Some books not on the list which I highly recommend:
Topology via Logic by Steve Vickers (good supplement to learning topology with Munkres, it has a very different approach—in particular this book dissolves the mystery of why topology is so relevant to this sort of research)
Seven Sketches in Compositionality by Brendan Fong and David Spivak
Modern Thermodynamics by John Denker (excellent book which is very relevant to the “Realistic World-Models” research direction)
FWIW, Van Horn says:
“There has been much unnecessary controversy over Cox’s Theorem due to differing implicit assumptions as to the nature of its plausibility function. Halpern [11, 12] claims to demonstrate a counterexample to Cox’s Theorem by examining a finite problem domain, but his argument presumes that there is a different plausibility function for every problem domain.”
This is the most similar resource I know of: http://www.rexresearch.com/1index.htm Unfortunately, it of course has terrible epistemic hygiene, it would be nice to have a resource like this that presented from somewhere grounded in reality. There are lots of obscure but sound ideas there though.
It’s not clear that they were not responsible for killing him, and they were definitely responsible for the killing of Fred Hampton.
The theory behind it is described here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303721842_Theory_of_Instruction_Principles_and_Applications
Or, imagine if in 2014, Yudkowsky suddenly started saying the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, without acknowledging that anything had changed. That’s how weird this is.
This is a strong overstatement. Eliezer clearly has invested orders of magnitude more effort in defense of his MWI stance than he did in defense of his original dolphins-aren’t-fish “stance”.
Yeah, I meant what I said about chimps experiencing suffering. To the extent that consciousness and social identity are relevant, I believe chimps have those to a sufficient degree.
Thanks!
Suffering seems like a natural category to me, at least in the way it’s used to classify experiences.
Even if it is a social construct, that doesn’t mean that animals or AIs couldn’t experience a meaningfully similar experience. I’d be quite surprised if it turns out that e.g. chimps truly do not suffer in any of the common senses of the word.
I think the experiments you describe on humans is a reasonable start, but that you would then need to ask: “Why did suffering evolve as a distinct sensation from pain?” I don’t think you can determine the function of suffering without being able to answer that. Then you could look at other systems and see if something with the same functionality exists. I think that’s how you could generalize to both other animals and AI.
I think the functional approach is ultimately correct, but that suffering is a much more complex way of being than any system having learnable negative feedback. A simple way to illustrate this is to notice that the amount of suffering changes drastically (in my own experience) across functionally very similar negative feedback loops. Walking along a path involves negative feedback (which I can learn from), but I don’t feel like I’m suffering at all when I notice I’m deviating slightly (and even if it turns out I am, the amount of suffering is still much much lower than for standard suffering). In fact, it suspiciously seems like the amount of suffering is correlated with experiences which would likely have harmed my reproductive fitness 20,000 years ago. It even disconnects from the sensation of pain: e.g. I suffer much less from painful experiences which I believe are healing compared to ones which I believe are harmful, even if the raw sensation feels the same. Another strange thing about suffering is that it increases the more attention I pay to a constant pain signal. On the other hand, emotional pain doesn’t seem (in my experience) to be as separated from suffering. Anyway, the point is that we need to vet definitions of what suffering is in just our own experiences before trying to use them on animals.
I think it’s true that insanity/trickery is always going to be a stronger hypothesis than these truly outlandish claims. At the same time, if you could still model the nature of the entities in your hallucination, it would end up being equivalent to believing you were in a simulation. So in practice, you would go about using your psychic powers as if they were real, and wouldn’t have to suffer for being rational in an extremely unlikely world, while still believing that you must actually be in some sort of simulated world. And as a bounded agent, it seems like there would be another point where your belief that you’re in a simulation with memories of an old life in a strange world would start feeling insane.
She’s seems to agree there’s an issue:
There are cases where there’s a lot of evidence that “standard” cut-offs are in the wrong place. “Subclinical hypothyroidism” still benefits from supplemental thyroid hormone; higher-than-standard doses of allopurinol control gout better; “standard” light therapy for seasonal affective disorder doesn’t work as well as ultra-bright lights; etc. More Dakka.
(from https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/personalized-medicine-for-real/)
Yeah, but it’s surprising that it doesn’t begin until after Bismuth, given that. It seems like it skips one on the neutron side as well.
Does the shell theory explain why it becomes unusually unstable once there’s two neutrons past the shell (and not when there’s two protons past the shell)?
And also, why does the decay mode suddenly change to alpha particles? I guess the alpha particle decay becoming favorable explains why it “skips one” on each side, and perhaps since He_4 is also doubly magic, maybe that’s why it prefers to do alpha decay in this region.
Sure! There’s not really a specific exercise as much as a method for dealing with issues. The following is just my interpretation of what he taught me in person, so YMMV.
If you move your hand/wrist/arm around, you can usually identify a configuration where there’s a threshold at which it “catches” and starts hurting noticeably more. Then you keep your arm fixed at that position, and make small motions along each of your wrist/elbow/shoulder joints one at a time, to identify where the issue is:
wrist movement crosses threshold --> issue is in your forearm
elbow movement crosses threshold --> issue is in your upper arm
shoulder movement crosses threshold --> issue is in your back or neck (typically near the shoulder blades or up your armpits)
You should also be able to feel what side the pain is on, and so (still keeping it at the threshold configuration) you gently press in that area with your other hand until you identify an especially tender or “knotted” spot (it doesn’t always hurt, I often have to go by feel). Then you try to put a shear force on this area, as if you’re trying to move the overlying muscle or tendon out of the way for whatever is below. While holding it out of the way, you try slowly moving your arm past the threshold again. If successful, it will be further out than before (and if not, you probably have the spot a little off, or aren’t putting the right kind of force on the area, so experiment a bit to find what works). You’ll want to keep moving your arm back and forth across the former threshold, making sure to move all three joints in the process. Then you can release the force and ensure that the threshold remains at the new location (and if not, reapply the force and move through it more).
It can help to have a partner to apply the force, since it is sometimes is required in really hard to reach locations.
By the time you’re having serious wrist issues, you likely have issues in several locations all along your arm, back and neck. It seems to be easier to start with the issue nearest to your hand first, and work your way up (sometimes requiring you to go back down as a new issue surfaces). It’s common for fixing one issue to make new issues apparent. With David, I’ve also experienced sudden numbness/pricklyness, or sudden hot or cold in a strangely specific part of my arm, but I don’t experience these when doing it myself.
I don’t have a great model for what these issues actually are or why this technique helps, but I do appreciate the kinematic approach to the problem. David says it may have to do with the overlying muscle putting excessive pressure on the tissue below, causing the tissue to get inflamed, which then causes a high-friction point when moving in certain ways. I think there is likely more to the story than that, but I don’t know enough about the anatomy to say what.
Hope this is able to help you.
Do we know what’s up with the yellow square starting at Polonium where the half-lives suddenly get short?
I would highly recommend seeing David Bacome (based in SF). I had really bad wrist problems which he was able to fix (and teach me how to keep them from getting bad again) after doctors had me do useless exercises that didn’t help at all.
This would be a deal breaker for me too.
I have an 89 y.o. relative who is using a similar excuse, though not with the “strain” term in particular.
I remember being taught the American style as a kid, and deciding that it was stupid and that I simply wasn’t going to follow it (except for when sucking up to authorities).