One Force Multipliers I can think of is to strategically search and use synergies.

This can be complex business synergies - which can be hard to find - but also combining simple tasks in space and time, e.g.

• doing as many purchases as possible on one day (possibly with support or a large car or running additional errands)

• doing gymnastics while doing household chores

• with children: combine routine appointments like haircut, physician examinations, courses, friend visits (but leave buffers)

"Established a useful new habit" (Background: I have a tendency to experience peak excitement about a new idea early on and then drop it entirely once the excitement wanes.) I have surprised myself by continuing to use HabitRPG for over a month now. I am very happy with the software; it really seems like it works for me.

"Established a useful new habit" I have been thinking for a while that I wish I was reading more philosophy, but I never quite got around to doing it. I finally decided that I would commit to just reading something -- I created a daily task in HabitRPG that would be satisfied by even a single paragraph. That task is now my longest running streak, and I usually read much more than a single paragraph.

"Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief" For a long time I approached the notion that minds are material things with mild scorn -- "what sort of misguided a priori commitments would motivate someone to believe that?" At any rate, it was not an issue that I thought about with any frequency. This past month, I found myself encountering some of the brain damage/stimulation research again, and this time my reaction was, "this seems terribly more probable in a world where minds are what brains do." I then went through a whole series of questions in this way (viz., "on which approach is aspect X of thinking more likely?") and came up with the same answer each time. I also realized that the idea of a non-material mind feels kind of goofy to me, and I asked myself, "why would I need to posit that? what do I lose without that?", coming up empty-handed. I have no dramatic level of confidence in my new belief, because I haven't done the real research, but I am perfectly happy with the level of confidence I have. So it is not really a matter of having found new evidence, but of approaching the issue in a new way. Honestly, I think the biggest factor is all the time I have spent over the past few months working through the sequences: I just think about things differently on some basic levels.

Sorry for the wordiness; it was an interesting and pleasant experience to watch myself work through that process.

Pollution does not seem particularly well described by risk or risk-taking; it basically a certainty with industrial operations.

• I finally registered on LessWrong and have slowly begun posting. I recognized that my reluctance to post was based on a feeling of intimidation. I have been overcoming the reluctance by consciously thinking, "I foresee long-term benefits to participating, and the potential disapproval of a bunch of [admittedly interesting] people on the internet hardly seems to counterbalance that benefit."

• I registered an account with HabitRPG and began using it to combat (a) my tendency toward akrasia and (b) my tendency to simply forget about tasks that need to be accomplished. I am somewhat embarrassed to use the site because I think it is silly that acquiring virtual rewards would help and have an image of myself as someone who "should" just be able to do what I want to do. Nevertheless, I have noticed that the silly virtual rewards do provide a real positive reinforcement.

While this is true, it may also be the case that humans in the default state don't take enough risks. Indeed, an inventor or entrepreneur bears all the costs of bankruptcy but captures only some of the benefits of a new business. By classical economic logic, then, risk-taking is a public good, and undersupplied. Which said, admittedly, not all risk-taking is created equal.

I don't recommend Eliezer's sequence as a first introduction to QM, at least not if you're interested in developing a reasonably deep understanding of the theory. If you want a minimal-math introduction, I think a better bet would be to check out the first few chapters of David Albert's Quantum Mechanics and Experience, illegally available in it's entirety here. I don't think Albert's book is an ideal introduction either, but I do think it does a better job than the sequence at getting the salient points across in simple language. Also, since you're interested in ontology, the latter half of Albert's book contains a pretty incisive analysis of various interpretations of QM (not just MWI).

And here's an attempt at explaining quantum amplitudes:

Let's start with classical configuration space, since you understand that. The possible states of a classical system are represented by individual points in its configuration space (well, technically, the configuration space doesn't give you the complete state of the system, because it leaves out information about velocities, but let's ignore that for now).

In quantum mechanics, the configuration space looks just like classical configuration space, but its interpretation is very different. It's no longer true that the state of a quantum system is represented by an individual point in configuration space. The state of a quantum system is represented by a function on configuration space (the function has to satisfy certain other requirements in order to qualify as a bona fide representation of a quantum state, but ignore that detail also).

So imagine your configuration space is only two-dimensional for now, and again imagine that we are only considering real-valued functions on configuration space. In that case, you could construct 3-D plots of the various functions that correspond to quantum states, with the x-y plane representing the configuration space and the z axis representing the value of the function. Here's an example of one such function (this function actually doesn't satisfy those extra requirements I mentioned above, but we're ignoring those). Looks kind of like a wave, doesn't it?

