All of kirpi's Comments + Replies

kirpi10

Sorry, I couldn't get what do you mean by "We're the only species that acquires it automatically". Does it mean human beings have language skills by birth and other animals don't?

1jimrandomh
What I mean is that humans reliably acquire language skills just by being around people who're talking, without needing an explicit effort to train them. We are, in effect, primed to learn language; and while it's not quite accurate to say that we have language skills by birth, it is true that many of its structural aspects come automatically just from the way human brains develop.
kirpi00

Thank you for the direction. These articles seem to be the ones I were looking for. (Plato's work and Diogenes' answer is worth further investigation)

Human beings may not be that special. This search of mine may be futile, it being a remnant of my believer times (and I being raised in Eurasian soils).

Even so, "what is a human being" seems to be the right question to further investigate. I guess this will immediately be useful (if not already is) at information security: "is perfect authentication possible?" (with protection against rubber hose technique, or clones etc.)

kirpi150

Hello. I am from Istanbul, Turkey (A Turkish Citizen born and raised). I came across LessWrong on a popular Turkish website called EkşiSözlük. Since then, this is the place I checked to see what's new when there's nothing worth reading on Google Reader and I have time. (So long posts you have!)

I am 31 years old and I have a BSc in Computer Science and MSc in Computational Sciences (Research on Bioinformatics). But then, like most of the people in my country does, I've landed upon a job where I can't utilize any of these information. Information Security :)... (read more)

5NancyLebovitz
However, you can estimate how long you will live with fairly good accuracy. If you know you're very likely to live for some decades more, then I think it makes sense to optimize around the estimate rather than for the very small possibility that you'll be dead in the next hour.
3NotInventedHere
This is an extremely belated reply, but with regards to The Fun Theory and Metaethics sequences helped me through my personal period of existential angst. The two most immediately helpful posts I would recommend for someone like you are Joy in The Merely Real and Joy in the Merely Good.
kirpi00

I actually am very curious to hear about your techniques, so much so that I registered to add this comment :) It is an art to manage your mood swings I believe, much like "air bending". So, please keep them coming.