All of David Gretzschel's Comments + Replies

tl;dr: Words are hard and people are horrible at being precise with them, even when doing or talking about math.

[epistemic status: maybe I'd want an actual textbook here but good enough]
Looking into this, I have been grilling ChatGPT about what exactly a "belief" is in Bayesian Probability. According to it (from what I could gather), belief is a specific kind of probability. So a belief is just a number between 0 and 1 representing a probablity, but we use the label "belief" in specific contexts only. A prediction specifically is the pair of (statement abo... (read more)

Thanks, did not see nor thought to explore, as websites aren't normally so sophisticated and feature-rich.

AI content is boring, if you're not in that field. I'd like a button to quickly filter out all AI-tagged posts.

5Kaj_Sotala
Hover over the "AI" tag in "Latest", click on the "Hidden" button.

Of course. Till they become too easy, then you'd need something harder.
Or you practice speed, I suppose.

There is not. That's why I was asking him if he knows. I was not interested in the effect of exercise. Exercise means, you do some activity a couple times per week.
I'm interested whether the obesety epidemic only affects the sedentary populatrion.
And if being or becoming non-sedentary is protective or curative.
25k steps for me means, that my treadmill is running constantly when I'm on my computer.
This is not really exercise. Movement is just my default state.

In that way, I have become closer to what an EAA-hunter-gatherer, than to a sedentary office worker... (read more)

"Finally, the obvious question: what extra information do you mentally track, which is crucial to performing some task well?"

When I try to cook something complicated by recipe, I go over each line of the recipe and previsualize all the corresponding physical actions.
I previsualize the state, amount, location and the transitions for each  object. Objects = {pots, pans, ingredients, oil, condiments, package, piece of trash, volume of water, stove, task-completion times, hands, free seconds/minutes for cleaning during the cook, towel, tissue paper...}.
Th... (read more)

0qvalq
I tried to solve (n+1)^4 visually. I spent about five minutes, and was unable to visualise well enough.
1Alex Vermillion
I like the (n+1)3 bit, I took the time to try it out in my head too and it was a fun puzzle. I wonder if I can actually get better at visualization practicing problems of that difficulty level?

I was not responding to your pregnancy-argument, but to your post higher up in this subthread from 3 days ago. The threading makes this a bit confusing.
Also should have specified what I was responding to the last paragraph:
"Both are ruled out by experiments showing that (in metabolically healthy individuals before the obesity epidemic) a randomized experimental intervention to add overeating does not produce obesity any more than it produces tumors."

Is there actually an obesity epidemic among people who walk more than 25k steps per day? (or is something li... (read more)

1Matthew Green
Is there any solid evidence that walking 25k steps per day will solve the obesity epidemic? I ask this because it’s genuinely a remarkable claim, one that if verified and implemented would save huge numbers of lives and hundreds of billions in medical expenses. The literature mostly seems to indicate that increased exercise doesn’t have dramatic effects on obesity.

Do you know, if we also observe an obesity-epidemic in the subgroup of people who average 25k+ in daily steps? That step-requirement is a good, high standard of "metabolically healthy" to isolate.
I belong in that group these days and it feels natural, relaxed and I feel far more energetic than when I was averaging 7k daily steps and was the sedentary nerd cliché, about a year ago. Now I am a nerd, who takes two walks per day, almost never sits and either stands or uses his office treadmill when on the computer.
Even before, I never really got fat. But I fee... (read more)

I hear that "pregnant" people also do less mountain-climbing, even if they were exercising healthily before.  No wonder they gain weight!  Do we even need to postulate "pregnancy" as a condition, when their caloric intake and reduced exercise seems adequate to explain all of the observed weight gain?

People at the LW-meetup have been despairing a bit explaining AI-risk to me in person.
I kept making various objections and the evenings were never long enough to get thru it all.
So I never managed to really grok the perspective before. Still don't after one read-through. But I'm a lot closer and with enough rereads, I think I'll get the full argument.
Thanks for writing this!

Replace "content" with "process" and this makes sense to me.

"content" and "topic" are not synonymous, for me of course.
But "topic" is like the headline and "content" is the text below it.
So both deal very much with the subject matter.
But also you use "content" synonymously with "topic" informally.
In a pars-pro-toto/totum pro tarte-way.
So this whole article feels super-confusing.

My only experience with metta was in a 1-dollar store. 

Looking around at all the different useful things I could buy having to spend very little, the thoughtfulness with which it was all laid, organic but not messy, everything easily discoverable out for scatterbrained people like me. 

The gentleness of the implied "here's the thing you need, and also two other little things that you didn't know about, but make life a little easier in those hard times".

I was thinking about the global supply chains, the factories, the stores, the organization of it... (read more)

Yeah, that used to bother me too, when I learned about multi agent theory and pondering it, I of course pointed my attention inwardly, trying to observe it.

