‘Almost’ infinite is not even close to infinite.
Fivehundred
Wow, this was an ill-conceived post. It can be said, at least, that I was an emotional wreck at the time.
I… don’t know what an open thread is.
I will write no sequel myself; I have said what I set out to say, and it is done.
I assume that, as Rowling did, you’ll drop us a few paragraphs of writing in five/ten years, which naturally you couldn’t keep to yourself. I would bet money, but will not remember (or care) for that long.
If there’s a nit to pick, it’s that the mockery of canon-Potter was way too blatant to be amusing. Otherwise, almost perfect work.
I recently read this essay and had a panic attack. I assume that this is not the mainstream of transhumanist thought, so if a rebuttal exists it would save me a lot of time and grief.
Using literally the exact same logic that Intelligent Design proponents use (and doing exactly 0 experiments), Hariezer decides while thinking over breakfast:
Some intelligent engineer, then, had created the Source of Magic, and told it to pay attention to a particular DNA marker.
The obvious next thought was that this had something to do with “Atlantis”.
How is this ‘literally the exact same logic that ID proponents use?’ Creationists fallacize away the concept of natural selection, but I don’t see how Harry is being unreasonable, given what he knows about the universe.
Karl ‘Sims’? Really?
tl;dr?
Do you know of any such thing? I’d definitely try that.
It’s counterintuitive, yes, which does not make it acceptable for you to fart out some mockery and consider the argument closed.
Wait, there are readers who didn’t actually know that Quirrell was Voldemort?
I did not mean to give that impression. I responded to those whose suggestions wouldn’t work and tried (perhaps failing) to make them constructive criticisms. There are plenty of posts which have been massively useful. SoerenMind, westward, Emile, and SWOTN are obvious examples.
I’m not on it. I don’t have difficulty falling asleep, it’s just traumatizing to get in bed.
It sounds like you are having trouble disengaging from these ideas. So you might want to go seek treatment specifically for anxiety. This doesn’t mean “stop thinking about these issues and thereby give up any possibility of coming up with good solutions to them”; it means “become able to stop thinking about these issues when it’s getting loopy and unproductive, and get back to ape mode — and remember, ape mode is acceptable; we’ve been living with it for a long, long time.”
Yes, you’re quite right, I even had a short panic attack from reading Sam Hughes’ SCP fiction. It’s just that ape mode isn’t acceptable all the time. When it comes to very serious issues I don’t think it’s acceptable at all, no matter how much I suffer.
Some of what you write seems to be heavily concerned with the notions of personal identity and continuity, and whether this is an illusion. This is an area in which the Buddhists seem to be way ahead of the clinical psychologists in giving people tools to deal with it.
Buddhism just seems like nihilism to me. Not that I know much about it. Anything you could recommend?
I’m probably completely confused, but is there any reason that Greg Egan’s rebuttal* to Dust Theory does not also apply to any Big World scenario?
*Q5
That’s a bit of an oxymoron, but thanks for saying it. I’m calmer than I was in the morning and your argument seems less convincing also. I think the ‘singleton’ is the natural course of intelligent evolution, and fits the whole idea of AI.
I’m not interested in finding out. I do know that service is a big part of your qualifications.
Let’s see. What other ideas in Lesswrong have been considered dangerous?
Irrationality Game: Currently, understanding history or politics is a better avenue than studying AI or decision theory for dealing with existential risk. This is not because of the risk of total nuclear annihilation, but because of the possibility of political changes that result in setbacks to or an accelerated use and understanding of AI. 70%
I took it, and even did the bonus questions. Yay me!