For what it's worth I would love if LessWrong stuck to only decision theory, microeconomics, cognitive science, &c; I'd lurk and do what I could to maintain the relatively high standards of quality that LessWrong used to have. But look at how User:badger's excellent sequence on mechanism design went basically ignored compared to all the stupid shit that gets upvoted. I posted what I did because LessWrong has mostly been a signaling and self-help cesspit for years now and I thought my post would quietly attract a few readers who enjoyed it while those who didn't would just downvote and move on. Pissing in a swimming pool is immoral, but I'm pissing in an ocean here.

Our recent research into team behavior [...] reveals an interesting paradox: Although teams that are large, virtual, diverse, and composed of highly educated specialists are increasingly crucial with challenging projects, those same four characteristics make it hard for teams to get anything done. To put it another way, the qualities required for success are the same qualities that undermine success. Members of complex teams are less likely—absent other influences—to share knowledge freely, to learn from one another, to shift workloads flexibly to break up unexpected bottlenecks, to help one another complete jobs and meet deadlines, and to share resources—in other words, to collaborate. They are less likely to say that they “sink or swim” together, want one another to succeed, or view their goals as compatible.

Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams by Lynda Gratton and Tamara J. Erickson

This seems applicable as the LessWrong community is "large, virtual, diverse, and composed of highly educated specialists" and the community wants to solve challenging projects.

Trying to actually understand what equations describe is something I'm always trying to do in school, but I find my teachers positively trained in the art of superficiality and dark-side teaching. Allow me to share two actual conversations with my Maths and Physics teachers from school.:

(Teacher derives an equation, then suddenly makes it into an iterative formula, with no explanation of why)

Me: Woah, why has it suddenly become an iterative formula? What's that got to do with anything?

Teacher: Well, do you agree with the equation when it's not an iterative formula?

Me: Yes.

Teacher: And how about if I make it an iterative formula?

Me: But why do you do that?

Friend: Oh, I see.

Me: Do you see why it works?

Friend: Yes. Well, no. But I see it gets the right answer.

Me: But sir, can you explain why it gets the right answer?

Teacher: Ooh Ben, you're asking one of your tough questions again.

(Physics class)

Me: Can you explain that sir?

Teacher: Look, Ben, sometimesnot understanding things is a good thing.

And yet to most people, I can't even vent the ridiculousness of a teacher actually saying this; they just think it's the norm!

The most traditional way to begin a study of quantum mechanics is to follow the historical developments--Planck's radiation law, the Einstein-Debye theory of specific heats, the Bohr atom, de Broglie's matter waves, and so forth--together with careful analyses of some key experiments such as the Compton effect, the Frank-Hertz experiment, and the Davisson-Germer-Thompson experiment. In that way we may come to appreciate how the physicists in the first quarter of the twentieth century were forced to abandon, little by little, the cherished concepts of classical physics and how, despite earlier false starts and wrong turns, the masters--Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and Dirac, among others--finally succeeded in formulating quantum mechanics as we know it today.

However, we do not follow the historical approach in this book. Instead, we start with an example that illustrates, perhaps more than any other example, the inadequacy of classical concepts in a fundamental way. We hope that by exposing the reader to a "shock treatment" at the onset, he or she may be attuned to what we might call the "quantum-mechanical way of thinking" at a very early stage.

-- Modern Quantum Mechanics by J. J. Sakurai, the standard graduate level quantum textbook. Following this quote is a discussion of the Stern-Gerlach experiment. I post this quote because it is in line with Quantum Explanations.

Welcome! I am also basically a newcomer here. I'd suggest not waiting to read all the sequences before you contribute. The worst that happens is that someone corrects you, right? I've had a few interesting discussions and I'm still not quite done reading the main line.

Was your dissolving of free will different from the one presented in the Quantum Physics sequence?

I'm Thomas, 23 years old, from Germany. I study physics but starting this semester I have shifted my focus on Machine Learning, mostly due to the influence of lesswrong.

Here are a few things about my philosophical and scientific journey if anyone's interested.

I grew up with mildly religious parents, never being really religious myself. At about 12 I came into contact with the concept of atheism and immediately realized that's what I was. Before, I hadn't really thought about it but it was clear to me then. For a long time I felt a bit ashamed of not believing in god. I never mentioned it to anyone, probably fearing the reaction I would get. I would have called myself agnostic then. Only recently did I realize the extent to which religion can be dangerous and how deeply irrational it is. I consider it completely useless these days and I'm get actually confused whenever I find out that someone I thought of as rather intelligent turns out to believe in god.

Apart from that I had a minor existential crisis when I realized the implications of a deterministic world on free will. I was in the equivalent of high school when I read an article about the topic. Afterwards I felt strange for days, always thinking that nothing really mattered. But then I was actually able to (crudely) 'dissolve the question' and found peace with this issue.

After that, I spent very little time on philosophic topics for a long time. I thought I knew roughly what there was to know. I was wrong there.

Regarding my scientific education, I did always very well in math and consequently began studying physics (and as seems to be the case with some other physicists here I'm very skeptical towards the Many-World Interpretation). I always wanted to do something to advance our society and I thought physics was the right way. My original plan was to work on fusion reactors to solve the energy crisis this world is facing. Though, now, after spending some time on this site, I don't think anymore that the energy problem is our most urgent problem.

Discovering lesswrong was not that easy for me. Until 19 I spent my time in the German-speaking part of the Internet. Then someday I stumbled upon reddit (was that a pun?). Incidentally that really improved my English. And somewhere on reddit I clicked on a link which led me to HPMoR (thank you who ever posted that). Then I found lesswrong and now I'm here.

I'm about halfway through the sequences and I hope I can contribute once I finish. Learning about biases has already helped me a lot. For the future I think I'm most interested in learning about reasoning and decision theory.