LESSWRONG
LW

All of aleiby's Comments + Replies

The dangers of zero and one
aleiby10

I want to emphasize the importance of not assigning things probability zero or one.

Unless you are dealing with an officer of the law. Answers like, "Yes, I'm 99% certain X" do not go over well with them.

Also, I'm sure Godel would have enjoyed your post. Or at least 99% sure.

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Generalizing From One Example
aleiby50

Does anyone know if those incapable of forming mental images are also unable to have dreams while sleeping? Do they not hallucinate under sensory deprivation? It seems like anyone capable of vision, should have no problem stimulating those same neurons in reverse (thinking about the neocortex as presented by Hawkins). I recognize I'm exhibiting the very bias presented here, but find it hard to believe this isn't a learnable skill that can be developed through practice.

I feel similarly about noise tolerance. I spent many afternoons reading in a busy cof... (read more)

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5Blueberry
I can't consciously form mental images, but I have no problem daydreaming images which seem to come to my mind randomly, and I do sometimes have vivid dreams. I'm sure that forming mental images can be improved with practice. For instance, people who play a lot of chess or Go can visualize the board in their head and the relationship between the pieces, to the point where they can play a game entirely in their head. When I try to visualize a mental image, the pieces of the image just don't stay there. For instance, say I try to visualize a house with flowers and a porch and trees and children playing in the yard, and so forth. (I just tried this now to see what happens in my mind.) When I put the porch down, and then try to put some trees in and visualize all the details, the porch "disappears" and I have to remember how I built it. I just don't understand how anyone has a good enough memory to construct a persistent mental image. To me, it's like holding ten phone numbers in your mind.
Information cascades
aleiby20

We already have sections for both popular (up - down > threshold) and controversial (up + down > threshold). Is it that posts are automatically elevated to these states, or does that still need to be done by moderators? Is the throttling of post elevation that EY recently mentioned handled automatically or manually?

If elevation is handled manually by moderators, it seems it makes most sense to keep the tallies private, and let the moderators use bayesian math to adjust for priors. (I personally think that's overkill - might make a fun automation ta... (read more)

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1MichaelHoward
Personally I find the scores quite interesting. I like having a sense of what other aspiring rationalists reading alongside me are thinking. I'm in favor of an option not to see the scores, but surely those here gathered to overcome bias should be allowed to strive to do that themselves without having to be protected from the information.
The Most Important Thing You Learned
aleiby10

The idea that the purpose of the law is to provide structure for optimization.

I'm not sure this is the most important thing I've learned yet, but it's the only really 'aha' moment I've had in the admittedly small sample I've been able to catch up on thus far.

I find I think about this most often as I contemplate the effect traffic laws and implements have in shaping my 20 minute optimization exercise in getting to work each morning.

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