Thanks. I read the whole debate, or as much of it as is there; I've prepared a short summary to post tomorrow if anyone is interested in knowing what really went on ("as according to Hul-Gil", anyway) without having to hack their way through that thread-jungle themselves.
(Summary of summary: Loosemore really does know what he's talking about - mostly - but he also appears somewhat dishonest, or at least extremely imprecise in his communication.)
That doesn't help you if you need a car to take you someplace in the next hour or so, though. I think jed's point is that sometimes it is useful for an AI to take action rather than merely provide information.
The answer is probably that you overestimate that community's dedication to rationality because you share its biases.
That's probably no small part of it. However, even if my opinion of the community is tinted rose, note that I refer specifically to observation. That is, I've sampled a good amount of posts and comments here on LessWrong, and I see people behaving rationally in arguments - appreciation of polite and lucid dissension, no insults or ad hominem attacks, etc. It's harder to tell what's going on with karma, but again, I've not seen any one pa...
Can you provide some examples of these "abusive personal attacks"? I would also be interested in this ruthless suppression you mention. I have never seen this sort of behavior on LessWrong, and would be shocked to find it among those who support the Singularity Institute in general.
I've read a few of your previous comments, and while I felt that they were not strong arguments, I didn't downvote them because they were intelligent and well-written, and competent constructive criticism is something we don't get nearly enough of. Indeed, it is usuall...
Well, he didn't actually identify dust mote disutility as zero; he says that dust motes register as zero on his torture scale. He goes on to mention that torture isn't on his dust-mote scale, so he isn't just using "torture scale" as a synonym for "disutility scale"; rather, he is emphasizing that there is more than just a single "(dis)utility scale" involved. I believe his contention is that the events (torture and dust-mote-in-the-eye) are fundamentally different in terms of "how the mind experiences and deals with [the...
I think you're a good writer, in that you form sentences well, and you understand how the language works, and your prose is not stilted or boring. The problem I personally had, mostly with the previous two entries in this series, was that the "meat" - the interesting bits telling me what you had concluded, and why, and how to apply it, and how (specifically) you have applied it - seemed very spread out among a lot of filler or elaboration. I couldn't tell what you were eventually going to arrive at, and whether it'd be of use or interest to me. ...
That's nicely done! Clear, concise, and immediately applicable. I think Frank himself is an intelligent person with good and interesting ideas, but the "meat" of these posts seems spread out among a lot of filler/elaboration - possibly why they're hard to skim. I wasn't even sure, for quite a while, what the whole series was really about, beyond "general self-improvement."
This latest article is much more "functional" than the previous two, though, so I think we're moving in the right direction.
One thing your comment brings t...
Upvoted both this and its parent, because the quoted bit of Strunk and White seems like good advice, and because the linked criticism of Strunk and White is lucid and informative as well as entertaining. I learned about two new but related things, one right after the other; my conclusions about Strunk and White swung rapidly from one position to the opposite in quick succession. Quite an experience! ("Oh look, there are these two folks who are recognized authorities on English, and they're presenting good writing advice. Strunk and White... must remember. Wait; here's a response... Oh - turns out not much of their advice is that good after all! Passive voice IS acceptable! Language Log... must remember.")
If you pick the chance worldview, you are heavilly reliant on evolution to validate your worldview.
No, not at all. Evolution is one aspect of one field of one discipline. One can argue that existence came about by chance (and I'm not comfortable with that term) without referring to evolution at all; there are many other reasons to reject the idea of a designer.
See Desrtopa's reply, below, regarding chance and design and whether a designer helps here. S/he said it better than I could!
I addressed this here, but I missed a few things. For one, I address the extremity of the hypotheticals in the linked post, but I didn't point out, also, that these things seem extreme because we're used to seeing things work out as if evolution were true. These things wouldn't seem extreme if we had been seeing them all along; it's precisely because evolution fits what we do find so well that evolution-falsifying examples seem so extreme. Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian would probably not seem so extreme to a creationist; it's what they'd expect to find...
That depends on how you define 'system'. Is 'system' the entire biological existence of earth? In that case, yes evolution would be a mathematical certainty eventually. But is system a specific species? In that case evolution would only occurr within those species.
He goes on to tell you exactly what systems: any with random heritable changes that can selectively help or hinder reproduction. This would mean both all life on earth that fits within that definition, and any particular species also under that umbrella.
It seems to me like you're trying to ma...
