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I wonder: do the names Y'ha-nthlei, Y'not'ha-nthlei, and At'gra'len'ley mean anything? I assume Y'ha and Y'not'ha mean "you have" and "you don't have", but beyond that it just seems random.
In response to
Decoherence
I've on my second reading of the Quantum Physics Sequence, and this struck me the first time as well, so now I've got to ask.
"The system at left is highly entangled—it's got a joint distribution that looks something like, 'There's two particles, and either they're both over here, or they're both over there.'"
Isn't this wrong, given the diagram? Wouldn't a description of this diagram be, "There are two particles, one over here and one over there?" Why wouldn't the diagram fold along the diagonal like in the "No Individual Particles" post? Wouldn't a diagram with a blob in the top-right and a blob in the lower-left better match the description given?
Indeed, if the two axes are the coordinates of the two particles, then one blob should be in the lower left and the other in the upper right. Seems Eliezer made a mistake with this diagram.
In response to
The Goal of the Bayesian Conspiracy
In addition to everything thats already been said: when the median rationalist is still struggling to get a date the idea of winning popularity contests and infiltrating the domain of charismatic, glad-handing net-workers is preposterous.
the median rationalist is still struggling to get a date
First, [citation needed].
Second, if it's true, perhaps one should look at oneself and ask why.
In response to
Take heed, for it is a trap
Just because I read the sequences doesn't mean I'm particularly likely to agree with any of them. Some, yes, but not all. Many of the statements you listed are controversial even on LW. If they were unanimously accepted here without further discussion, it would be a worrying sign.
As someone who lives in the dangerous and uncharted part of the world called "outside the US', I prefer centimeters.
Feel free to use centimeters in your own examples, then. But you're not entitled to demand that US users do so.
Where did I demand anything?
I see no reason to think that galactic law will resemble ours. Extremely vague concepts like "intellectual property" are about as close of an analogy as we're likely to get.
That was a joke on my part, but one warning against using overly general umbrella terms. Our copyright and patent laws developed as a result of certain historical circumstances, and it is entirely possible that a hypothetical alien civilization would treat sharing and distribution of ideas entirely differently and not resembling any of our historical precedents.
In response to
On Expressing Your Concerns
Progress comes from the persons willing to be different and create a new approach to solving problems--or entire new industries. Conformity is the bane of the politically correct approach to "consensus." In a conformity environment the best one can hope for is a local optimum solution that will likely be outworn quickly as reality sets in.
The rush to premature consensus destroys the possibility of achieving a global optimum.
In Russia and China one can be shot for being different. In the west, one is merely ostracized and demonized.
In Russia and China one can be shot for being different.
I think you might need to update your beliefs about Russia. The ones you seem to have are stuck in the 1930s-1940s.
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Hi, new here.
I was wondering if I've interpreted this correctly:
'For a true Bayesian, it is impossible to seek evidence that confirms a theory. There is no possible plan you can devise, no clever strategy, no cunning device, by which you can legitimately expect your confidence in a fixed proposition to be higher (on average) than before. You can only ever seek evidence to test a theory, not to confirm it.'
Does this mean that it is impossible to prove the truth of a theory? Because the only evidence that can exist is evidence that falsifies the theory, or supports it?
For example, something people know about gravity and objects under it's influence, is that on Earth objects will accelerate at something like 9.81ms^-2. If we dropped a thousand different objects and observed their acceleration, and found it to be 9.81ms^-2, we would have a thousand pieces of evidence supporting the theory, and zero pieces to falsify the theory. We all believe that 9.81 is correct, and we teach that it is the truth, but we can never really know, because new evidence could someday appear that challenges the theory, correct?
Thanks
It is correct that we can never find enough evidence to make our certainty of a theory to be exactly 1 (though we can get it very close to 1). If we were absolutely certain in a theory, then no amount of counterevidence, no matter how damning, could ever change our mind.