epigeios

Karma: −53

epigeios Jun 12, 2012, 3:28 AM
0 points
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on: Ask an experimental physicist
I’ve got a lot of questions I just thought of today. I am personally hoping to think of a possible alternative model of quantum physics that doesn’t need anything more than the generation 1 fermions and photons, and doesn’t need the strong interaction.
- What is the reason for the existence of the theory of the charm quark (or any generation 2-3 quark)? What are some results of experiments that necessitate the existence of a charm quark?
- Which of the known hadrons can be directly observed in any way, as opposed to theorized as a mathematical in-between or as a trigger for some directly observable decay?
- Am I right in thinking that the tau lepton is only theorized in order to explain an in-between decay state? If you don’t know, do you know of anything related to any other fermions (or hadrons) that only exist as a theoretical in-between?
- How were the masses of the tau lepton and the top quark determined? If the methods are different for the charm quark, how was the mass of the charm quark determined?
- Does the weak interaction cause any sort of movement, or hold anything together, or does it only act as a trigger for decay? Why is it considered a field energy?
- When detecting gamma radiation, how much background is there to extract from? Does the process of extracting from the background require performing hundreds of iterations of the experiment?
- Since you know quite a lot about it, and since the majority of my knowledge comes from Wikipedia, what does “fitting distributions in multiple dimensions” mean? What is the possibility of error of this process?
- Oh, and lastly, do you know of any chart or list anywhere that details the known possible decay paths of bosons and fermions?
That’s all for now. I SO hope you can answer any of these questions; because Wikipedia can’t :’( (as someone who enjoys theory, I find it annoying when Wikipedia can neither confirm nor deny my conjectures, despite the fact that the information is certainly out there somewhere, and someone knows it.)

epigeios Jun 12, 2012, 2:39 AM
−8 points
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on: The Importance of Self-Doubt
Lol. See, I call into question many things about Eliezer. For example, I think he is afraid to be wrong, and has lost himself to the bias of the false duality between “correct” and “incorrect”. As a result of this, I think that until he fixes that problem, he will be doomed to never be able to invent true AI, or even understand how neurons work. (there’s a tiny chance that I am wrong, and he doesn’t think that way; and there is a moderate chance that he is in the process of or has already fixed this)

However, the only thing—about his possible idea that he is the most important person on the planet—that I call into question, is that I don’t think he has the guts to go through with it. I, myself, know that I am currently the most important person on the planet. I expect nothing less of anyone who is actually capable of changing the planet. In fact, I hope he changes his mind, and instead decides to be the most important person on the planet, so that he can be of some help to me.

It goes like this. In order to change something, one must take responsibility for it. Following that, in order to change the entire planet, one must take responsibility for the entire planet. Now, that in itself is not enough to be important; it is only the necessary minimum to be influential. In order to be important, one must pursue something one knows to be important. And above that, in order to be the most important person on the planet, one must pursue something one knows to be necessary for the continued development of the planet.

I, myself, am pursuing something I know to be necessary for the development of both the AI singularity and the human singularity; and I know that in the direction I am going, they are the same thing; which means that what I am pursuing is necessary for the future of the human race and the planet as a whole. I know that without the theories I have developed and will develop, true AI is an impossible goal for the rest of humanity. I know that I am not the only person in the world who could possibly come up with these theories, but I know that I am the only person I am aware of who is in pursuit of them. I also know that I am the only person I am aware of who is even capable of pursuing them. So, I might not be the most important person on the planet; but I have never heard of anyone who is more important. And yet I acknowledge that I require the stepping stones left available by other people who were in their own right the most important people on the planet. In order to accomplish what I will accomplish in my lifetime, I have to be at least that important; because I have to be responsible for at least that much.

So in summary: if Eliezer believes himself to be the most important person on the planet, then he doesn’t have the guts to follow through on that, and he will fail. If, on the other hand, he knows that he is the most important person on the planet, then he will influence the planet in an extremely important way. I sure hope he’s capable of this, because I feel lonely being the only person who’s the most important.

