I figured out an exploit to make Horcrux users even more invincible.

A. If you make a Horcrux, you cannot be destroyed unless your Horcrux is destroyed.

B. People can be Horcruxes.

QED if one person turns another into a Horcrux and the other reciprocates then they have foolproof immortality.

This method also has three other benefits over the Dark Lord's attempt, that I can think of. First, it requires only two murders, not seven. Second, it causes twice as many people to become immortal. Third, you'll retain a much larger portion of your soul than you would otherwise, and avoid much of the consequent degeneration.

Quirrelmort is playing on the level below mine, clearly.

Here http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/inside-robbers-cave/4515060 is a radio show on ABC radio Australia (roughly equivalent to the US PBS), casts a new light on the Robbers Cave experiment.

It is claimed that

1. Those conducing the experiment came in with a preconceived agenda which they wished to prove ie that conflict easily arises based on quite trivial group differences etc.

2. There had been two previous failed experiments in which attempts had been made to create the conflicts described in this study and involving in some cases quite blatant attempts to foment conflict (eg false flag attacks) (see at 12:15 in the audio).

3. In this third experiment conditions were artfully manipulated to create and then defuse conflict. It appears the key issue in creating conflict is that the two groups must not be permitted to get to know each other and become friendly, and that intense competitive situations are needed, preferably with zero or negative sum outcomes. To then defuse the conflict, allowing socialization no longer sufficed and it was necessary to create a common threat or difficulty to bring the groups together again.

So the statement in the main post that

Well, the 22 boys were divided into two groups of 11 campers, and— —and that turned out to be quite sufficient.

Is perhaps overstated significantly.

It is a very interesting listen.

I don't know if the claims are true. Given how 'right' the results of the original experiment feel, and did feel after WWII, one should be on guard.

Edit; corrections - the experiment was not rigged to quite the degree I originally said. But still I would argue not quite as advertised.

If you count every murder, disease, rape, robbery, death for any other reasons, intellectual disability, and addition to uncyclopedia as his responsibility, he already is.

I think a better way to frame this issue would be the following method.

1. Present your philosophical thought-experiment.
2. Ask your subject for their response and their justification.
3. Ask your subject, what would need to change for them to change their belief?

For example, if I respond to your question of the solitary traveler with "You shouldn't do it because of biological concerns." Accept the answer and then ask, what would need to change in this situation for you to accept the killing of the traveler as moral?

I remember this method giving me deeper insight into the Happiness Box experiment.

Here is how the process works:

1. There is a happiness box. Once you enter it, you will be completely happy through living in a virtual world. You will never leave the box. Would you enter it?
2. Initial response. Yes, I would enter the box. Since my world is only made up of my perceptions of reality, there is no difference between the happiness box and the real world. Since I will be happier in the happiness box, I would enter.
3. Reframing question. What would need to change so you would not enter the box.
4. My response: Well, if I had children or people depending on me, I could not enter.

Surprising conclusion! Aha! Then you do believe that there is a difference between a happiness box and the real world, namely your acceptance of the existence of other minds and the obligations those minds place on you.

That distinction was important to me, not only intellectually but in how I approached my life.

Hope this contributes to the conversation.

David

Yes, theologians of all strips, and philosophers and logicians of all perspectives. As long a they are willing to respond to my questions as well as having me respond to their's. (Though if someone is rude, engages in rhetorical hyperbola, etc. I reserve the right to do those things back to them.)

I'll try to check back here to see if anyone wants to do that or e-mail me at alia1dx@gmail.com and I'll give you my private e-mail to carry on a dialog.

I tend to think that the Bible and the Koran are sufficient evidence to draw our attention to the Jehovah and Allah hypotheses, respectively. Each is a substantial work of literature, claiming to have been inspired by direct communication from a higher power, and each has millions of adherents claiming that its teachings have made them better people. That isn't absolute proof, of course, but it sounds to me like enough to privilege the hypotheses.

I think it's pretty clear that animals can feel pain, distress, etc. So we should aim for practices that minimise those things. It's certainly possible - though harder on a mass scale like factory farming.

Also, from a utilitarian perspective, it's clear that eating plants is much more ecologically efficient than feeding plants to animals and then eating the animals. On the other hand, as Elo points out, there are crops and terrain that are not well suited to human food, and might more profitably be used to raise edible animals.