So that function represents one possible state of the quantum system. Other possible states are represented by other functions. A quantum state is simply a function mapping each point on configuration space to a number; in other words, it associates a single number with every individual classical configuration. This number is what we call the amplitude of that particular configuration. Go back to our 3-D plot from above. The amplitude of any particular configuration (any point on configuration space) is just the height of our wave-like function at that point. And the quantum state is just the collection of all these amplitudes.

Now things are a little more complicated in quantum mechanics because the functions we consider aren't necessarily real-valued. They don't have to associate a real number with each point on configuration space. They are actually complex-valued functions, which means that each point in configuration space is associated with a complex number. That's no longer easy to plot in three dimensions unfortunately, so you'll have to use your imagination a little bit. And of course, the configuration spaces for actual systems we are interested have many many more dimensions than just two.

Now what the amplitude does is give you the probability of observing some particular configuration when you decide to look at the system.In order to figure out the probability of seeing a certain configuration, take the complex number associated with that configuration by the quantum state, and then calculate its squared magnitude. That will give you the probability.

Hope that helped a little.

I recommend that you first read popular or semi-popular books written by experts in the field (Eliezer isn't one). One of the more recent and highly praised semi-popular books which addresses many points Eliezer tried to get across is ScottAaronson's Quantum Computing since Democritus. Free lecture notes are also available, but not as complete. The book has a complexity-theoretic bend, but you can skip the parts you find too boring or too hard. Other classic semi-popular QM books are also available, including the venerable Feynman lectures. That one explains amplitudes very well, but is light on various ontologies, like MWI.

What sort of help are you looking for? Do you have specific questions (like, do you want someone to explain the notion of amplitude) or are you looking for general resources on QM?

If the latter, then I highly recommend Leonard Susskind's lectures on quantum mechanics from his "Theoretical Minimum" series, available here. Susskind does assume that you know calculus. If you don't, then I suggest that you familiarize yourself with calculus before attempting a technical understanding of QM.

If you'd rather read than watch, the lectures are also available in book form, here.

(This was posted in the welcome thread, and I received a PM suggesting I post it here.)

I am looking for someone to help me with the Quantum Physics sequence. I have little background in physics and mathematics. For purposes of the sequence, you could probably consider me "intelligent but uninformed" or something like that.

To indicate the level on which I am having difficulties, take as an example the Configurations and Amplitude post.

• I can do the algebra involved.
• I found the articles linked in this comment helpful.
• I understand the notion of configuration space in its classical sense.
• I do not understand how the term "amplitude" is functioning in the post.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of where I am at and what sort of help I might need. It's totally basic stuff, obviously, and there is a part of me that is somewhat embarrassed to ask. Nevertheless, learning is more important than avoiding embarrassment.

My name is Joshua. I am 29 years old. After lurking for a while, I have decided to begin participating.

I have little training in mathematics or computer science. Growing up, mathematics always came easy to me, but it was never interesting (probably because it was easy, in part). Accordingly, I completed a typical high school education in mathematics by my freshman year and promptly stopped. In college, the only course I took was college algebra, which I completed for the sake of university requirements. I now regret ending my mathematical education and have begun going through the Khan Academy materials. As best I can currently estimate, I want to reach a level roughly equivalent to what an undergraduate math major would be required to know at the beginning of his or her upper-division work. At that point, I will be in a better position to know what else to study. Computers, by contrast, were of considerable interest to me in my youth, and I learned some rudimentary programming in junior high. That interest was eventually eclipsed by other interests, and I do not currently have any plans to reanimate it.

Most of my intellectual efforts are devoted to philosophy, and it is from that angle that I discovered Less Wrong. I have a fair amount of formal training in the field. (The sort of discussions that occur on Less Wrong, of course, are quite different from most of the work that is done in philosophy.)

As far as the normal Less Wrong materials are concerned, I have read a few of the sequences and recently read a bit of HPMoR. Most significantly, I have been working through one of the ebook versions of Eliezer's posts arranged in chronological order; I have slowly read somewhat more than half of them (for reference, I recently completed the sequences on quantum physics and meta-ethics).

I look forward to participation.

I also have a request: would someone be willing to set up a chat appointment (IRC or whatever) to work through a few comprehension questions related to the quantum physics sequence? I am confident that my questions are quite basic. If you are interested, please send me a private message.