Addendum: If he thinks he’s the most important in human history, then he’s living in the past; and that would be sad :(

epigeios May 11, 2012, 7:19 PM
−2 points
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in reply to: Sean4’s comment on: Typicality and Asymmetrical Similarity
The errors are relevant. So what if the person who mentions an error doesn’t have the capacity to deduce the relevancy? It’s still possible that someone on here will deduce the relevancy.

Your post, by contrast, as well as Bob3′s just above, are making the assumption that the only argument to be found is the one that was stated. Caledonian2 is right, and if you weren’t focused on the irrelevancy of his argument, you might have been able to find the relevancy of his point.

Granted, Caledonian2 did his best to find an argument fitting his idea, and the argument he picked isn’t necessarily relevant. He probably did this because of the scientific bias of this message board, where I myself have previously succumbed to the fear that I need to have a valid argument to back up my point, lest others attack me for not having one. But none of that diminishes the potential relevancy of his idea

epigeios May 11, 2012, 7:05 PM
3 points
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on: Typicality and Asymmetrical Similarity
It seems to me that diseases would be more likely to spread from robins to ducks than from ducks to robins. The reason I am thinking this is the case is that robins fly around more than ducks, and ducks rest in water. This means that ducks are fairly likely to come in contact with traces of past robins, but robins are unlikely to come in contact with traces of past ducks.

The idea that the spread of disease between species is equally likely not only ignores differences in immunity, as Caledonian2 said; it also assumes direct contact between the species. Indirect contact, but contrast, can be one-way.

Even the concept of Alaska being far and Kansas being close is easily explained by calling into question the wording of the question in the experiment. Kansas is close to Alaska, compared to the average of everywhere else. Alaska however, is far from Kansas, compared to the average of the rest of the US. It’s definitely a bias as a result of categorization, but it’s not because of the properties of the categories. It instead seems to be a bias in how the question is interpreted: in which category the question refers to. And this, obviously, is a result of contextual inference making. Kansas is in a different context than Alaska.
What links here?
- epigeios's comment on Typicality and Asymmetrical Similarity by Eliezer Yudkowsky (May 11, 2012, 7:19 PM; -2 points)

epigeios Apr 23, 2012, 9:32 PM
0 points
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on: Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation
Awesome! This is very useful. I now have a perfect way to describe why Taoist meditation is among the most useful things someone in this community can learn to do. And I have tons of experience to back it up.

Mindfulness meditation is the prerequisite for Taoist meditation. And Wikipedia doesn’t explain how to practice Mindfulness meditation.

epigeios Apr 23, 2012, 9:10 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Incorrect’s comment on: Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation
http://lesswrong.com/lw/blr/attention_control_is_critical_for/6frz How to learn how to meditate properly

In short: Yes, you will. This is how to accomplish that goal quickly and efficiently.

epigeios Apr 23, 2012, 8:55 PM
21 points
1
in reply to: heath’s comment on: Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation
That’s called learning how to meditate. And yes, it works wonders with cognitive ability and control of cognitive ability. The standard efficient process of learning how to meditate is:
- Focus attention somewhere for as long as possible.
- Move focused attention around from subject to subject, including inside your own body.
- Spread your attention outward from the focused point, making sure to maintain attention on the focused point.
- Scan your body. Just become aware of everything you observe when scanning; don’t try to change anything.
- Scan again and again. Keep trying to become aware of more and more, deeper and deeper, each time; until your get tired, or can’t seem to find anything new.
- Try to maintain awareness of your body and your surroundings in the present during daily life, while doing other things.
- Continue doing the previous step for your entire life.
- You have now completed the prerequisite to learn Taoist meditation, which is about learning how to directly change the things which you are able to pay attention to.
If you do this up to step 7, you will exponentially improve your ability to do everything and learn everything. If you choose to go on through step 8, you will continue exponentially increasing your ability to do and learn everything.

