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.
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.
If Newton tried to derive his law purely from empirical measurements, then yes, he would never be exactly sure (ignoring general relativity for a moment) that the exponent is exactly 2. For all he would know, it could actually be 2.00000145...
But that would be like trying to derive the value of pi or the exponents in the Pythagorean theorem by measuring physical circles and triangles. If the law of gravity is derived from more general axioms, then its form can be computed exactly provided that these axioms are correct.
I sympathize with your distaste for taking apart love to see what it's made from
More like distaste for trying to reduce love to something it's not. You cannot reduce an abstract, complex facet of human experience to something simple and easily definable, otherwise you make yourself vulnerable to utopia plans that are doomed to fail.
People I showed lukeprog's original post to were universal in their reaction: "Wow, talk about neckbeardery".
As for PUA, I won't comment on that. If all you care about is one-night stands, then I guess you can be cynical about that. Actual love is a different matter entirely.
whereupon if I'm playing WOW, I roleplay an elf. <...> If I'm on LessWrong, I roleplay a rationalist.
Or you can roleplay a rationalist elf in WoW. :)
A long time ago, back before I quit WoW, I roleplayed an atheist draenei who refused to believe in the night elf goddess Elune. The catch here is that we players know she actually exists in the setting, because Blizzard told us so, but the characters would have no way of verifying this since she never appeared in the world in person. From my character's point of view, the magical powers that priests ...
P(A|B) = P(A|~B) is equivalent to the classic definition of independence, and intuitively it means that "whether B happens or not, it doesn't affect the likelihood of A happening".
I guess that since other basic probability concepts are defined in terms of set operations (union and intersection), and independence lacks a similar obvious explanation in terms of sets and measure, I wanted to find one.
I implicitly meant a continuous distribution. Clarified that in the post now.
Concretely, if you're measuring the length of something with a ruler, you probably just round to the nearest 1/16th of an inch.
As someone who lives in the dangerous and uncharted part of the world called "outside the US', I prefer centimeters. ;)
Now, a hopefully intuitive explanation of independent events.
By definition, A is independent from B if P(A|B) = P(A), or equivalently P(AB) = P(A)P(B). What does it mean in terms of measures?
It is easy to prove that if A is independent from B, then A is also independent from ~B: P(A|~B) = P(A ~B) / P(~B) = (P(A) - P(AB)) / (1 - P(B)) = (P(A) - P(A)P(B)) / (1 - P(B)) = P(A).
Therefore, A is independent from B iff P(A) = P(AB) / P(B) = P(A ~B) / P(~B), which implies that P(AB) / P(A ~B) = P(B) / P(~B).
Geometrically, it means that A intersects B and ~B with su...
I agree with the OP: simply defining a probability concept doesn't by itself map it to our intuitions about it. For example, if we defined P(A|B) = P(AB) / 2P(B), it wouldn't correspond to our intuitions, and here's why.
Intuitively, P(A|B) is the probability of A happening if we know that B already happened. In other words, the entirety of the elementary outcome space we're taking into consideration now are those that correspond to B. Of those remaining elementary outcomes, the only ones that can lead to A are those that lie in AB. Their measure in absolut...
Three points:
1) While I appreciate what you've contributed to LW, and think the place would be a little less rich in your absence, I wouldn't want you feeling pressured into hanging around somewhere that distresses you. Please don't think points 2 or 3 are in any way antagonistically motivated along these lines.
2) No-one is forcing you to stay here, and no-one will stop you coming back if you subsequently change your mind. Leaving doesn't have to be a dramatic event or a permanent decision. If LW is distressing you, take a break. If that break makes yo...
There are several things you've said you disliked; most vocally, predictions of a (positive?) Singularity and HPMOR. However, you haven't argued against them much, just said you disliked them.
If what you're trying to do is just putting up signs reading "Not everyone on LW likes this", this probably works. But I (and presumbably most people who either like or dislike those things) would like to hear your arguments for it in more detail, preferably with some back-and-forth if you're willing to engage. What's in it for you is that it can actually improve the consensus, as opposed to sticking a little [disputed] banner on it.
