I honestly can't think of a single instance where I was convinced of an informal, philosophical argument through an academic paper. Books, magazines, blog posts - sure, but papers just don't seem to be a thing.
I have been convinced of the invalidity of other arguments by academic papers.
I have also been significantly persuaded by the failure of academic papers to make their case. That is, seeing that a poor argument is held in wide regard is evidence that the advocates of that position have no better arguments.
I too do not remember being convinced of many things by formal academic papers, just a very few things.
Probably most importantly, what do you view as the purpose of SIAI's publishing papers? Or, if there are multiple purposes, which do you see as the most important?
In order to think of some things I do that only have one important purpose, it was necessary to perform the ritual of closing my eyes and thinking about nothing else for a few minutes by the clock.
I plan on assuming things have multiple important purposes and asking for several, e.g. "what do you view as the purposes of X."
There was nothing wrong with what you said, but it is strange...
Teaching tree thinking through touch.
These experiments were done with video game trees showing evolutionary divergence, and this method of teaching outperformed traditional paper exercises. Perhaps a simple computer program would make teaching probability trees easier, or the principles behind the experiments could be applied in another way to teach how to use these trees.
since presumably you're "updating" a lot, just like regular humans
It's a psychological trick to induce more updating than is normal. Normal human updating tends to be insufficient).
I say to myself in my mind, "nice clothes, nice clothes," alluding to belief as attire, and imagine they're wearing what most caused their statement.
For example, if someone said "Jesus never existed!" I might imagine them wearing a jacket that says "Respect me! I am sophisticated," or a hat saying "accept me, I'm a leftist just like you," or a backpack that says "I am angry at my parents."
Section 5 deals with this
This makes me think that you are right.
There was a weakness in the method, though. In appendix table one they not only show how likely it actually is that a baby with a certain name is white/black, they show the results from an independent field survey that asked people to pick names as white or black. In table eight, they only measure the likelihood someone with a certain name is in a certain class (as approximated by mother's education). Unfortunately, they don't show what people in general, or employers in particular, actuall...
Apparent poorly grounded belief in SI's superior general rationality
I found this complaint insufficiently detailed and not well worded.
Average people think their rationality is moderately good. Average people are not very rational. SI affiliated people think they are adept or at least adequate at rationality. SI affiliated people are not complete disasters at rationality.
SI affiliated people are vastly superior to others in generally rationality. So the original complaint literally interpreted is false.
An interesting question might be on the level of: &...
However the reaction of some lesswrongers to the title I initially chose for the post was distinctly negative. The title was "Most rational programming language?"
Many people have chosen similar titles for their posts. Many. It is very unusual to respond to criticism by writing a good post like "Avoid Inflationary use of Terms."
How did you do it?
Perhaps you initially had a defensive reaction to criticism just as others have had, and in addition have a way of responding to criticism well. Alternatively, perhaps your only advantage ov...
I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?
-Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber
-Heartland Institute billboard
From the press release:
...1. Who appears on the billboards?
The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010).
These rogues and villains were chosen because they made public statements about ho
One problem is that I can't find the table of contents, so I am not exactly sure.
Google books has preview available for pages 1-4 and 11-22. I know pages 5-10 would be very helpful for me, probably the rest of chapter one, but maybe not. It is likely everything I need is in pages 5-10.
Thank you for your help.
The main problem is that a test tests ability to take the test, independently of what its makers intended. The more similar tests are to each other, the more taking the first is training for the second, and the easier it is to teach directly to the test rather than to the skill that inspired the test. The less similar the before and after tests are, the less comparable they are.
Rationality training is particularly tricky because one is to learn formal models of both straight and twisted thinking, recognize when real-life situations resemble those patterns,...
Consider giving an example of the sort of decision making procedure that is taught in camp, with the subject of the example whether one should attend the camp.
E.g.:
Write down all the reasons you think you are considering on a sheet of paper, in pro and con columns. Circle those that do not refer to consequences of going or not going to camp. Then shut your eyes to think for two minutes and think of at least five alternatives that you are likely to do instead of camp. Make pro and con lists for the most likely three of these. Then circle non-consequences. G...
I guess we'd charge about 1/2 of the total (noting that you'd still be having meals with the rest of us)... but I suspect commuting is harder than you think, given how intensively scheduled it is. Err on the side of applying, and we can discuss.
Also, if anyone's unable to afford camp for whatever reason, apply anyhow and check the "needs scholarship" box and we can see what can be worked out.
I tried to take that into account when reading.
I know, I did too, but that is really the sort of calculation that should be done by a large-scale study that documents a control distribution for 0-10 ratings that such ratings can be calibrated against.
treating the indexes as utilities
Please explain.
In my engineering school, we had some project planning classes where we would attempt to calculate what was the best design based on the strength of our preference for performance in a variety of criteria (aesthetics, wieght, strength, cost, etc). Looki...