I feel like you're trying to say we should care about "memetic life" as well as... other life. But the parallel you draw seems flawed: an individual of any race and sex is still recognizably conscious, and an individual. Do we care about non-sentient life, memetic or otherwise? Should we care?
I would like to see the scientific community come up with more specific parameters as to what would be considered: A. minor damage to the theory, B. major hit on the theory, and C. evidence that would make the theory most likely untenable. We do this for almost every other science, except evolution.
I think we do this for evolution as much as any other part of science. In any, the judgment of the severity of a "hit" is possible if you understand the relevant concepts. An understanding of the concepts lets one see what separates minor issues fro...
I'm aware this is from 2008, but I just can't let this stand in case one day an undecided visitor wanders past and reads GenericThinker's comment. (I also can't resist pointing out that his handle is rather appropriate.)
1.) Belief in God doesn't necessarily drive people to behave in a more moral way. Consider Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, for example.
2.) The question of God's existence is not unanswerable. The evidence for or against God is no more open to interpretation than any other evidence. If God affects the material universe, we can observe the ...
I enjoyed Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom quite a bit! I'm glad Kevin7 posted this link.
However, the insanity portrayed as being beneficial and desirable in The Metamorphosis is too egregious to ignore - even if the rest of the story had made good on its promise of providing an interesting look at a posthuman world. (It doesn't. We don't even get to see anything of it.) At first, I thought "oh, great; more cached-thought SF"... but it was worse than that. I forced myself to finish it just so I could be sure the following is accurate.
Worse tha...
Ergo, whatever environmental influences shape personality come from outside the home, not inside.
How far apart were the different homes - in the same neighborhood? School district? I also wonder how different the parenting styles considered were; at the same economic level in the same town, for example, divisions in "style" might be minor compared to people elsewhere, of different means.
It doesn't seem plausible, but you assert the books have mountains of evidence and I am not curious enough to check myself, so I ultimately withhold judgment.
The beauty of politics is that there is just enough uncertainty to make every position appear plausible to some portion of the public, even in those rare cases where there is definitive "proof" (however defined) that one particular position is correct. [emphasis added]
Well, that doesn't sound very beautiful.
I'm thinking of moral reasoning as the kind of reasoning you're morally responsible for: if you reason rightly, you ought to be praised and proud, and if you reason wrongly, you ought to be blamed and ashamed. That sort of thing.
Can't that apply to hypotheticals? If you come to the wrong conclusion you're a horrible person, sort of thing.
I would probably call "moral reasoning" something along the lines of "reasoning about morals". Even using your above definition, I think reasoning about morals using hypotheticals can result in a judgment, about what sort of action would be appropriate in the situation.
That's true. They could be wrong in different ways (or "different directions", in our example), which could be important for some purposes. But as you say, that depends on said purposes; I'm still uncertain as to the fallacy that dspeyer refers to. If our only purpose is determining some belief's level of correctness, absent other considerations (like in which way it's incorrect), isn't the one dimension of the "shades of grey" model sufficient?
Although -- come to think of it, I could be misunderstanding his criticism. I took it to mean...
I'm trying to imagine the other dimension we could add to this. If we have "more right" and "less right" along one axis, what's orthogonal to it?
I initially felt this comment was silly (the post isn't saying every space can be reasonably modeled as one-dimensional, is it?), but my brain is telling me we actually could come up with a more precise way to represent the article's concept with a Cartesian plane... but I'm not actually able to think of one. False intuition based on my experience with the "Political Compass" graph, perhaps.
It reminded me of that as well. Here is the full article; I'm glad it's online, because the errors he (and Yudkowsky, above) clears up are astonishingly prevalent. I've had cause to link to it many times.
What do you think about Kabbalah?
40 is sometimes used, in the Torah, to indicate a general large quantity - according to Google. It also has associations with purification and/or wisdom, according to my interpretation of the various places it appears in the Bible as a whole. (There are a lot of them.)
I would have liked some thoughts on/insight into the data posted as well; but all the same, summaries like this, that gather a lot of related but widely-dispersed information together, are very useful (especially as a quick reference or overview, or, as Jonathan says below, as a starting point for further research), and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more of them.
This suggests measuring posts for comment EV.
Now that is an interesting concept. I like where this subthread is going.
Interesting comparisons to other systems involving currency come to mind.
