But wouldn’t you just be suckered by sufficiently smart and attentive scam artists?
DoubleReed
Karma: 60
Isn’t this more of social recognition of a scam?
While there are decision-theoretic issues with the Original Pascal’s Wager, one of the main problems is that it is a scam (“You can’t afford not to do it! It’s an offer you can’t refuse!”). It seems to me that you can construct plenty of arguments like you just did, and many people wouldn’t take you up on the offer because they’d recognize it as a scam. Once something has a high chance of being a scam (like taking the form of Pascal’s Wager), it won’t get much more of your attention until you lower the likelihood that it’s a scam. Is that a weird form of Confirmation Bias?
But nonetheless, couldn’t the AI just function in the same way as that? I would think it would need to learn how to identify what is a trick and what isn’t a trick. I would just try to think of it as a Bad Guy AI who is trying to manipulate the decision making algorithms of the Good Guy AI.
One way to save face in socially painful situations is to try to appear as though you are doing it all on purpose, to present yourself, for example, as a ‘free spirit’ rather than a ‘loser.’ I know for sure that I did this a lot as a child, and even now I have a tendency to emphasize the ‘weird’ things that I do, to look like I do them confidently and deliberately.
I always associated this behavior more with machismo. The idea that “acting like you know what you’re doing” is more important than “knowing what you’re doing.” Certainly in social situations, but especially in sexual situations, I never want to signal doubt in my actions, even if my actions turn out to be silly or stupid (which is hilariously often).
Mathematicians—along with scientists—discover new things (what is a proof other than a discovery of a new mathematical property). That’s what their job is. In order for Ethicists to be comparable, wouldn’t they need to discover new ethics?
Yea, Konkvistador supplied well.
What would be an example of a “Normative human essential”?
Re-reading Greenberg’s article makes me want to compose some classical dubstep.
Just wanted to clarify before I let this go.
I am skeptical about your model of aesthetics. I think the model that allows you to compare so easily cross-genre is not the actual model that you use for your aesthetics. All I’m asking is that you double-check to make sure that the model you use actually fits, and you often are able to make these cross-genre comparisons (not comparing genres but comparing songs within different genres).
It is your comparison that baffles me, not the result of the comparison.
The second of the above quotes is something I have claimed. The first one is a response to something I have not claimed. There is a straw man at play.
Well yes, I was using an incorrect model of you.
Valuing Weird Al over classical does not make me less intelligent. It speaks more about my general aesthetic preference for melding a conceptual meaning in closely with the melody, rhythm, tone, etc. For me the concepts themselves seem to be a part of music to a far greater extent than for most people I have compared myself to. I do not consider this to be a weakness of mine.
I was really just commenting on the drama of the last part of your post. Valuing Weird Al over classical isn’t something bizarre to me.
The issue I have is the comparison between the two. Different music is for different things. To just say “Well if I’m gonna listen to music then I’ll always pick Weird Al over classical,” well, that’s not all there is to the aesthetics of music.
Edit: Especially with things like epic film scores. Classical music tends to fit this niche quite well, and I would be surprised if you honestly disagreed with that.
No, you can’t. If you can make distinctions like that then they are in the same model! And your whole point was based around the fact that I was making such a distinction anyway!
What? Of course you can. If model allows for time and purpose, then you can just say “Weird Al is superior for the current time and purpose to all of classical music.” Bam. Done. Everything can be in multiple models but the comparison operator is different.
So in order for Weird Al to be strictly superior to classical music then it must be superior for all times and purposes. So when you watched Star Trek (2009), did you like Giacchino’s score, or would you have preferred Weird Al? Do you watch figure skating? If you do, then according to yourself, you would prefer Weird Al over whatever they skate to.
Wow. What can you say to someone if they make that sort of declaration?
Well if I’m going to contradict you about yourself, I might as well just say it.