You may have noticed that I never mentioned “Quiet the mind/stop thinking”. That’s because the only reason most people should try to do that is to be able to focus their attention better. There’s not really any other reason to quiet the mind. At the beginning level of Taoist meditation, uncontrolled thoughts are just another layer to pay attention to and observe. At the medium level of Taoist meditation, uncontrolled thoughts point to deep habits and tendencies which cause all of the social problems and drama everyone has, which the individual will then fix/remove.
What links here?
- epigeios's comment on Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation by kalla724 (Apr 23, 2012, 9:10 PM; 2 points)
- epigeios's comment on Attention control is critical for changing/increasing/altering motivation by kalla724 (Mar 22, 2013, 1:42 PM; -2 points)

epigeios Apr 10, 2012, 3:17 PM
0 points
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in reply to: Dmytry’s comment on: SotW: Check Consequentialism

The left side still has to employ massively parallel process to generate the chirps to the specific purpose.

What makes you say that? In your example, the left brain has 2 inputs, and only needs to find a plausible connection between the two.

Although, in hindsight, You’re right. The brain uses many neurons in parallel no matter what or where it is processing.

I will now proceed to twist my words to attempt to better communicate what I mean. In reality, i spoke too hastily, generalized too greatly, and still obviously don’t know the correct words to use to communicate my partial, incomplete theory to a left-brain dominant culture.

If we take what I stated for the two “jobs” of the two brains:

The left brain’s job is to process individual points of data in series as a pattern. The right brain’s job is to process all points of data in parallel as a chaotic fractal flow.

Then, take “individual points of data in series as a pattern” and “all points of data in parallel as a chaotic fractal flow”, and call each of those 2 quotes a complete concept or set, labeled A and B respectively. Then, as if putting grammar in the correct/different location, say that the left brain processes set A, and the right brain processes set B; where “processes” specifies neither parallel nor sequential, but implies “however the brain does it”. If what I stated is grammatically edited to mean this, then it fits more closely with what I intended and satisfies your examples (as far as I can tell).

To describe in a different, probably better way, I consider the right brain as being used to build interacting, interweaving probability clouds of all data even remotely related to the subject (more neuron connections = more remote). The result of this is sections and points of higher or lower concentration. I then consider the left brain to take this information, and determine the direct connections between the important pieces, especially how they directly relate to an initial goal (more neuron connections = more and farther-reaching direct connections). The combination of the two thus gives the person the decision on the “best” course of action. And of course, this process can be iterated, as well as be initiated by the left brain’s direct connections instead of the right brain’s probability clouds.

-

I just noticed an interesting difference between my concepts and your concepts.

decision making (which decides not to do something) and speech synthesis (which talks of wanting something). And I just further (after quoting) figured out a way it relates to left-right brain difference.

I had thought of decision making as being positive (deciding “to do” instead of “not to do”). I think, however, that this is once again the difference between right brain and left brain (respectively). What I mean by this can be summarized and generalized (or analogized) as the difference between the concept of “syntropy” (a receiving antenna) and entropy (a projecting antenna).

Likewise, I thought of speech synthesis as, instead of “wanting something”, “choosing something”, as in “cutting out everything else”. Negative instead of positive. This obviously relates to what I think of right vs left, but I’m not sure exactly how; especially since you input that the left brain has the speech center (I didn’t know that).

epigeios Apr 5, 2012, 11:09 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: Dmytry’s comment on: SotW: Check Consequentialism
Simple left-brain vs right-brain. The problem you refer to isn’t that hard to fix, it’s just that very few people know about it. Reading through the sequences will, in most cases, make people want to exercise their minds in daily life. Eventually, the right brain will activate despite the left-brain dominance of english-speaking culture.

to put it simply. The left brain’s job is to process individual points of data in series as a pattern. The right brain’s job is to process all points of data in parallel as a chaotic fractal flow.

Granted, most of the sequences on here are about how to use the left brain more efficiently. And in scientific society as a whole, right-brain concepts are generally shunned except by the few people who already know about them.

However, at the very least, Eliezer himself is capable of using his right brain, even if he thinks that the general problem of society is solvable by increasing efficiency of left-brain usage. The result of this is that right-brain concepts are hidden in the sequences. Anyone who reads through deeply enough will start to be influenced by this.

But yes, I also partially agree. The fact that Eliezer tried to explain wisdom as modified pattern recognition from left-brain intelligence in HPMOR shows that either Dumbledore is hiding his wisdom, or Eliezer doesn’t know what the right brain is capable of.

