Hmm… I guess both. Like, I find the statement funny because it doesn’t seem specific to this context at all. There doesn’t seem to be a place in any discourse where creating a full list or map of ideas and then adding probabilities to each one wouldn’t be a good idea. So then my mind goes to: Why don’t we already do that? I notice two answers, (1) it would be an enormous amount of work, and (2) humanity in general kinda sucks at doing things (you and me included, presumably). So then it seems funny to make the statement here without nodding to something like (1) or (2).
If you focused on (1), it would make more sense to say something like “I think this is an important enough context that it would be worth creating a full list or map of ideas and adding probabilities after”.
If you focused on (2), then it doesn’t make sense to say it on this post specifically, rather you should be writing a post examining why creating list/map and adding probabilities is a good thing to do, and why people don’t regularly do it, and strategies to change things so people do it with more regularity.
I guess I also find it a bit funny because it’s so vague, like, there’s lots of possible details about what kind of list or map you’re imagining, and how probabilities could connect to them. Should we use a Bayes network? A Theory of Change precondition chart? Just try to divide up all of possibility space into clean categories? And you could have provided a stub of examples of what you’re thinking about or pointed to other similar things people have done and why they are not what you mean or how they could go further.
Sorry, I feel like I’m picking on you now that I’m explaining myself and that really wasn’t my intention. I really really do like your comment, and agree with it. It just also somehow strikes me as funny. I note that I’m the sort of person who laughs at Douglas Hofstadter quotes like “As long as you are not reading me, the fourth word of this sentence has no referent.” So probably don’t use me as a training signal for interacting with more normal humans.
Thanks for asking about the “lol”, lol. Hope you find my response amusing rather than annoying.
Actually, anytime I encounter a complex problem, I do exactly this: I create a list of all possible ideas and – if I can – probabilities. It is time consuming brut-forcing. See examples:
Have you created a list of all possible approaches for when encountering a complex problem? That would be cool. I think creating a list of all possible ideas would not be the best item on the list for all situations. Most notably when a list is the wrong structure because of the overlap and interconnectivity of the ideas being examined, but also when that amount of effort is imprudent.
I’ll also note, any list that doesn’t include “all possibilities not included in the other list items” is almost certainly not a complete list of all possibilities. I like to be explicit about that unless there is strong proof that the list does contain all possibilities. This is the reason I like to make statements like “I notice two answers” rather than “I’ve listed all possible answers” unless I’ve put in some serious effort to actually splitting up the space of all possibilities.
I create two dimensional matrix of the most important characteristics which I hope will catch most variability and use it as x and y axis. For example, for AI risk can be number of AIs and AI’s IQ (or time from now). It is Descartes method.
There are other tricks to collect more ideas for the list—reading literature, asking a friend, brain-shtroming, money prizes.
I created a more general map of methods of thinking but didn’t finish yet.
As a person quite obsessed with studying high dimensional semantic spaces, I do get a little bit of anxiety from the idea of arbitrarily privileging 2 dimensions. I often think on paper but use nodes and lines to allow more complicated connections than with 2 named dimensions. I guess this is just brain storming, but I often like to copy the graph to a separate sheet of paper allowing related concepts to move closer together as I re-examine them.
I think when trying to explore all possible possibilities I like to collect relevant propositions and explore the ways they could be true, false, or failing to have a truth value. That tends to generate more propositions that can become parts of the list or re-examined. It does unfortunately feel quite ad-hoc.
I created a more general map of methods of thinking but didn’t finish yet.
Yes, but processing 3D and more is difficult and representing on paper also difficult. Therefore, several 2D slices of mental hyperspace can work. You can have a look on last version but it is in Russian.
I’m thinking more about high dimensional webs unrolled and projected into 2d with annotations if any higher dimensional structure is important. Trees and graphs, basically.
Your link is pretty cool. Thanks. I skimmed with use of google translate.
I don’t understand your lol here—am I wrong? Is world wrong?
Hmm… I guess both. Like, I find the statement funny because it doesn’t seem specific to this context at all. There doesn’t seem to be a place in any discourse where creating a full list or map of ideas and then adding probabilities to each one wouldn’t be a good idea. So then my mind goes to: Why don’t we already do that? I notice two answers, (1) it would be an enormous amount of work, and (2) humanity in general kinda sucks at doing things (you and me included, presumably). So then it seems funny to make the statement here without nodding to something like (1) or (2).