"Is there evidence this will be worthwhile according to my values now, independently of how it might change my values?"
"Is there evidence that this is instrumentally useful for more than warm fuzzies?"
"Is there evidence that for the probable benefit of this event the costs are substantially optimized for it? I.e., if the benefit is substantially social, even if this would be worth flying around the world for, a program could actually be optimized for social benefits, and/or I could attend a closer/cheaper/shorter program with similar benefits to me."
"Regardless of anyone's intent, what is this program optimized for?"
"How's the food?"
7b) Is there any evidence I'll be glad I went that a Christian brainwashing retreat could not produce just as easily?
If you went to a Jehovah's Witness retreat, and were in an accident, and you were conscious enough to refuse a blood transfusion, you'd be glad for having learned what you did at the retreat, even if you knew the refusal would be fatal.
In general, anything that is compelling and affects your decisions will make you glad for it, and its being compelling is probably not inversely related to its being true. So I'm not too concerned that my tentative answer to this question is "no."
Can someone provide the full text of this?
Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) have a bad philosophical reputation. They seem, however, to be widely used and frequently accepted in many legal, political, and ethical contexts. Hahn and Oaksford (2007) argued that distinguishing strong and weak SSAs may have a rational basis in Bayesian decision theory. In this paper three experiments investigated the mechanism of the slippery slope showing that they may have an objective basis in category boundary re-appraisal.
Also this:
......he argued that the very reasons t
depending on how those techniques are applied,
But as far as I know there's nothing in Cox's theorem or the axioms of probability theory or anything like those that says I had to use that particular prior
The way I interpret hypotheticals in which one person is said to be able to do something other than what they will do, such as "depending on how those techniques are applied," all of the person's priors are to be held constant in the hypothetical. This is the most charitable interpretation of the OP because the claim is that, under Bayesian ...
Cigarette smoking: an underused tool in high-performance endurance training
In summary, existing literature supports the use of cigarettes to enhance endurance performance through weight loss and increased serum hemoglobin levels and lung volumes.
musical contrast and chronological rejuvenation
...people were nearly a year-and-a-half younger after listening to “When I’m Sixty-Four” (adjusted M = 20.1 years) rather than to “Kalimba” (adjusted M = 21.5 years), F(1, 17) = 4.92, p = .040.
Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes i...
depending on how those techniques are applied, can lead to different results when analyzing the same data
But two Bayesian inferences from the same data can also give different results. How could this be a non-issue for Bayesian inference while being indicative of a central problem for NHST?
If the OP is read to hold constant everything not mentioned as a difference, that includes the prior beliefs of the person doing the analysis, as against the hypothetical analysis that wasn't performed by that person.
Does "two Bayesian inferences" imply i...
Is the sunk cost fallacy a fallacy?
I ask myself about many statements: would this have the same meaning if the word "really" were inserted? As far as my imagination can project, any sentence that can have "really" inserted into it without changing the sentence's meaning is at least somewhat a wrong question, one based on an unnatural category or an argument by definition.
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? --> If a tree falls in the forest, does it really make a sound?
Is Terry Schiavo alive? --> Is Terry Schiav...
When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
Shit and Bullshit Rationalists Don't Say:
"I've read more papers by Scott Aaronson than just the one." "Which one?" (Both of these.)
Quantity of experience: brain-duplication and degrees of consciousness Nick Bostrom
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
--John Maynard Keynes
...Nemeth … divided two hundred and sixty-five female undergraduates into teams of five. … The first set of teams got the standard brainstorming spiel, including the no-criticism rules. Other teams were told … “Most studies suggest that you should debate and criticize each other’s ideas.” The rest received no further instructions. …The brainstorming groups slightly outperformed the groups given no instructions, but teams given the debate condition were the most creative by far. On average, they generated twenty per cent more ideas. And after the teams disban
That's advice for the skimming/reading/intensive study of 1,000 papers to get their knowledge, balancing completeness, depth, breadth, and the like.
I want advice on summarizing 100 individual articles, each one fairly completely read, so that many other people can do that and share the results with each other. The thing you do best, rather than the thing lukeprog does best.
deciding who to trust
This can be unpacked/dissolved.
First, I think of people/situation pairs rather than people. Specific situations influence things so much that one loses a lot by trying to think of people more abstractly; there is the danger of the fundamental attribution error.
Some people/situations are wrong more often than others are. Some people/situations lie more to others than others do. Some people/situations lie more to themselves than others do.
Some are more concerned with false positives, others with false negatives.
I also tend to think of...
I've seen it too. Even Nate Silver did it in this New York Times blog post, where he estimates the number of fans for each team in the National Hockey League "by evaluating the number of people who searched for the term “N.H.L.”" Using his method, Montreal is the only Canadian market with a team for which it is estimated that fewer than half of the people are avid hockey fans (as he defined... (read more)