LESSWRONG
LW

All of LyleN's Comments + Replies

Rationality Quotes Thread February 2015
LyleN80

Science meant looking -- a special kind of looking. Looking especially hard at the things you didn't understand. Looking at the stars, say, and not fearing them, not worshiping them, just asking questions, finding the question that would unlock the door to the next question and the question beyond that.

Robert Charles Wilson, Darwinia

Reply
Rationality Quotes December 2014
LyleN30

Recently I was with a group of mathematicians and philosophers. One philosopher asked me whether I believed man was a machine. I replied, “Do you really think it makes any difference?” He most earnestly replied, “Of course! To me it is the most important question in philosophy.”

...I imagine that if my friend finally came to the conclusion that he were a machine, he would be infinitely crestfallen. I think he would think: “My God! How horrible! I am only a machine!” But if I should find out I were a machine, my attitude would be totally different. I would

... (read more)
[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply
6TheMajor
Duplicate
Please Don't Fight the Hypothetical
LyleN70

In some situations you can keep people from fighting the hypothetical by asking a question which explicitly states the point of the hypothetical, instead of asking something vague.

E.g., for Newcomb's paradox, instead of asking "What do you choose?" (potential answer: "I don't really need a million dollars, so I'll just take the box with the $1000") ask "which choice of box(es) maximizes expected monetary gain?"

E.g., for the Monty Hall problem, instead of asking "Would you switch doors?" (potential answers: "I'd ... (read more)

Reply
1TheOtherDave
FWIW, my answer in trolley problems is usually some variant of "Well, what I would do is probably dither ineffectually between alternatives until the onrushing train takes the choice out of my hands, but what I endorse doing is killing the smaller group." (Similarly, the truth is that faced with the canonical PD I would probably do whatever the cop tells me to do, whether I think it's the right thing to do or not. Fear is like that, sometimes. But that's really not the point of the question.)
Rationality Quotes November 2014
LyleN160

With the truth, all given facts harmonize; but with what is false, the truth soon hits a wrong note.

-- Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, pointing out entangled truths and contagious lies

Reply
6soreff
"soon" can vary quite a bit, depending on what is false. Following the link, I'm skeptical of "From the study of that single pebble you could see the laws of physics and all they imply." Specifically, I'm skeptical that one can deduce the parts of the laws of physics that matter under extreme conditions (general relativity, physics at Plank-scale energies) by examining the behavior of matter under benchtop conditions, at achievable levels of accuracy. The motivation for building instruments like the LHC in the first place is that they allow probing parts of physical laws which would otherwise produce exceeding small effects or exceedingly rare phenomena.
2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey
LyleN410

Took the survey!

Also, a frequent lurker who has finally made an account!

Reply