Do I have a choice of the different responses? Because I think I’ll choose the first one :D
Just tell me I am unsophisticated, naive, uncool, banal and tasteless or even that my claim about Weird Al superiority is outright offensive. Those are at least a mix of accurate (unsophisticated in this respect) and subjective. Trying to convince me (or even anyone else) that I don’t really have the aesthetic ratings that I do is just absurd!
But I’m not doing that. I’m saying you are stating incorrect things about your own tastes. If anything, I would be trying to claim that you are more sophisticated and intelligent than you yourself will admit.
No, I don’t think minimalists are inaccessible. You suggested that there is “increasing musical complexity,” and I was merely pointing out there doesn’t necessarily have to be “increasing musical complexity.”
My model of the universe is kinda big but I don’t actively try to compartmentalize it because it then I could not answer the question “Hey wedrifid, do you want me to play my Weird Al playlist or the my classical music playlist?”. That would be strictly inferior.
Not really. You can have different models and still be able to make strict decisions like that.
Especially with Weird Al, considering part of the aesthetic is the fact that it’s hilarious. Do you use the same model with Weird Al and Queen? Iron Maiden? Elvis? Do you put those on a strict 1-Dimensional spectrum as well, or do you prefer different things for different times and different purposes? Practically speaking, do you prefer the same music you normally listen to the same music that is the soundtrack to a film?
I’m not convinced you only have one model, and I’m also not convinced that your model actually says that classical music is strictly inferior to weird al.
One just cannot expect everyone to be able to keep up indefinitely with increasing musical complexity.
I like to point out this line in particular, and then point to minimalist (and post-minimalist) composers.
Music doesn’t have to get necessarily more complex. Composers, like any large group of people, don’t agree on anything.
I would agree partially with komponisto.
Except that there were a lot French and Western Europe composers at this time. They were using a different model entirely however (Schenkerian Analysis only covers the German model). It didn’t put as much emphasis on the bass as german music does. The German model just seems better (from my standpoint, it seems to actually focus on what the ear naturally focuses on), which made their music better, so they lasted the test of time. The German model then spread to the Western Europe and subsumed everything because their stuff was better.
Were those tons of composers like Greenberg doing that sort of work at age 14?
That’s not necessarily fair. As I was taught, “nobody composes in a vacuum.” Art and Science constantly evolve so you need to learn what came before, which means it will take longer and longer for prodigies to flourish.
But not all modern music is inaccessible. In fact a lot of is more accessible than the old masters (I mean come on, The Firebird isn’t hard to understand at all). People seem to act as if once serialism came around all composers immediately threw out all ideas of tonality and harmony and that’s not true. Many people openly rejected ideas of atonality.
I don’t really have anything against serial music. Some of it is pretty cool. But that’s not what “modern music” is.
Again, there are Neoclassical works that “the public” love just like “the public” love the old masters. Pulcinella Suite is a direct example that “competes,” but really anything from that era of Stravinsky is a great example. Francis Poulenc’s work is immensely popular (his clarinet duet and clarinet concerto are particularly good). In fact, directly after WWI is when all this stuff came out because europe couldn’t afford large orchestras.
This idea that modern classical music can’t be fun and entertaining is just plain strange! Serialism really gives modern music a bad name. People still compose tonal works, and tonal music is not considered “uninteresting.”
Do you really use the same model for judging Genius in France and judging the Waldstein Piano Sonata?
Oh well then NancyLebovitz’s line:
Europe before WWI produced classical music so good that no one has been able to compete with it (for classical music, not music in general) since then.
is not correct.
I disagree. All the scam artist has to know is your method of coming to your conclusions. Once he knows that then he can probably exploit you depending on his cleverness (and then it becomes an arms race). If anything, trying to defend yourself from being manipulated in that way would probably be extremely difficult in of itself. Either way, my initial guess is that your methodology would still be superficial pattern-matching, but it would just be a deeper, more complex level of it.
This seems to be what Eliezer is doing with all the various scenarios. He’s testing his methodology against different attacks and different scenarios. I’m just suggesting is to change your viewpoint to the Bad Guy. Rather than talk about your reliable reasoning, talk about the bad guy and how he can exploit your reasoning.