-

I’m looking at the long term here. This website is a good stepping stone into right-brain usage by left-brained people (it is MUCH more right-brained than standard education), and hopefully also has the ability to help right-brained people learn how to use their left brain. If nothing else, Eliezer is seriously trying to improve the functionality of the world. That means that some time in the future, he will have to learn about how the right brain works. And until then, I’m gonna keep trying to plant the seeds for this.

When I have a full, concrete understanding with the ability to really explain it in-depth to a left-brain dominant person, I will post my solutions on this website. Until then, the game you seem to be trying to play is impossible to win.

epigeios Apr 5, 2012, 10:29 AM
0 points
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on: SotW: Check Consequentialism
So, first of all

The easiest way to help people learn this skill, I think, would be to teach people:
- Good posture
- How to relax and open their muscles and joints
- How to breath properly
And, the easiest way to teach people this skill, I think, is to instead teach them about this skill. This means that exercises should be somewhat indirect. Exercises should definitely get people to experience the problem instead of getting people to learn the solution, and only make available this solution as an option. Partly because the proposed solution is not the only solution—it is not an absolute solution—it does not work in all instances.

Lastly, teach people how to make the connection between their awareness of themselves (real situations) and the method of Checking Consequentialism. Get them to realize that it is applicable and usable almost all of the time, in good or bad situations, not just when something seems wrong or off, not just to improve their situations or make something better. If this isn’t done, they won’t use it when it’s important.

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Now on to reasons why most attempts at teaching this will fail, and most exercises will not reach their audience in the desired way.

This one is REALLY HARD to teach

Seriously.

The reason this is really hard is because of the concept of habits and defense mechanisms and internal realities (such as the should reality).

As you already stated, when trying to check consequentialism, most people will come up with excuses or other defense mechanisms to maintain their reality, instead of actually checking. You mentioned many ways to overcome that, but they all require recognizing that the person is trying to maintain his/her reality.

When people have a habit, they will often go to extreme lengths to maintain that habit. This is especially true for addictions.

when people have a habit of retreating to a reality (such as the should reality), the teacher has to be very careful not to give them an opportunity to retreat further (don’t say “this method should work,” or “you should try this”. Just plain don’t say “should” unless you know what you’re doing).

So, we have a problem of habits and defense mechanisms and realities. This is on the level of karma. This means that there are infinite reasons why people will continue doing this, and zero reasons why they will stop. This means that logic will not work. Trying to logic people into learning this skill will not work. There are infinite barriers in the way of teaching someone this skill directly, especially of when to use it.

-

Now, with that said, it should still be possible to teach this as a skill. It’s obvious that people won’t use it all the time, but if they learn how to use it, they might just use it little by little.

The thing that I do instead of checking consequentialism is that whenever I notice that I am in a cycle, I exit the cycle; I stop participating in the cycle. This requires willpower that most people don’t have, and an awareness of the present that most people don’t have (and sometimes requires a safety net that many people don’t have); however it does not require analytical skills.

The two concepts could be combined, though. It is much easier to discern a cycle than it is to determine whether an idea has gone unchecked or ducked under the radar. If someone finds themselves thinking the same thing multiple times, that person is in a cycle. If someone finds themselves compelled to do something that person has a habit of, that person is in a cycle (a minor addiction). If someone finds themselves emotionally reacting to a trigger word, that person is in a deep cycle related to that word. The thing about unchecked consequentialism is that it’s really hard to catch the first time it happens (for each subject), but easy to catch the second time (and if it happens once without being fixed, it WILL happen again in a similar way).

If you want people to learn how to catch it the first time it happens (for each subject before it impacts their lives), you have to teach them how to meditate (the Taoist way, which essentially just means teach people to become aware of themselves and their surroundings). Otherwise, instead teach them how to recognize when it has happened in the past, and how to recognize when it happens again. If you do not teach them meditation, then forget about trying to get them to recognize it the first time it happens.

