Alex_Altair

Karma: 3,960

Alex_Altair 21 Jul 2010 21:01 UTC
10 points
on: Welcome to Less Wrong!
I recently found Less Wrong through Eliezer’s Harry Potter fanfic, which has become my second favorite book. Thank you so much Eliezer for reminding my how rich my Art can be.

I was also delighted to find out (not so surprisingly) that Eliezer was an AI researcher. I have, over the past several months, decided to change my career path to AGI. So many of these articles have been helpful.

I have been a rationalist since I can remember. But I was raised as a Christian, and for some reason it took me a while to think to question the premise of God. Fortunately as soon as I did, I rejected it. Then it was up to me to 1) figure out how to be immortal and 2) figure out morality. I’ll be signing up for cryonics as soon as I can afford it. Life is my highest value because it is the terminal value; it is required for any other value to be possible.

I’ve been reading this blog every day since I’ve found it, and hope to get constant benefit from it. I’m usually quiet, but I suspect the more I read, the more I’ll want to comment and post.

Alex_Altair 21 Jul 2010 21:37 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: Welcome to Less Wrong!

“AGI is death, you want Friendly AI in particular and not AGI in general.”

I’m not sure of the technical definition of AGI, but essentially I mean a machine that can reason. I don’t plan to give it outputs until I know what it does.

“‘Life’ is not the terminal value, terminal value is very complex.”

I don’t mean that life is the terminal value that all human’s actions reduce to. I mean it in exactly the way I said above; for me to achieve any other value requires that I am alive. I also don’t mean that every value I have reduces to my desire to live, just that, if it comes down to one or the other, I choose life.

Alex_Altair 22 Jul 2010 17:49 UTC
3 points
on: Simplified Humanism, Positive Futurism & How to Prevent the Universe From Being Turned Into Paper Clips
Favorite part of the interview;

′ And as for “lack of spontaneity,” I’m not really sure how to answer that but I will say that up the chimney factor is a happy dance puppy.′

Alex_Altair 3 Aug 2010 20:53 UTC
4 points
on: Open Thread, August 2010
What’s the policy on User pages in the wiki? Can I write my own for the sake of people having a reference when they reply to my posts, or are they only for somewhat accomplished contributers?

Alex_Altair 6 Aug 2010 3:31 UTC
9 points
on: Go Forth and Create the Art!
Does this article imply that I missed the Golden Age of Eliezer’s writing on Less Wrong?

Alex_Altair 6 Aug 2010 22:18 UTC
2 points
in reply to: jtolds’s comment on: The Threat of Cryonics
I find it strange that no one seems to be arguing what my answer is; I want to be cryopreserved because my primary value is my life. In any situation where A is certain death and B is any probability of life, I choose B. This is why your argument is irrelevant given my utility function.

Alex_Altair 22 Aug 2010 1:29 UTC
1 point
in reply to: djcb’s comment on: Rationality Lessons in the Game of Go

with all the discussions on AGI on LW, it’s sobering to see how difficult even a constrained well-understood domain like Go can be dealt with using today’s methods.

That’s because, as Minsky said, no one has tried to make a general intelligence first, and then teach it Go.

Alex_Altair 8 Oct 2010 20:41 UTC
2 points
on: Be a Visiting Fellow at the Singularity Institute
Email sent. …For next year.

Alex_Altair 18 Jan 2011 4:30 UTC
6 points
on: The Best Textbooks on Every Subject
Subject: Electromagnetism, Electrodynamics

Recommendation: Introduction to Electrodynamics by David J. Griffiths

I first received this textbook for a sophomore-level class in electrodynamics. It was reused for a few more classes. I admit that I don’t have much to compare it with, though I have looked at Feynman’s lectures, a couple giant silly freshman physics tomes, and J. D. Jackson’s Electrodynamics, and I know what textbooks are like in general.

I was repeated floored by the quality of this book. I felt personally lead through the theory of electrodynamics. In general, he does go from the simple and specific to the complex and general, as any mind requires. But at every stage, he knows exactly where there is risk of conceptual confusion, and he knows exactly how to correct it. He brings every clarification and result back to the the fundamentals of the subject, and he keeps you radiantly aware of the context. After this kind of developed enlightenment, you walk away with a rationalist’s mastery, at least in this specific subject. He does all this, from vector calculus review to special relativity, in 2 centimeters thick.
What links here?
- The Best Textbooks on Every Subject by lukeprog (16 Jan 2011 8:30 UTC; 709 points)

Alex_Altair 20 Jan 2011 0:58 UTC
10 points
on: Theists are wrong; is theism?
The only fact necessary to rationally be an atheist is that there is no evidence for a god. We don’t need any arguments—evolutionary or historical or logical—against a hypothesis with no evidence.

The reason I don’t spend a cent of my time on it is because of this, and because all arguments for a god are dishonest, that is, they are motivated by something other than truth. It’s only slightly more interesting than the hypothesis that there’s a teapot around venus. And there are plenty of other things to spend time on.

As a side note, I have spent time on learning about the issue, because it’s one of the most damaging beliefs people have, and any decrease in it is valuable.

