I’m posting this second comment on gathering “insider information” separately.
How do we measure sheltered-ness? How can I be confident that my life is less sheltered than Wednesday’s, and seek to correct for that?
There’s this (great) movie called The 13th Floor where the main character gathers some weak evidence that he might be in a simulation. This is what happens: Va beqre gb grfg jurgure ur vf va n fvzhyngvba, gur znva punenpgre qrpvqrf gb qevir uvf pne vagb gur ubevmba. Ur yrneaf gung whfg orlbaq gur ubevmba, gur ynaqfpncr ybbcf sbe n juvyr naq gura rirelguvat vf oynax naq rzcgl.(rot13). So if you want to know something for sure, you test it.
Of course, to some extent, you need to consider the cost of the test. I realized while writing this comment that many of my actions and decisions throughout out my life can be explained by the hypothesis of always seeking insider information at almost any cost—it seems to be my personal modus operandi. I’ve always felt driven to do mini-experiments to test what is “real” and reliable, and where I’m allowed to go or if there are some places where I’m excluded. It certainly explains some erratic behavior in my life:
I took every job I could get access to, and fully committed to working there. I wanted to know the “inside story” of every workplace.
I interacted with lots of different people and my main motivation usually was to understand their world view. I’m embarrassed about some of the means I used towards this end—on the one hand, I wasn’t always honest in soliciting information, and also I spent a lot of time and energy doing this, as though there was nothing better I could be doing with my time.
I joined the Peace Corps to see what it was really like in a third world country and—to some extent—to see how things were organized in a government organization.
And finally, I spent so much time on Less Wrong even though I was a theist so I could fully understand the atheist worldview.
Reading a lot is the last obvious example. You can learn a lot from books, especially if the material you’re learning about was unintentionally related. For example, I feel like I learned some reliable information about what it was like to be a working woman in the 1900s by reading male authors who just happened to include a few boring, mundane details about what a secretary was doing in their story.
Everything gets weighted with a network of probabilities. But over time, this grows into a worldview you have a certain amount of confidence in. I’m not certain that I’m not an alien intelligence exploring what it would feel like if the universe was material and causal, but to the extent to which I assume face-value reality, I feel confident that I’m continually testing my understanding of it.
That’s a really fascinating question! That’s what I’m always trying to find out from other people… (So if anyone else knows something, please chime in!)
But no, I just keep finding that the world is well-integrated, and information flows as well as it seems to, and no one seems to know anything special.
The past couple years, my focus has shifted from testing things to seeking “wisdom”, and I’ve all but given up. I happen to have William B. Irvine’s, “On Desire” on my desk and he writes in the last chapter that if I’m looking for a ‘cosmically significant meaning’, he doesn’t think its forthcoming. I guess I’m hoping that some quantity of information will make up for the lack of a different quality of it.
I’m posting this second comment on gathering “insider information” separately.
There’s this (great) movie called The 13th Floor where the main character gathers some weak evidence that he might be in a simulation. This is what happens: Va beqre gb grfg jurgure ur vf va n fvzhyngvba, gur znva punenpgre qrpvqrf gb qevir uvf pne vagb gur ubevmba. Ur yrneaf gung whfg orlbaq gur ubevmba, gur ynaqfpncr ybbcf sbe n juvyr naq gura rirelguvat vf oynax naq rzcgl.(rot13). So if you want to know something for sure, you test it.
Of course, to some extent, you need to consider the cost of the test. I realized while writing this comment that many of my actions and decisions throughout out my life can be explained by the hypothesis of always seeking insider information at almost any cost—it seems to be my personal modus operandi. I’ve always felt driven to do mini-experiments to test what is “real” and reliable, and where I’m allowed to go or if there are some places where I’m excluded. It certainly explains some erratic behavior in my life:
I took every job I could get access to, and fully committed to working there. I wanted to know the “inside story” of every workplace.
I interacted with lots of different people and my main motivation usually was to understand their world view. I’m embarrassed about some of the means I used towards this end—on the one hand, I wasn’t always honest in soliciting information, and also I spent a lot of time and energy doing this, as though there was nothing better I could be doing with my time.
I joined the Peace Corps to see what it was really like in a third world country and—to some extent—to see how things were organized in a government organization.
And finally, I spent so much time on Less Wrong even though I was a theist so I could fully understand the atheist worldview.
Reading a lot is the last obvious example. You can learn a lot from books, especially if the material you’re learning about was unintentionally related. For example, I feel like I learned some reliable information about what it was like to be a working woman in the 1900s by reading male authors who just happened to include a few boring, mundane details about what a secretary was doing in their story.
Everything gets weighted with a network of probabilities. But over time, this grows into a worldview you have a certain amount of confidence in. I’m not certain that I’m not an alien intelligence exploring what it would feel like if the universe was material and causal, but to the extent to which I assume face-value reality, I feel confident that I’m continually testing my understanding of it.
Have you found out things that you don’t think most people know?
That’s a really fascinating question! That’s what I’m always trying to find out from other people… (So if anyone else knows something, please chime in!)
But no, I just keep finding that the world is well-integrated, and information flows as well as it seems to, and no one seems to know anything special.
The past couple years, my focus has shifted from testing things to seeking “wisdom”, and I’ve all but given up. I happen to have William B. Irvine’s, “On Desire” on my desk and he writes in the last chapter that if I’m looking for a ‘cosmically significant meaning’, he doesn’t think its forthcoming. I guess I’m hoping that some quantity of information will make up for the lack of a different quality of it.