oge

I’m sorry to hear that. What helped me was finding (after many years) a non-denominational church where I could get a community and weekly lectures on morality but without the supernatural baggage.

Good luck!

Replying toLightning Talks

oge2y

Lightning Talks

Here's my lightning talk: I collect advice for learning how to play chess. The largest collection I've found is a slim book called "Rapid Chess Improvement" by Michael de la Maza.

Please send me the rarest advice you've heard of for improving one's chess ability.

Replying toBuilding and Entertaining Couples

oge3y

Building and Entertaining Couples

I think in non-poly couples, having a mostly Builder or Entertaining relationship is a sign that one or both parties is having an affair.

This is because all the happy couples I know seem to have ~50:50 ratio of building/entertaining. And the unhappy couples have ~0:0. And I only know non-poly couples.

-2

Replying toDealing With Delusions

oge4y

Dealing With Delusions

Thanks for pointing out what I think are the common side effects of popular drugs.

Replying toCultivating Valiance

oge4y

Cultivating Valiance

Thanks for the quote. The song has haunting lyrics

Replying toHow Humanity Lost Control and Humans Lost Liberty: From Our Brave New World to Analogia (Sequence Introduction)

oge4y

How Humanity Lost Control and Humans Lost Liberty: From Our Brave New World to Analogia (Sequence Introduction)

I enjoyed reading parts 1--6. Is there any chance you could discuss some of your conclusions sooner than 2023? I'd love to tie my feelings of gloom at humans-aligning-themselves-to-algorithms to some call-to-action...

Replying toLinkpost: Robin Hanson - Why Not Wait On AI Risk?

oge4y

Linkpost: Robin Hanson - Why Not Wait On AI Risk?

(I think) he thinks that managing/regulating/policing those corporations is the best that humans are willing to do.

Replying toThe Limits of Automation

oge4y

The Limits of Automation

So we cannot automate the discovery of unknown unknowns?

(BTW nice diagrams)

Seconding your comment. I wish OP had stated their definition of Consciousness to help clear the confusion in the various terms.

Replying toMy attitude towards death

oge4y

My attitude towards death

I feel an aversion to thinking about topics related in any way to my dying. No elevated heart rate, unless my person or my livelihood is threatened.

You should ask for a third-party audit of your cryopreservation

oge

Hello (potential) cryonics customer, you should ask for third-party audit of your cryopreservation. This ensures that the cryonics providers aren't performing the procedure badly, say through negligence, ignorance, or something else.

Specifically, you should ask that the following be sent to an imaging specialist of your choice AFTER your brain has been preserved

An x-ray of your preserved brain, and
A needle biopsy of a few brain areas (say, the frontal cortex, parietal cortex, brain stem, basal ganglia, and thalamus)

The x-ray will roughly show if large parts of your brain were not preserved well. Micrographs of the biopsy samples will show in fine detail (tens of nanometers resolution) the quality of your preservation.

This information will... (read more)

I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt

oge

From the BPF blog (of which I’m a volunteer) here’s the story of a kid with a terminal illness who is holding out for the development of brain preservation for future uploading. In the comments he justifies not signing up for cryonics with

Lack of medical accountability and support from the scientific community are shortcomings of cryonics that are unacceptable for many, including me. To address that, I think the neuroscience and medical establishment should start supporting and developing brain preservation [ASC] in a hospital setting today. These shortcomings prevented me from choosing cryonics, and I want people to have far better options at the end of their lives than I did.

Updating the Roadmap to Whole Brain Emulation Part 6: NEURAL MODELING - Patient Specific Selection, Fitting and Validation

oge

The Carboncopies Foundation is continuing the workshop series around updating the Roadmap to Whole Brain Emulation, the first version of which was published in 2008 as the Oxford University manuscript, "Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap."

This upcoming workshop will focus on the practical problems of model selection and model fitting. Modeling brain function is currently done using software simulations that include representations of the dynamic processes in neurons and synapses that transform signal data obtained from experimental recordings or generated by software. The ultimate goal for Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) continues to be to achieve animal-specific or patient-specific emulation of brain activity that is needed for cognitive function and subjective cognitive experience. In... (read more)

A summary review on The Age of Em

oge

Michael Ulrich will give a summary review on The Age of Em.

Prof. Hanson will be present for some Q&A afterwards.

Date and time: Sunday, November 8, 2020 at 11:30 AM Pacific Time.

Not all theories of consciousness are created equal: a reply to Robert Lawrence Kuhn's recent article in Skeptic Magazine [Link]

oge

I found this article on the Brain Preservation Foundation's blog that covers a lot of common theories of consciousness and shows how they kinna miss the point when it comes to determining if certain folks should or should not upload our brains if given the opportunity.

