Art of Rationality” is an oxymoron. Art follows (subjective) aesthetic principles; rationality follows (objective) evidence.
Art in the other sense of the word. Think more along the lines of skills and practices.
Art of Rationality” is an oxymoron. Art follows (subjective) aesthetic principles; rationality follows (objective) evidence.
Art in the other sense of the word. Think more along the lines of skills and practices.
Took the survey.
Would probably not have defected a year ago, and it would not have been an easy decision for me at that time.
I appear to be getting better at estimating.
I think the IQ questions should probably just be dropped from future tests. A number of people get tested as kids and get crazy numbers and never get tested again (since there’s no real point, and people are generally afraid of seeing that number dive, people who get a crazy number are probably less likely to retest than others). That’s a charitable explanation for the results in last year’s survey, which I didn’t take.
Donated!
“Therefore, this kind of experiment can never convince me of the reality of Mrs Stewart’s ESP; not because I assert Pf=0 dogmatically at the start, but because the verifiable facts can be accounted for by many alternative hypotheses, every one of which I consider inherently more plausible than Hf, and none of which is ruled out by the information available to me.
Indeed, the very evidence which the ESP’ers throw at us to convince us, has the opposite effect on our state of belief; issuing reports of sensational data defeats its own purpose. For if the prior probability for deception is greater than that of ESP, then the more improbable the alleged data are on the null hypothesis of no deception and no ESP, the more strongly we are led to believe, not in ESP, but in deception. For this reason, the advocates of ESP (or any other marvel) will never succeed in persuading scientists that their phenomenon is real, until they learn how to eliminate the possibility of deception in the mind of the reader. As (5.15) shows, the reader’s total prior probability for deception by all mechanisms must be pushed down below that of ESP.”
ET Jaynes, Probability Theory (S 5.2.2)
Hey, does anyone else struggle with feelings of loneliness?
What strategies have you found for either dealing with the negative feelings, or addressing the cause of loneliness, and have they worked?
So, specifically with respect to “cult’ and “elitist” observations I see, in general, I would like to offer a single observation:
“Tsuyoku naritai” isn’t the motto of someone trying to conform to some sort of weird group norm. It’s not the motto of someone who hates people who have put in less time or effort than himself. It’s the recognition that it is possible to improve, and the estimation that improving is a worthwhile investment.
If your motivation for putting intellectual horsepower into this site isn’t that, I’d love to hear about it, because that previous phrase really resonates with me, and while I can imagine other motivations for being on a site with forums and stuff, I have a hard time thinking that anyone would go grab a copy of Jaynes merely because they wanted to blend in better.
The trope requires 2 things: 1) The woman winds up in the refrigerator (check) 2) It happens because someone is explicitly trying to get at somebody else, thus disempowering the victim, or that it serves as an empty source of motivation for a character. (???).
As readers, we don’t necessarily have confidence in criterion #2, here. Other commentators have come up with various plausible-sounding explanations for how the deed went down (sunlight resistant troll lures Hero-Hermoine to a place where her injuries can’t be detected, and systematically removes all of her defenses). So, let’s posit that the troll is a weapon explicitly sent to kill Hermoine.
The important question is who and why? If it’s to get a rise out of Harry, that’s it falls under the common heading of the trope. If it’s Mr Malfoy trying to get revenge for the destroyer of his son’s reputation, it doesn’t. I think as readers it’s difficult at this stage to be confident about these things.
Let’s say, however, that Hermoine is the woman in the refrigerator. The road to get there had her basically kicking ass and taking names the whole way there; I’m not inclined to necessarily cry foul because of it.
At the very least, I suspect one of the analyses will be ‘bucketize corresponding to certainty, then plot “what % of responses in bucket were right?”’ - something that was done last year (see 2013 LessWrong Survey Results)
Last year it was broken down into “elite” and “typical” LW-er groups, which presumably would tell you if hanging out here made you better at overconfidence, or something similar in that general vicinity.
Faith in Humanity moment: LW will not submit garbage poll responses using other LW-users as public keys.
Unconventional advice for an 8 year old. Distinct from advice for a parent.
Study humans and take notes on their behavior, because when you are older it may be hard to understand what it was like to be a kid.
Recognize strengths in others that surprise you. One of the ones that eluded this 31 year-old for 29 years is that interest in a subject is a variable that you are capable of controlling, and helps a lot with being good at a subject.