Man, even after writing all that, I still don’t have any good ideas for exercises.

epigeios Apr 5, 2012, 8:53 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: Stefie_K’s comment on: SotW: Be Specific
8) Get people to recognize when other people want them to be more (or less) specific.

9) Get people to recognize when they are being specific about the wrong subject.

epigeios Apr 5, 2012, 8:24 AM
4 points
0
on: SotW: Be Specific
Okay, so split into sets of 2 people (or, split into 2 teams, or even dynamic teams could work). Person A asks a simple personal question about person B (such as “do you have a girlfriend?” or “do you have a college degree?” or “do you prefer dogs or cats?”). Person B then tries to answer like the people in the video did, by telling an abstract related story, or by answering a different question contained within or related to the question (like “well, dolphins are really my favorite animal” or “college degrees aren’t really an indication that someone is able to perform well in their field of expertise”). Person B tries to talk as much as possible in response to person A’s question without actually answering person A’s question. Person A then tries to redirect person B toward A’s intended subject by asking different or more specific questions (“what about as a pet?”). In summary: Person B tries to avoid answering person A’s question, and person A tries to force person B to be specific by asking the right questions.

And of course, things like the ladder of abstraction can (and should) be explained before starting the exercise so that the people have references to draw from to reach their goal (person A trying to get an answer, and person B trying to not give an answer while still answering)

The primary reason why skills can be transmissible from master to apprentice, but not replicable by exercises is because the skill in question has multiple difficulties associated with it which are disconnected at the level of the exercise. Most people are naturally (through karma/disposition or experience) capable of easily getting past a few of the difficulties, and have problems with a few of the others. These people have no idea that they were able to get past a few of the difficulties, because they weren’t difficult.

The problem with exercises is that they tend to concentrate on certain difficulties. So, the people who lack the related experience, or have the karma where they find exceedingly difficult the difficulties not expressed in the exercise, are not going to be able to get anything immediately useful out of the exercise. And in addition, these people won’t know why they weren’t able to get anything out of the exercise, or even what could be done to help them.

You (Eliezer) addressed this subject in this post by providing examples of related concepts. The problem is that those related concepts are all true, and so are a few others you didn’t mention, as well as a few others you aren’t even aware of; and certain ones are true for certain people, and untrue for others.

Here are some difficulties you didn’t mention:
- Common people are emotionally driven. Sensationalist methods attract their attention, and fool them into thinking positive thoughts about the subject. These people who were presenting start-ups were not simply being non-specific, they were trying to pander to an audience (which they were taught to do in school). They weren’t even trying to express their ideas when they first started talking.
- Going deeper into concreteness, many of their ideas were still ideas: partially concrete in their minds, but not concrete for people who come from a different perspective. One skill here that is useful that isn’t learning how to be concrete is instead learning how to interpret others’ questions, to translate from one perspective to another.
- When emotionally charged (as in a presentation), many people have the tendency to both respond to emotional triggers and try to trigger emotions in the audience. Through this, these people tend to go up the ladder of abstraction. Sometimes these people can benefit by just being aware that the audience (Paul Graham) is not trying to trigger them.
- Many people are taught how to pander to an audience. Often, these people don’t even know that they are pandering to an audience. Instead of teaching these people how to do the opposite, instead teach them both how to pander, and how to know when they are pandering to an audience, and follow up by teaching them how to know when to, and when not to, pander to an audience. For many people, after they learn this, the opposite side of learning how to be specific is easy.
- All of the people in that Paul Graham office hours YouTube video seemed to me to be trying too hard to answer the specific questions asked. They interpreted the question to refer to one concept, and tried to convey that concept. These people would benefit from learning how to interpret questions from multiple angles. rather than trying to find the concept the questions is truly asking, they should be trying to find all of the concepts the questions is addressing. From there, they can pick the concept that they DO have a specific answer for, or determine that they don’t have an answer, or don’t understand the question.
Many exercises designed to help people get through difficulties like this would work better if they addressed the opposite. Get people to experience the problem; so that they can recognize it and try to find a solution, and become aware that it is indeed a problem. Don’t get people to try to find a solution; because they usually aren’t even aware of the problem, much less have a concrete understanding of it. For example,… oh, I just thought of a good exercise: [Idea moved to top so that it is the first thing people see. Not going to edit post to make it coherent in that order because I’m too lazy.]

epigeios Jan 31, 2012, 10:31 PM
−24 points
0
on: Dying Outside
I’m happy you’re going to live.