EV-analysis is the more intellectually interesting proposition, but it has me thinking. Next up: black-market karma services. I will facilitate karma-parties... for a nominal (karma) fee, of course. If you want to maintain the pretense of legitimacy, we will need to do some karma-laundering, ensuring that your posts appear that they could be worth the amount of ka...
(Since you two seem to be mostly using the mentioned IQ scores as a way to indicate relative intelligence, rather than speaking of anything directly related to IQ and IQ tests, this is somewhat tangential; however, Mr. Newsome does mention some actual scores below, and I think it's always good to be mindful when throwing IQ scores around. So when speaking of IQ specifically, I find it helpful to keep in mind the following.
There are many different tests, which value scores differently. In some tests, scores higher than about 150 are impossible or meaningle...
The heuristic I generally use is "use parentheses as needed, but rewrite if you find that you're needing to use square brackets." Why? Thinking about it, I believe this is because I see parentheses all the time in professional texts, but almost never parentheticals inside parentheticals.
But as I verbalize this heuristic, I suddenly feel like it might lend the writing a certain charm or desirable style to defy convention and double-bag some asides. Hmm.
No, that time passed when you merely had a single parenthetical inside a parenthetical. But when you have a further parenthetical inside the former two, is it then time to break out the curly brackets?
I have found entirely the opposite; it's very strongly correlated with spelling ability - or so it seems from my necessarily few observations, of course. I know some excellent mathematicians who write very stilted prose, and a few make more grammatical errors than I'd have expected, but they can all at least spell well.
Not only this, but you can be obviously wrong. We look at people trusting in spontaneous generation, or a spirit theory of disease, and mock them - rightfully. They took "reasonable" explanations of ideas, tested them as best they could, and ended up with unreasonable confidence in utterly illogical ideas.
I don't believe most of the old "obviously wrong" beliefs, like a spirit theory of disease, were ever actually systematically tested. Experimentation doesn't prevent you from coming to silly conclusions, but it can throw out a lot o...
I was thinking of that; maybe some people equate leisure time with being directionless, and thus need externally-imposed goals?
I was hoping someone would bring that up. You've already given the same answer I would, though: it's not necessarily an either/or scenario like Nozick's "experience machine" concept, so it's possible to have both heroin and pictures, in theory.
See my post below; I think this is due to a.) a misunderstanding of the nature of happiness (a thought that chemically-induced happiness is different from "regular" happiness... which is also chemical), b.) a feeling that opium is incredibly dangerous (as it can be), and c.) a misunderstanding of how opium makes you feel - people can say "I know opium makes you happy" without actually feeling/knowing that it does so. That is, their mental picture of how they'd feel if they smoked opium doesn't correspond to the reality, which is - for most people - that it makes them feel much, much better than they would have imagined.
Most people I know believe that heroin (and similar mechanisms) get short-term happiness followed either by long-term unhappiness, or death.
That's the long and short of it, I think. There is no reason not to use heroin to obtain maximum utility (for one's self), if one a.) finds it pleasurable, b.) can afford it, and c.) is able to obtain pure and measured doses. (Or simply uses pharmaceuticals.) The perceived danger of heroin comes from its price and illegality (uncertain dosage + potentially dangerous impurities), which often results in penury, and ov...
I have experienced the same thing. I have apparently endless capacity for leisure, possibly because I have an endless number of interests and hobbies to pursue then drop then pick back up. I've never understood people who don't want this kind of life; do they really exist? Can people get bored with leisure?
Great post! I'm going to use as much of it as I can.
I think it might be difficult to apply some of these, since I notice a good deal of my unhappiness is not affected by changes in thought or outward motions, and it can be hard to translate knowing you should try something into actually applying it. (But both of these can be mitigated: smiling, for instance, really does make me feel a bit happier even if I'm forcing the smile, and I'm sure there are plenty of articles about akrasia, here on LessWrong.)
...Prefer experiential purchases; avoid materialistic g
I don't think so - acetic anhydride is really the only other reagent involved in the step we're considering, and an excess wouldn't be harmful in any way... except, possibly, making the product a bit uncomfortable to ingest, if too much acetic acid was left over. (An excess of acetic anhydride is commonly used so as to make sure all the morphine reacts; any excess will become acetic acid - i.e., vinegar - as well.) It's common for a little to be left over, giving heroin its characteristic (vinegar-y) smell, but I don't think it's dangerous.
So I'd say that there's no danger here... but lack of quality control in general is definitely a big problem indeed.
This is a great way to put it.