Teach others, and give others an opportunity to teach, because that is a social skill that will provide value in the settings you are likely to wind up in.
Listen to authority, but ever with a critical ear.
Play and design games with peers until your tastes are refined enough to interest adults. Seek out people who can make you better at playing and designing games.
Read books, and ignore anything your parents say about ‘bed time’. Bed time is the part of the night where the big lights go off and the smaller lights go on, and you read stories, try drawing games that Vihart (youtube) inspired you to try, consider your place in the universe, and engage in dialogue with yourself on the things that confuse and trouble you.
Get used to the idea of existential crisis, and don’t shy away from ideas that scare you, though be aware that others do shy away from them, and that if you talk a lot about the things that scare you, people usually will think you are crazy or troubled.
And I’ll throw in a vote for anyone who says anything in favor of learning languages, because (whatever the benefits of learning languages are, developmentally) they broaden the amount of information that is accessible.
Depends on your definition of crackpots. I don’t think most Jesus scholars are crackpots, just most likely overly credulous of their favored theories.
What I’m curious about is if people in these fields that are starved for really decisive evidence still feel compelled to name a >50% confidence theory, or if they are comfortable with the notion that their most-favored hypothesis indicated by the evidence is still probably wrong, and just comparatively much better than the other hypotheses that they have considered.
So I had one of those typical mind fallacy things explode on me recently, and it’s caused me to re-evaluate a whole lot of stuff.
Is there a list of high-impact questions people tend to fail to ask about themselves somewhere?
By far the best definition I’ve ever heard of the supernatural is Richard Carrier’s: A “supernatural” explanation appeals to ontologically basic mental things, mental entities that cannot be reduced to nonmental entities.” (http://lesswrong.com/lw/tv/excluding_the_supernatural/)
I have made a prosecutor pale in the face by suggesting that courthouses should be places where people with plea bargains shop their offers around with each other so that they know what’s a good deal and a bad deal.
I’ve recently reconciled my behavior with my ethical intuition regarding eating animals, by way of deciding to alter my behavior and do some variation of “don’t eat meat”. I decided on this question long ago but did not act upon it.
I notice that there is very confusing information out there about what one should eat in order to avoid negative health impacts, and would like to read correct and useful articles on the subject, because I strongly desire to not be unhealthy. Do you have suggestions?
I am pragmatic. My intuition says that bone ash used to color certain food products has a relatively low cost (in sin-ons), and that there definitely are places I will make trades against sin-ons.
I also recognize that I would like a reasonably fast process to estimate sin-ons, and suggestions about highly impactful considerations (metabolic efficiency, things that might put various horrors on understandable scales) would be appreciated. Also, I am not sure that sin-ons is the word I am looking for as a measure of this sort of badness.
I have checked with my brain, and my brain has decided that cuteness does not particularly matter to it as a factor. Horse sashimi is delicious.
If you have things to say in favor of eating meat, please share them, and explain it to me as if I am a precocious 8 year old.
Not feeling connected with people, or, increasingly feeling less connection with people.
I actively socialize myself, and this helps, but the other thing maybe suggests to me I’m doing something wrong.
(Edit: to clarify, my empathy thingy works as well (maybe better) than it ever has, I just feel like the things I crave from social interactions are getting harder to acquire. Like, people “getting” you, or having enough things in common that you can effectively talk about the stuff that interests you. So, like, obviously, one of the solutions there is to hang out with more bright-and-happy CFAR-ish/LW-ish/EA-ish people.)
Definitely had a thought on this order; I went with “don’t die at any point and still reach age 1000”, though I also don’t really consider solutions that involve abandoning bodies counting.
If considering a new hypothesis fundamentally changes the way you think about priors, and the arguments you used to justify ratios between hypotheses no longer hold, then, yes, you will have to look at the evidence again.
I feel a little odd about calling that process ‘updating’, since I think it’s a little more involved than taking into account a single new piece of evidence.
Is there some easily communicable message here for doomsayers that stands a decent chance of kick-starting the “Oy, was I mistaken!” part of their brains into gear?
Survey complete!
I’m kind of surprised at how much better I feel like I’ve gotten about reasoning about these really fuzzy estimates. One of my big goals last year was “get better at reasoning about really fuzzy things” and I feel like I’ve actually made big progress on that?
I’m really excited to see what the survey results look like this year. I’m hoping we’ve gotten better at overconfidence!
The gender default thing took me by surprise. I’m guessing that a lot of people answer yes to having a strong gender identity?