Then agents arose and started talking with each other, arguing about the fact that they can't tell if they're actually representatives of underlying structures and coalitions of the neural substrate or just one fanciful part, that's engaged in puppet phantasy play. Or what the boundaries between those two even are.

Or if their apparent existence is valid evidence for multi-agent theories being any good. ... (read more)

Well ADHD is comorbid/associated with stuff like that. Makes sense, ADHD is a specific kind of brain damage in five specific regions. Effects of brain damage can be diverse and random. [in addition to the more common predictable ADHD effects]

As to why? Nature is lazy and your brain is "good enough" to exist as is, even if the internal wiring is a mess.
[there is probably a better answer in the linked wiki article though]

Very rarely I feel what you feel, and what I believe to some kind of underlying sensory processing disorder
When I didn't get enough ... (read more)

But I would like to add, that criticism can be constructive and affirming.
"Yes and" is also criticism, but it extends. "Yes but" affirms some of it. "Actually yes, but it's more subtle than that....." is also constructive, if the subtlety is explained.
Affirmation of "this is great!" isn't actually all that rewarding.
After all, you as the author already knew that. 
Also beware of wrong assuming as negativity what is actually blablabla nurture culture vs combat culture and so forth.... 
 

Let's talk about enthusiasm, though:
Enthusiasm for any ide... (read more)

"It’s easy to push the harm we do, or that we risk, outside of our zone of awareness; to live with, or to strive for, a false sense of purity, propped up by attention only to what can be readily seen, or to what registers, by the standards of everyday conscientiousness and social reproach, as “intentional.” "

Small-animal deaths matter as much to me as whether I have an odd or uneven number of hairs on my head.
Certainly, something I could pay attention to as an intellectual exercise, but it's not something that naturally registers as being related to right ... (read more)

The Stoic case is in contradiction of the idea of Aristotle's idea of the "golden mean".
The passions are in contradiction to virtue, because in order to act reasonably, your judgement must not be clouded by emotion. Virtuous anger is thus a contradiction.
Their advice would be to excise it immediately as it impairs the soundness of mind required for rational action.
Seneca's "On Anger" makes this case citing examples from his times, nuances of anger, possible counterarguments and why they're wrong, why Aristotle is wrong.....

[tried to write the same argument using Friston's free energy principle, and mood as computational context supplying priors, but I got bored with it....]

Robinson's example is off:

Ok, a tenant lives in a unit.
City A demolishes the old 30-unit building, builds a high-rise 100-unit building instead.

30 old unit tenants get evicted, since their original 30 units need to get demolished. 
20 new rich families move from their old units to new units from within the city.
Their 20 former units in the city will then be on the market again, available for someone else.
So far, the new building has caused -10 new available units to city-dwellers so far.

30 more people move into the city, but wouldn't have moved there, ... (read more)

Yeah, fair enough. Probably was typical-minding.
I just want my actions to result in excellent things quickly.
And the frustration and demotivation when that is not working out, is something I can relate to.
But that's not perfectionism?

I personally don't experience all those things you mentioned, though.
Sounds downright alien, this guilt thing and all this obsession with shoulds and musts.
Or worrying about meeting expectations from boss/God/parents/whatever.
It sounds rather exhausting.

Btw, that penultimate line: "Use @byronkaties The Work to explore." seems out of place. 
Is that a Twitter-thing?

2Matt Goldenberg
Ahh yeup must have forgotten to edit that when I ported over from twitter.   Yeah, it's very possible that you don't experience it.  It's also possible it's there for you, but in shadow, as talked about in the article. Might be worth spending 10 minutes probing feelings around obligations to see if any sense of "not wanting to look" or "attention being yanked away" comes up, as that's a good sign that there's something there you don't want to acknowledge.  In general though not everyone experiences these sort of feelings so it's equally possible you're one of them.

"Perfectionism as a stubborn, sentimental and arrogant attachment to ones own high standards" is not my explanation for when I get stuck with spending excessive amounts of time trying to force marginal returns.
But a simple reframe is not a solution, because high standards are not the problem.

I think marginal returns being sub-optimal is obvious enough when it happens and "opportunity cost" is a cool word that humans probably understand instinctually, so I don't know if this is a plausible explanation of the root cause.

Marginal returns for effort become qui... (read more)

2Matt Goldenberg
Thanks for sharing! I think that what you are talking about is another common cause of procrastination! IME what you are talking about is usually experienced as overwhelm or ambiguity, rather than perfectionism, and it will be the subject of another article. To be clear, I'm not invalidating that you experience this underlying fear on the surface as perfectionism, it just hasn't how it's presented to the people I've worked with.