Wouldn't dropping the rationality tagline instead convince people even more thoroughly that it's not actually about rationality, but rather something else?
That being said, I agree with those concerns. LW doesn't have an agenda per se (beyond being sponsored by the SIAI), but the LW majority clearly does. While harsh, "a bunch of fringe technophiles" accurately describes a significant, and vocal, fraction of people here.
It is desire, more or less - if someone believes they already have body parts they actually don't, now that's a delusion. However, calling it "desire" implicitly implies that fulfilling it is optional for their well-being, and that it's somehow okay to treat them the way they don't want to be treated until then.
Moreover, if nobody can know my mind better than I, this is a big problem. It means psychology hasn't advanced enough.
Psychology hasn't advanced enough. It's been discussed here on LW over and over again. It is ultimately based on an inherent degree of subjectivity and something more akin to a collection of best practices than actual science.
And most important - this is completely useless when you're trying to know your own mind. Some people regret transitioning and go back.
Transitioning is always a risk - the best that can be done is minimizing the...
The Wikipedia articles "Gender" and "Gender identity", as well as their external links, would be a good start - as well as my previous post on LW, "Gender Identity and Rationality", and its discussion area.
As for religion, despite being an atheist myself, I'm not going to assume the hardline "atheism or bust" stance and instead I'll politely decline to derail the thread.
The most important difference is that religion involves people making conclusions about nonexistent (from an atheist's point of view) external entities, while gender identity involves people making conclusions about their own minds - and who can know your mind better than yourself?
I wonder if the is-ought distinction can help us here. Which phrase better describes your feelings in the past: "desire to be female", or "perception of being female"? If it's the former, there's nothing to argue about and I will happily strike the word "delusion" out of my mind, replacing it with "desire", and everyone's happy. If it's the latter, what gives you confidence that your perception was correct in some sense, other than the perception itself?
people making conclusions about their own minds - and who can know your mind better than yourself?
Seductive, but false. Once my best friend and I disagreed about how I would react to a particular event. He was right. I would also say confidently that people online who claim to be vampires or stuff like that are, if they're sincere, making a mistake. Also, I know things about the psychology of suicidal thoughts that enable me to know important facts about the minds of a certain class of suicidal people better than they do. Also, there are people who dece...
It means taking averages over such an extremely diverse sample that the results end up having no real meaning - like literal average temperature per hospital, which includes sampling over corpses in the morgue and severe fever sufferers. So if the average temperature hospital 1 turns out to be 0.1 degrees higher than in hospital 2, it tells us nothing about the relative distribution of patient traits in each hospital.
I sympathize with your reaction and apologize for the choice of words (which was under a hypothetical, but still).
On the other hand, consider this: a theist could express exactly the same indignation at my comment and they'd still be wrong! And we don't have any reliable way to "cure" theism either. And it's way more prevalent and accepted by society...
What research are you proposing that I look up?
Ignoring for a minute that such a test would be infeasible to realistically implement (good luck getting so many trans volunteers), it is loaded with cultural assumptions, a vague definition of "typical", and it ignores such issues as experience in the target gender role, skill in the language of the test, and culture-specific stereotypes and presuppositions.
Comparing furries/otherkin etc. with transsexualism is normally something you will hear as an attack from people that do not accept transsexualism.
I've heard the argument from both sides, including from otherkin who seek social acceptance based on that comparison.
I personally have no doubt the society has to accept and help transsexuals, but I'm ambivalent in case of otherkin - primarily because I find it difficult to empathize with their patterns of thought.
OP here. In case you've found this post via Google (as I did unexpectedly, having found my own post when searching for something different) and are wondering how I'm faring now, rest easy: I transitioned years ago, and now live a much, much happier life now than I did when I wrote this post. I live as a woman, I've become a lot more social and (IMO) a lot less socially awkward, friends and strangers don't even realize I'm trans (or if any do, they aren't showing it and aren't treating me any differently).
I didn't regret my transition even once.
My views on ... (read more)