottery. I see its expected value is a divergent series. If both games you compare have their expected values defined this way then I think you can subtract one series from the other. i think this is the approach you mentioned, and I would do it.
Also, I'm not an expert on infinity, but I think there are different kinds of infinity. If one game gives you, on average, a dollar for each natural number, and one gives you, on average, one dollar for each pair of natural numbers that exists, then the second game gives you infinitely as much expected value as the first one.
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Stupid Questions February 2015
A lot of math and physics definitions feel like they have weird dross. Examples:
- The Gamma function has this -1 I don't understand
- The Riemann Zeta function ζ(s) negates s for reasons beyond me
- cosine seems more primitive than sine
- The gravitational constant looks like off by a factor of 4π
- π seems like half the size it should be
After years of confusion, I was finally vindicated about π. That π is not 6.2831853071... is mostly a historical accident. Am I "right" about these other definitions being "wrong"? What are other mathematical entities are defined in ugly ways for historical reasons?
I used to think that the way mathematicians did things was forced to be the best way we could do because of the requirements to do things properly in order to advance in maths. But then the Tau Manifesto showed me I was wrong.
I think you're right about cosine. I think sine seemed simpler when it was named back in classical times, but then when complex numbers were discovered and their relationships to the trigonometric functions was discovered, cosine turned out to be simpler.
Here's one I come across as a programmer: which number is better for starting indexing and counting things with? Zero or one? Zero is so much better for calculating with relative indexes, you have less off-by-one errors. In maths, the default convention is to number things starting at one. But when working with serieses (arithmetic series, discrete fourier transforms, maclaurin series e.g. the polynomial that equals e) the convention is to start at zero.
The current definition of the gravitational constant maximizes the simplicity of Newton's law F = Gmm'/r^2.
Absolutely, and Planck's constant maximizes the simplicity of finding the energy of a photon from its wavelength, and π maximally simplifies finding the circumference of of a circle from its diameter. But in all those cases, it feels to me like we're simplifying the wrong equation.
ETA: To be explicit, it feels like there should be a 4π in Newton's law. The formula is calculating the gravitational flux on the surface of a 3-dimensional sphere, and 3-dimensional spheres have a surface area 4π times their radii.
Wow, you have a good point. I always use the concept of surface area (and considering spheres of equal total force) to remember why the r on the bottom is squared. Putting the surface area into the formula is like replacing a factor that raises questions with the answer to those questions.
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Bill Gates: problem of strong AI with conflicting goals "very worthy of study and time"
The reason that AI wants to turn the universe into paperclips is because it's the 2nd coming of Clippy.
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Bill Gates: problem of strong AI with conflicting goals "very worthy of study and time"
The solution to the friendly AI problem: Make an AI that detects what people are trying to do and asks them if they'd like some help.
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Bill Gates: problem of strong AI with conflicting goals "very worthy of study and time"
Ten years ago this would have been a great segue into jokes comparing a post-singularity AGI to Microsoft Windows.
Yeah, I see a lot of complications involving iron, b12, and a few other things.
I don't have some sort of moral absolute thing going on; I ought to be able to make a low-effort glance into the things I eat and pick a diet that closely matches my intuitions without sacrificing health, happiness, or undue money. Like if it turns out that beef is the most ethical meat, and that eggs are really horrible, then I might eat beef but not eggs, if they are just vastly better ways of getting things that are otherwise a complete PITA to acquire.
Most likely, though, I can get by with very minimal tradeoffs, or at least it looks that way.
Yes, but if you've never tried to be vegetarian before, then your fears of the downsides (bad health and not enjoying food, right?) might be out of proportion. Going fully vegetarian for a bit gives you a chance to get feedback from your body about it, and so help you determine your limit.
If you cut down your meat intake but stay high above the limit then you're causing some animal suffering for no significant gain. (I assume reducing animal suffering is the goal of your plan.)
I planned to this myself but I'm not doing it, because of issues with my SO.
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Open thread, 18-24 August 2014
I've recently reconciled my behavior with my ethical intuition regarding eating animals, by way of deciding to alter my behavior and do some variation of "don't eat meat". I decided on this question long ago but did not act upon it.
I notice that there is very confusing information out there about what one should eat in order to avoid negative health impacts, and would like to read correct and useful articles on the subject, because I strongly desire to not be unhealthy. Do you have suggestions?
I am pragmatic. My intuition says that bone ash used to color certain food products has a relatively low cost (in sin-ons), and that there definitely are places I will make trades against sin-ons.
I also recognize that I would like a reasonably fast process to estimate sin-ons, and suggestions about highly impactful considerations (metabolic efficiency, things that might put various horrors on understandable scales) would be appreciated. Also, I am not sure that sin-ons is the word I am looking for as a measure of this sort of badness.
I have checked with my brain, and my brain has decided that cuteness does not particularly matter to it as a factor. Horse sashimi is delicious.
If you have things to say in favor of eating meat, please share them, and explain it to me as if I am a precocious 8 year old.
I've known a couple of people who became vegetarians for a while and then changed to eating meat occasionally, saying that it was for health reasons. Apparently, they got weak or sick when they went a while without eating meat. And a lack of iron was part of it IIRC. Maybe you could try being a full vegetarian until you notice side effects. The side effects might be really subtle, but if you do have them and detect them then you can get a measure of how much meat you need to eat.
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Bragging Thread, July 2014
Created a Sound-Cloud account and shared some music I made with my reversible spectrogram program on it. Got feedback from budding musician work colleagues and checked out their music. So I encouraged them and they encouraged me. And I have experience publishing on one of those social network publishing sites. And when I die, something of me will be available for others to see.
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I've been thinking this for a while: here on LW evolution is often portrayed as a weak algorithm that procedes to explore the genetic landscape fumbling around with random mutations. And this is certainly true for natural selection.
We have though also sexual selection: 'suddenly' you can choose which genome gets to reproduce thanks to a brain! In principle, brains are Turing complete, and this means that evolution could be much smarter. Of course, even that program is determined by your genetics, and sometimes things can go awry. Still, and more cogent for humans, there is the possibility of 'smarting up' evolution.
People have had this idea before. It's called "eugenics".
It has a bad reputation from its implementation by the Nazis, who might have corrupted it a bit for their other political goals.
But I think even a pure implementation of eugenics is not as good as the other options we have for improving the lives of future humans.