So I'd say that there could be an equilibrium, a point where our overall meat consumption is about right; less would be basically a wasted opportunity; more would be an inefficient use of resources and a risk of oppressive practices. And I'd say that that point is much lower than current overall consumption.

I’m an evangelical protestant and I’d like to give my answer to the ‘what would it take to convince me to become a Muslim’ question. This is going to be a narrative example and thus show only one of many possible routes. I’ve chosen a rout that does not depend on private knowledge, fresh miracle in the present day, or even or even changed facts in things it would be inconceivable for me to be wrong about, because I see this rout as the hardest and therefore most revealing.

Muslim scholars propose a competitor to the Documentary Hypothesis (JEPD) for the Pentateuch and/or Two-source Hypothesis a.k.a. Four-Source Theory for the synoptic gospels that showed instead how these Bible books developed as corruptions of a proto-Koran. This shouldn’t be too hard as the existing popular theories are mostly narrative fallacy + an affective death spiral. It would attract enough attention as politically fashionable that I would hear about it and look it up on biblical Studies blogs. If it actually had plausibility that would increase my expectation that an investigation of the Koran would be fruitful and I would start checking into it more. One of the things I would be looking for is outside evidence such as signs of the supernatural in its origin, specifically miracles done by Mohamed. Not the infancy gospel of Thomas type miracles where it seems likely these are legendary accretions after the fact, but more like what we see in the canonical gospels and epistles where we seem to have a record of contemporary eyewitnesses thinking they saw the laws of nature repeatedly violated. I would also be looking for more internal confirmations like was a consistent but nuanced picture of human nature and how God intends to deal with it presented. Or how is theodicy regarded? As I was evaluating questions like this I would be looking at: One, was the world view presented consistent with the world as it actually is? Two, does the world view presented provide a foundation you can build an approach to life on? To help me evaluate all this I would be looking into both Cristian and Muslim apologist’s answers to these questions. To be convinced to the Muslim position I’d need to run into Muslim apologists who are considerably more rationally coherent than any I have so far heard of. But given what mushy headed nonsense third parties sometimes report as “Christian teaching” there is a selection bias in favor of mushy headedness in what is prominently available to the public. (It’s interesting reading Less Wrong to see that many of the arguments against Christianity are exactly the same arguments that conservative Christians use against Liberal Christians.) Overall I would need to be convinced that Islam was both internally and externally consistent and that in areas where it conflicts with Christianity, Christianity is considerably less credible than I currently find it. This would probably mean finding a large numbers of specific inconsistencies that I have found only a couple of in the past. But the fact that I have found a few means it is conceivable I could find more in the future.

One last objection I need to address is “If the one admits evidence for Islam might be out there, why hasn’t the one check it out yet?” Well it would take months and mouths of work and there are so many other things it might also be profitable to investigate. (Like LessWrong where not only do I get to investigate an alternative world view, that investigation is just a bonus to getting all these neat rational thinking tools that will be of ongoing use to me.) Moreover a negative result would not really be definitive; there would always be the possibility that I had just not found the right Moslem apologists or was not digging into the right version of Islamic theology. So there is no reason I would pick Islam as the thing to invest my time investigating without an additional reason. But if, for example, there was an Islamic theologian who offered to debate the issues with me then I would be inclined to do it and follow where the belief updates lead.

In discussing Newcomb's problem, Eliezer at one point stated, "Be careful of this sort of argument, any time you find yourself defining the "winner" as someone other than the agent who is currently smiling from on top of a giant heap of utility."

This aligns well with a New Testament statement from Jesus, "Ye shall know them by their fruits...every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit."

So, I'm only a novice of the Bayesian Conspiracy, but I can calculate the breast cancer percentages and the red vs blue pearl probabilities. To answer Eliezer's question, to convince me of the truth of Islam, it would have to show me better outcomes, better fruit, than Christianity, across the board. In many cases its principles don't conflict with Christianity; but where they do, I would have to establish that resolving the conflict in favor of Islam will lead to better outcomes.

Consider, as just one example, the fruits identified by LW's own Swimmer963, at http://lesswrong.com/lw/4pg/positive_thinking/ Would following Islam give me a better foundation than that for positive thinking, resilience, motivation for mutual help? Then I would be interested. Not convinced by that alone, but interested.

If Islam consistently offered a more coherent worldview that more effectively helped me to become a better person and achieve my goals, then I would have cause to consider that it might have more truth than what I believe now. As far as I have yet determined, it doesn't; its teachings seem to be more limited, less useful, than what I already have.