I think one reason might be that the vast majority of the decisions we make are not going to make a significant difference as to our overall success by themselves; or rather, not as significant a difference as chance or other factors (e.g., native talent) could. For example, take the example about not buying into a snake-oil health product lessdazed uses above: you've benefited from your rationality, but it's still small potatoes compared to the amount of benefit you could get from being in the right place at the right time and becoming a pop star... or ge...
Was not my counterfactual scenario. It was someone else describing a counterfactual where ninjas are travelling by sea to a ninja-convention. My only contribution there was to (implicitly) assert that the counterfactualising operation that preserves the most probability mass to produce that scenario would not result in ninjas travelling on unarmed ships.
I edited that; I think the daimyos did have their own navies. I'm not actually certain about that, though, and I don't feel like looking it up. Maybe someone who knows more Japanese history can contribut...
Worse in what manner? In individual combat? A pirate crew vs. an association of ninjas?
From the comments I've read so far, I think the hypothetical situations you've used to determine that ninjas would win are grossly weighted in favor of ninjas. For example, you've already said it can't be any sea-based conflict (unless the ninjas are specially-trained sailor-ninjas on a navy ship, instead of being passenger ninjas booking passage on a merchant ship, as most would do if required to travel by sea if traveling by sea is incidental to their main function - ...
This is interesting to me, since we seem to be in about the same position academically (though you're a bit ahead of me). What was responsible for such a huge increase in productivity, or can that not be summarized? I need to research more myself, but I do not think I will be able to afford or attend the minicamp, so anything you'd be able to share would be appreciated.
Right now I feel if I found some good papers providing evidence for or against meditation I would shift appropriately.
Are you familiar with the study (studies) about meditation and brain health? I've seen one or two crop up, but I've not read the actual studies themselves - just summaries. IIRC, it appears to reduce the effects of aging.
The other reason I consider meditation possibly worth pursuing is that it appears to be an effective "mindhack" in at least one respect: it can be used to reduce or eliminate unpleasant physical and mental sens...
I think mysticism is inherently irrational, and thus seriously participating in "mysticism itself" is counter-productive if you wish you become more rational. But I say "seriously participating", because as you say, perhaps mystical aliefs can be used to produce useful mental states - as long as it is recognized that that's what you're doing, and you don't ascribe any special significance to the mystical aspects (i.e., you recognize that the same effect can probably be achieved without any such relics; it's just a matter of preference)....
Thanks for this; it's detailed and doesn't shy from pointing out the Bad and the Ugly (though it seems like there isn't much of those!). One thing that made me curious, however:
the marginal return on playing Dominion online was negative past about the first 10% of my time spent
How did you determine this?
Edit: Oh, I see you explain this below.
That's a good quote! +1.
Unfortunately, for every rational action, there appears to be an equal and opposite irrational one: did you see bhousel's response?
...Rationality is emotionless and mechanical. It's about making a reasonable decision based on whatever information is available to you. However, rational decisions do not involve morals, culture, or feelings. This is exactly what companies like Google and Goldman Sachs are being criticized for. [...] If I look down into my wallet and see no money there, and I'm hungry for lunch, and I decide to steal s
This probably helps explain some of the more blatantly maladaptive aspects of religious law we know about
Can you expand on this a little? I'm interested to see what in particular you're thinking of.
Since I have just read that "the intelligentsia" is usually now used to refer to artists etc. and doesn't often include scientists, this isn't as bad as I first thought; but still, it seems pretty silly to me - trying to appear deep by turning our expectations on their head. A common trick, and sometimes it can be used to make a good point... but what's the point being made here? Ordinary people are more rational than those engaged in intellectual pursuits? I doubt that, though rationality is in short supply in either category; but in any case, w...
I think that point would make more sense than the point he is apparently actually making... which is that we must keep negative aspects of ourselves (such as pain) to remain "human" (as defined by current specimens, I suppose), which is apparently something important. Either that or, as you say, Yudkowsky believes that suffering is required to appreciate happiness.
I too would have been happy to take the SH deal; or, if not happy, at least happier than with any of the alternatives.
Agreed. I was very surprised that Mr. Yudkowsky went with the very ending I, myself, thought would be the "traditional" and irrational ending - where suffering and death are allowed to go on, and even caused, because... um... because humans are special, and pain is good because it's part of our identity!
Yes, and the appendix is useful because it's part of our body.
I find that a little irritating - for people supposedly open to new ideas, science fiction authors sure seem fearful and/or disapproving of future technology.