Hence I see no reason to agree with Kuhn’s pessimistic conclusions about uploading even assuming his eccentric taxonomy of theories of consciousness is correct. What I want to focus on in the reminder of this blog is challenging the assumption that the best approach to consciousness is tabulating lists of possible theories of consciousness and assuming they each deserve equal consideration (much like the recent trend in

oge

10y

The recent major media article by Amy Harmon brings to the public eye the potential of human cryopreservation and chemopreservation techniques to preserve the memories and personal identity of individuals. We at the Brain Preservation Foundation have considered many common counterarguments to this endeavor (see below, and our FAQ and Overcoming Objections backgrounders) and yet we still think it is a worthwhile idea to pursue. Please let us know your thoughts as well.

Yesterday, journalist Amy Harmon published an article in the New York Times, “A Dying Young Woman’s Hope in Cryonics and a Future.” First of all, it is a tragic story about a woman, Kim Suozzi, who had an incredibly unfortunate diagnosis of cancer at a young age and was forced to... (read 1449 more words →)

Meetup : Schelling Cafe

oge

10y

Discussion article for the meetup : Schelling Cafe

WHEN: 29 August 2015 03:00:57PM (-0700)

WHERE: Cafe La Renaissance, 3045 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705

For anyone in the Berkeley, SF, Oakland area, there's a weekly gathering called the Schelling Cafe that holds on Saturdays at 3pm (on hiatus the past few weeks due to SF EAGlobal and the CFAR alumni reunion).

We're a group of rationalists, CFAR alumni, EAs, and others who meet primarily to socialize. Folks frequently migrate to the rationalist house, Event Horizon (which sits right above the cafe), to get serious work done if necessary.

Name: Schelling Cafe Time: Saturdays at 3pm Location: Cafe La Renaissance, 3045 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705

Text me at 404-542-6392 if you have trouble finding us then.

Discussion article for the meetup : Schelling Cafe

Cryonics: peace of mind vs. immortality

oge

11y

I wrote a blog post arguing that people sign up for cryo more for peace of mind than for immortality. This suggests that cryo organizations should market towards the former desire than the latter (you can think of it as marketing to near mode rather than far mode, in Hansonian terms).

Perhaps we've been selling cryonics wrong. I'm signed up and feel like the reason I should have for signing up is that cryonics buys me a small, but non-zero chance at living forever. However, for years this should didn't actually result in me signing up. Recently, though, after being made aware of this dissonance between my words and actions, I finally signed up. I'm now very glad that I did. But it's not because I now have a shot at everlasting life.

http://specterdefied.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-cryo-membership-buys-peace-of-mind.html

For those signed up already, does peace-of-mind resonate as a benefit of your membership?

If you are not a cryonics member, what would make you decide that it is a good idea?

Calling all Nigerian rationalists and effective altruists

oge

11y

I'm in Lagos, Nigeria till the end of May and I'd like to hold a LessWrong/EA meetup while I'm here. If you'll ever be in the country in the future (or in the subcontinent), please get in touch so we can coordinate a meetup. I'd also appreciate being put in contact with any Nigerians who may not regularly read this list.

My e-mail address is oge@nnadi.org. I hope to hear from you.

Shawn Mikula on Brain Preservation Protocols and Extensions

oge

11y

Recently published article in Nature Methods on a new protocol for preserving mouse brains that allows the neurons to be traced across the entire brain, something that wasn't possible before. This is exciting because in as little as 3 years, the method could be extended to larger mammals (like humans), and pave the way for better neuroscience or even brain uploads. From the abstract:

Here we describe a preparation, BROPA (brain-wide reduced-osmium staining with pyrogallol-mediated amplification), that results in the preservation and staining of ultrastructural details throughout the brain at a resolution necessary for tracing neuronal processes and identifying synaptic contacts between them. Using serial block-face electron microscopy (SBEM), we tested human annotator ability to follow neural ‘wires’ reliably and over long distances as well as the ability to detect synaptic contacts. Our results suggest that the BROPA method can produce a preparation suitable for the reconstruction of neural circuits spanning an entire mouse brain

http://blog.brainpreservation.org/2015/04/27/shawn-mikula-on-brain-preservation-protocols/

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

How to sign up for Alcor cryo

I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt

Calling all Nigerian rationalists and effective altruists

What are the resolution limits of medical imaging?

oge

You should ask for a third-party audit of your cryopreservation

I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt

Not all theories of consciousness are created equal: a reply to Robert Lawrence Kuhn's recent article in Skeptic Magazine [Link]

A courageous story of brain preservation, "Dying Young" by Amy Harmon, The New York Times

Meetup : Schelling Cafe

Cryonics: peace of mind vs. immortality

Calling all Nigerian rationalists and effective altruists

oge

How to sign up for Alcor cryo

I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt

Calling all Nigerian rationalists and effective altruists

What are the resolution limits of medical imaging?

oge

You should ask for a third-party audit of your cryopreservation

I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt

Not all theories of consciousness are created equal: a reply to Robert Lawrence Kuhn's recent article in Skeptic Magazine [Link]

A courageous story of brain preservation, "Dying Young" by Amy Harmon, The New York Times

Meetup : Schelling Cafe

Cryonics: peace of mind vs. immortality

Calling all Nigerian rationalists and effective altruists

Discussion article for the meetup : Schelling Cafe

Discussion article for the meetup : Schelling Cafe