Though I do tend to be contrarian, I’ve always thought that acting independently from others is the correct stance. Does everyone agree that being contrarian or conformist are both forms of bias to be avoided? I think that at best they can be seen as very weak/indirect reasons to believe something or do something, and only relative to your context. (You need to pick your battles as a contrarian and you need to break from conforming with the wrong people as a conformist)
amcknight
Karma: 466
I think this is a good subject to write about and that you can work this into a nice article if you continue to boil it down. Others have given some good (and maybe a bit harsh?) feedback. All I want to add is that for a post this long, it would be much more useful to have reference numbers (or better yet, links) within your article. I found myself initially having questions and wanting to look at references and then lost that motivation once I finally got to them. Also, I think your conclusion has too much new content.
I think this provides a tiny update in the direction of great-filter-ahead because it removes one more possibility from behind us. I still think great-filter-behind is much more plausible though.
Each of the constraints you name, though plausible, don’t seem to be strong enough to act as a full filter. They appear to filter on the level of full percentage points rather than billionths of percentage points. Without finding dozens more filters of this kind, there would still be human-level life all over the place and hence (assuming no life in the universe) the Great Filter would be ahead of us.
A bunch of tiny filters is an unlikely scenario for explaining “The Great Silence”.
Science has taught us that we’re usually not special
Maybe, but due to anthropic effects, this is one of the times in which we definitely cannot use the we’re-not-special rule of thumb. Noting that we happen to have developed gives us absolutely no evidence about the rarity of observers that can notice that they’ve developed (except that it rules out theories that make it so rare that even 1 observer is unlikely).
if the probability of intelligent life developing in a 3 billion year period is 1⁄50 we might just need to wait a couple more billion years for the next group
Without more information about The Great Filter, most of the probability density does not reside in such perfectly balanced orders of magnitude (like 2% per 3Gyr-galaxy) to make us happen to be first. Though it’s an open possibility that we’re the first but not the only life that will develop, it’s extremely unlikely that two huge numbers that could conceivably be orders of magnitude apart, happen to line up so closely.
The numbers I have in mind are something like: total number of planets and probability of any given planet to allow life to flourish across the galaxy. These numbers are independent. You could start with ‘region of space’ or involve time, but the numbers will still be independent. (i guess I should have said a huge and tiny number balancing when multiplied)
Life may not be intrinsically good but goodness seems to at least depend on it in the same way that a canvas may not be beautiful but beauty depends on it. (and BTW, Torture vs Dust Specks had nothing directly related to death)
I agree, but you also want some fancy pieces that you usually only find in sets. Having a couple of fire pieces from dragons and gears from a mediocre car set made lego twice as awesome!
Well that sucks. The last thing I want to do is post a subtly wrong paper. Just to make sure it actually is subtly wrong:
On closer look, Theorem from Appendix A is simply wrong. Trying to emulate polynomial multiplication inside real line pays off.
I don’t understand this. Can you elaborate a bit?
All-in-all, some of the “proven” formulas are actually pre-assumed in the paper.
This was done on purpose. From the beginning, the author is trying to find nice axioms that will prove the things he wants to. I’m not sure this is a fair criticism (if I’m understanding you correctly).
According to wikipedia there doesn’t appear to be a major “entropy” problem. None of the 16 types are below 1%.
3^4=81 “types” if you count middles. This way, I’d count as simply an N.
There are three competing valuation systems, and they respond to different stimuli
Are you saying that these 3 systems are not performing valuation between the same items? Or is there a common set of items being injected into each system and the systems are performing different algorithms on the same item set? Something else? BTW, thanks for these neuroscience summaries!
Now we just need machines on our side and we’ll have a cute little love-triangle.
The funny thing is you probably don’t even know what happiness is. Do you not value pleasure, contentment, joy, or satisfaction? None of these things might even turn out to be single things on closer inspection (like Jade).
Probably not for beginners, but for what it’s worth: Best Textbooks on Every Subject
btw, I mentioned the work you two have been doing here to the author and tried to get him to respond here but unfortunately he hasn’t agreed to.
Also note the conflation between two types of singularity even though only one type (intelligence explosion) is in the name! Isn’t the reason one would use the term “intelligence explosion” to distinguish your view from the event horizon one?
Probability that the universe is infinitely large.
Unknowable? Maybe you can’t be certain but there are indirect reasons to think it is, by noticing that it appears flat with no sign of a boundary. As for multiple definitions with different answers, can you specify two definitions of ‘universe’ that have different answers? I of course do not only mean the observable universe. I don’t see how the question is undefined.
If we allow for the many-worlds hypothesis, then the universe is infinitely large
OK, you have a good point. I was not considering each branch to count as an entire new space that we need to add up with every other branch. I guess I’m talking about our current branch, right now. Also, I could easily be wrong but I think there are no branch points that create an infinite number of new branches and so there still may be an insanely vast but finite number of branches.
So no probability assertion about the universe’s scope should, rationally speaking, have anything remotely resembling a high threshold of confidence. Said confidence should, in fact, approach zero.
I think that if you take Occam’s Razor seriously, then you never have uncertainties that literally are zero. (I don’t know what approaching zero would mean in this context).
Correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds like you and Bob might both be wrong. Bob says the 2 separate particles can’t be shown to be identical. You say that the 2 separate particles are shown to be equivalent. But I think QM shows that there aren’t 2 separate particles. Maybe you could say something weaker, “like this configuration has a particality of 2”.