If you focused on (1), it would make more sense to say something like “I think this is an important enough context that it would be worth creating a full list or map of ideas and adding probabilities after”.
If you focused on (2), then it doesn’t make sense to say it on this post specifically, rather you should be writing a post examining why creating list/map and adding probabilities is a good thing to do, and why people don’t regularly do it, and strategies to change things so people do it with more regularity.
I guess I also find it a bit funny because it’s so vague, like, there’s lots of possible details about what kind of list or map you’re imagining, and how probabilities could connect to them. Should we use a Bayes network? A Theory of Change precondition chart? Just try to divide up all of possibility space into clean categories? And you could have provided a stub of examples of what you’re thinking about or pointed to other similar things people have done and why they are not what you mean or how they could go further.
Sorry, I feel like I’m picking on you now that I’m explaining myself and that really wasn’t my intention. I really really do like your comment, and agree with it. It just also somehow strikes me as funny. I note that I’m the sort of person who laughs at Douglas Hofstadter quotes like “As long as you are not reading me, the fourth word of this sentence has no referent.” So probably don’t use me as a training signal for interacting with more normal humans.
Thanks for asking about the “lol”, lol. Hope you find my response amusing rather than annoying.
Actually, anytime I encounter a complex problem, I do exactly this: I create a list of all possible ideas and – if I can – probabilities. It is time consuming brut-forcing. See examples:
The table of different sampling assumptions in anthropics
Types of Boltzmann Brains
What AI Safety Researchers Have Written About the Nature of Human Values
[Paper]: Classification of global catastrophic risks connected with artificial intelligence
I am surprised that it is not a normal approach despite its truly Bayesian nature.
This is very good.
Have you created a list of all possible approaches for when encountering a complex problem? That would be cool. I think creating a list of all possible ideas would not be the best item on the list for all situations. Most notably when a list is the wrong structure because of the overlap and interconnectivity of the ideas being examined, but also when that amount of effort is imprudent.
I’ll also note, any list that doesn’t include “all possibilities not included in the other list items” is almost certainly not a complete list of all possibilities. I like to be explicit about that unless there is strong proof that the list does contain all possibilities. This is the reason I like to make statements like “I notice two answers” rather than “I’ve listed all possible answers” unless I’ve put in some serious effort to actually splitting up the space of all possibilities.
I create two dimensional matrix of the most important characteristics which I hope will catch most variability and use it as x and y axis. For example, for AI risk can be number of AIs and AI’s IQ (or time from now). It is Descartes method.
There are other tricks to collect more ideas for the list—reading literature, asking a friend, brain-shtroming, money prizes.
I created a more general map of methods of thinking but didn’t finish yet.
As a person quite obsessed with studying high dimensional semantic spaces, I do get a little bit of anxiety from the idea of arbitrarily privileging 2 dimensions. I often think on paper but use nodes and lines to allow more complicated connections than with 2 named dimensions. I guess this is just brain storming, but I often like to copy the graph to a separate sheet of paper allowing related concepts to move closer together as I re-examine them.
I think when trying to explore all possible possibilities I like to collect relevant propositions and explore the ways they could be true, false, or failing to have a truth value. That tends to generate more propositions that can become parts of the list or re-examined. It does unfortunately feel quite ad-hoc.
I’d be interested if you ever do finish this : )
Yes, but processing 3D and more is difficult and representing on paper also difficult. Therefore, several 2D slices of mental hyperspace can work.
You can have a look on last version but it is in Russian.
I’m thinking more about high dimensional webs unrolled and projected into 2d with annotations if any higher dimensional structure is important. Trees and graphs, basically.
Your link is pretty cool. Thanks. I skimmed with use of google translate.
Actually, I have metaethic classification in my again unpublished yet article about badness of death
It needs large revision as a lot of work now can be done by LLM. Levenchuk is making now 1M size prompts which teach LLM “system thinking”.
That’s cool but also kinda freaky.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iBg6AAG72wqyosxAk/the-badness-of-death-in-different-metaethical-theories