Alex_Altair 20 Jan 2011 2:45 UTC
6 points
in reply to: Will_Newsome’s comment on: Theists are wrong; is theism?

It’s only slightly more interesting than the hypothesis that there’s a teapot around venus.

I realize this is rhetoric, but still… seriously? The question of whether the universe came into being via an agenty optimization process is only slightly more interesting than teapots orbiting planets?

I suppose that their ratio is very high, but that their difference is still extremely small.

As for your evidence that there is a god, I think you’re making some fundamentally baseless assumptions about how the universe should be “expected” to be. The universe is the given. We should not expect it to be disordered any more than we should expect it to be ordered. And I’d say that the uninteresting things in the universe vastly outnumber the interesting things, whereas for humans they do not.

Also, I must mention the anthropic principle. A universe with humans much be sufficiently interesting to cause humans in the first place.

But I do agree that many honest rational people, even without the bias of existent religion, would at least notice the analogy between the order humans create and the universe itself, and form the wild but neat hypothesis that it was created by an agent. I’m not sure if that analogy is really evidence, anymore than the ability of a person to visualize anything is evidence for it.

Alex_Altair 26 Feb 2011 1:19 UTC
10 points
on: Use curiosity
I’d say that a lot of my reading definitely is “chase” reading. Mostly on Wikipedia, where it’s easy to pursue different concept until I get an answer. For example, I’ll be wondering, “Wait, what is bread made of, anyway? Like, molecularly?” which will lead me on a chase through bread, flour, wheat, germ, carbohydrate, cellulose, et cetera. Lots of times looking it up myself is the only way to get the answer I want, because the people I’m talking to don’t understand the kind of answer I want, one of real understanding.

Alex_Altair 23 Mar 2011 1:08 UTC
2 points
on: Rationality Boot Camp
I would really like to do this, but ten weeks is really very long.

Alex_Altair 7 Apr 2011 18:02 UTC
0 points
on: Willpower Hax #487: Execute by Default
This has worked a couple times. But the other morning, I realized that I wasn’t using it because it would cause me to get up. Consciously, I hate sleep deeply and consider it temporary death.

Alex_Altair 7 Apr 2011 19:03 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Willpower Hax #487: Execute by Default
It doesn’t cause serious problems in my life. I just have the standard aversion to going to bed. But I know that it robs me of ¹⁄₃ of my potential life, just as dying at age 53 robs someone of ¹⁄₃ their potential life span of 80 years. I have tried to transition to polyphasic sleep a few times, with no success.

In regards to “Do you want to hate sleep?”, I assume you’re asking a “desire to desire” analogue of “belief in belief”. My hatred of sleep simply comes from the recognition of the fact that it robs any conscious experience from me, and therefore robs me of all value receivable during that time. I could just ignore it and get used to it, but I think a conscious recognition of the true value of things is the optimal way to feel (is there some decision theory theorem about this?). It’s certainly not the kind of futile, life-degrading hatred that some people have have against, say, the state, their parents, or society.

Alex_Altair 8 Apr 2011 0:11 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Willpower Hax #487: Execute by Default
After some research, this looks feasible! Thanks! My only concern is that there really won’t be much value in the lucid dreams. For instance, I’m pretty sure I can’t work on AGI or anything mathy during a dream.

Alex_Altair 9 Apr 2011 21:36 UTC
8 points
on: The Neuroscience of Desire
This serves as a great collection of references, but the post itself has too much opaque jargon to be a helpful explanation.

Alex_Altair 13 Apr 2011 21:39 UTC
5 points
on: Hunger can make you stupid

dehydrated because I’ve been living on coffee for too long

FYI, this is a common myth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/nutrition/04real.html

Alex_Altair 18 Apr 2011 17:15 UTC
8 points
on: Build Small Skills in the Right Order
How could we apply this to Akrasia? That is, what small skills can you learn to help you beat procrastination, instead of just setting a big goal like, “Finish every assignment at least two days before it’s due.”? Here are a couple ideas:

1) Pick single, relatively easy things to stop procrastinating on. For example, errands like doing laundry or getting groceries.

2) Starting every assignment right after you’re assigned it. It could just be a little bit, one problem or simply an outline, that would help you break the resistance to starting.

I feel like there’s a lot more possible here, but I can’t seem to think of skills related to beating akrasia as opposed to just small ways to beat it. Any ideas?

Alex_Altair 30 Apr 2011 0:00 UTC
1 point
in reply to: MinibearRex’s comment on: Meditation, insight, and rationality. (Part 1 of 3)
I think the terminology I use for what you’re talking about is simply “desire”. Desire is definitely separate from, but related to, the emotions that motivate. I think failure to separate these concepts is responsible for some stereotypes of rationality (see Dr. Manhattan). So, while controlling emotions is helpful, changing my desires is effectively changing my utility function. This can get a little complicated in some areas such as procrastination, but in general I want to keep them.

This is one of the things that turns me off the most from Buddhism. I’m interested in meditation and deep introspection, but the Four Nobel Truths at the heart of Buddhism start out as:

1) All life is suffering. 2) The cause of suffering is craving. 3) Therefore we should stop craving.

If “craving” means desire, then this is horrible. But if it means something else, then I’m interested.