I sent the book cover for the Tab S6 back, because the shortcuts are stupid. Like I can't press super+d, I have to press super first, then d. But I'm using a G915 TKL with it, and it doesn't have that problem. (switching between computer and blueeoth/tablet mode is extremely quick)
I don't quite understand the shift+space issue. As I also type fast, but never noticed pressing both keys at the same time. Maybe it's also not a practical issue with an external keyboard, as the book cover is just wonky as heck.

other keys:
Modafinil, if that doesn't work.... more Modafinil. (combine with coffee)
Stage 8 of The Mind Illuminated. (Prasrabdhi/mental pliancy practice; obviously you'll have to do stages 1 to 7 first, though)
Fully implementing GTD.

Liberally combine all of the above, have fun.

1Jarred Filmer
That's fascinating, does Stage 8 feel like caffeine / nootropics on it's own or was it more of an enhancement to those effects? If you don't mind me asking, how long did it take you to reach Stage 8 with what level of daily practice / dedication? And if it took years as many claim how did you think about the risk / reward of that kind of time investment VS whether or not the people reporting those effects were deluded?

[epsitemic status: mainly paraphrasing what Dr. Barkley is saying in those videos (worth watching!), maybe look deeper into the research for the claims he makes for a better/more precise understanding of the science, but that's above my paygrade/interests]

No, from my understanding, ADHD is a single trait, that specifically affects those five affected brain regions, predictably leading to specific deficits in executive function. 
those are:
Right Frontal Lobe (Orbital Prefrontal Cortex) 
Basal Ganglia (Mainly Striatum and Globus Pallidum) 
Cerebe... (read more)

2Gordon Seidoh Worley
Okay, yes, as explained then that does seem to point in the direction of a single causal mechanism rather than a collection of symptoms that across some threshold add up to ADHD.

There is a known physiological cause, though. A 30% smaller brain volume/developmen than appropriate for your age in five distinct brain regions.
There's also consideration of splitting apart SCT and ADHD. And of course, there's common comorbidities.
And personally I believe, ADHD genes are just executing a high-variance strategy. [as being mildly brain-damaged leads to interesting neurological adaptations and tradeoffs]

source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2u8E5UqEHU&list=PLLZlFL4q6WTGKUsTMdHQ4l4Gu01lqEy8g&index=23 

2Gordon Seidoh Worley
By your description, that sounds exactly like multiple causes coming together to produce a disorder where less than all of nearly all of those causes would not be a disorder, even if they causes some difficulties.
2romeostevensit
wonderful resource! thanks for the link, it gives me some additional rabbit holes to investigate.

Agreed, there is no "decision theory/rationality under ADHD coherence constraints". There should be, though. 
In a sense, you learn to make it up for yourself, as you go along.

11.
You can mentally construct chains of necessary actions quickly and get a feeling of pleasurable productivity from doing so. It's not much trouble to folow the association chains, circle back to the problem and even have a very thorough plan!

However, then executing that plan is boring, so it won't get done.

12.
Extreme variance in motivation during the day; motivation is dependen... (read more)

1meedstrom
That's a nice framing to get us thinking. Could be generalized to "under constraints of suboptimal executive function", since everyone has unique issues with it. Anyway, any progress since last? I have thoughts on #15: I've had periods of my life when I cut out my computer (just shoving it into my wardrobe and forgetting about it). They lasted a few weeks and I can say they were amazing periods. I was able to "live more reflectively", with more awareness of the future, of myself, of what I was doing, and of where my life was headed. I had more agency. Sure, there were things I needed a computer for, but for those things I went to the university library and used their computer. It's not great since you don't get to pick the operating system or use the software of your choice, and the total lack of privacy made me uncomfortable browsing much on the web, but these factors made it unattractive to remain at the computer longer than necessary. Basically, I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I counted that a benefit. To anyone who recognizes themselves on this point, I'd suggest to find a way to do your work or schoolwork without your own computer. It may seem like a bad idea and even impossible, but if you take it seriously, you'll usually find it can be done (I am 85% confident). Set a 5-minute timer and think about it. A caveat, I don't find my smartphone distracting at all, so I was able to do some chores on that device without risk. If this is a problem, you have to put that away as well and batch up every single chore that requires web access (write them down) to do them all at the library. And if you tend to journal a lot with the computer, I'd suggest learning to speedwrite or getting a manual typewriter. The slowness of handwriting frustrates me and makes me lose my train of thought.

Baudel is criticizing Ricardo's model of "comparative advantage", which only has two agents, Home and Foreign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Ricardian_model
Ricardo criticizes "comparative advantage" specifically for being too simple.

Your supposed explanation of it involves inland farmers, salt miners and English merchants connecting the two. This is indeed more complicated than Ricardo and thus seems to address Baudel's supposed confusion, but it also has nothing to do with Ricardo's model of "comparative advantage".

It simply does not ... (read more)