Aside from that, I support alternative treatments (another, with better credentials). I have no experience with ALS, so I can’t say if they work. You might even be able to find someone who will do an acupuncture treatment on you for free in the name of science. I know I would, and I know how to apply acupuncture treatments; but I’m not a licensed practitioner. I’m barely even a student.

epigeios Jan 31, 2012, 9:28 PM
1 point
0
in reply to: Zackmarty’s comment on: Is That Your True Rejection?
Most people don’t even go as far as to make a hypothesis there. It’s arguable that every time someone forms a question, it is the same as forming a hypothesis; purely because questions can be reworded as hypotheses. However, in the case of someone who is just exploring, they would not go so far as to hypothesize.

It’s normal for the person to say something like “I wonder if it happens with all sodium compounds” or, “I wonder if there are any sodium compounds that explode as well”. But in these cases, there is no basis and no reason to form a hypothesis. one could argue that the person is making a hypothesis like “all sodium compounds explode in water”; but the person doesn’t care. The person could just as easily make the hypothesis “no sodium compounds explode in water”. And there’s no reason to make either of these, or any hypothesis at all, because no theory has been formed that can be tested.

And further, making a hypothesis like this limits the amount of new information that can come in from these experiments. The information is now limited to “whether or not the substance explodes”, when there are plenty of other reactions that can happen. The person who makes this hypothesis is liable to miss small bubbles appearing. That is anti-desired when exploring, when trying to observe as much as possible so as to build a theory.

The point is that the person in your example is not doing a hypothesis experiment, the person is doing an exploration experiment. Unless a theory exists, there’s no basis for choosing any hypothesis at all.

Yet, let’s say then that the person discovered some cool stuff and started to build a theory. He wants to tell you about his in-progress theory. Obviously he hasn’t done any hypothesis experiments, because hypotheses haven’t mattered yet. He tells you about his observations, and his conjectures. Many people, in response to this, say “can you prove it? Why should I believe you?”. To which he has no answer, because he has nothing to prove yet. All of his observations are just observations, and he has no solid theories. Because he has no theories, any temporary hypotheses he makes continuously jump around, and to an outside observer have no coherence or meaning. Any attempt at proving something will prove futile, and will be a waste of time, purely because there is nothing to prove.

The higher-level or higher-class version of this response is: “what are your credentials? Why should I believe you?”.

In this way my comment does relate to the entire post. Often times, there is no true objection. Often times, the objection is merely that someone is mentally lazy and doesn’t want to think or explore. Often times, the objection is that I haven’t formed a complete theory yet, only a list of observations and conjectures, so there’s nothing the person can believe in. The difference in opinion there is that I want to work with them and believe in nothing, and they want to work on their own and believe in something. It’s not that they object to the theory or observations or conjectures, they just object to thinking about it.

epigeios Jan 31, 2012, 7:37 AM
0 points
0
on: Is That Your True Rejection?
Here’s something I’d love to put into an entire article, but can’t because my karma’s bad (see my other comment on this thread):

Many people make the false assumption that the scientific method starts with the hypothesis. They think: first hypothesize, then observe, then make a theory from the collection of hypotheses.

The reality is quite the opposite. The first point on the scientific method is the observation. Any hypotheses before observation will only diminish the pool of possible observations. Second is building a theory. Along the process, many things are observed without using a hypothesis to observe them; only needing a question and a desire to explore for the answer. Last is using the theory to create hypotheses; which are then used to confirm, alter, or reject the theory.

The exploration phase is where interesting new observations come up for the first time, and everyone who nears the end of this phase wants to talk to people about it; because it’s really cool! Lots of amazing stuff is observed before any real theory can be made. Lots of plausible, valid, and important ideas come up which should indeed be discussed, as they are relevant to many subjects.

However, the people who take the wrong path, make the false assumption that the scientific method starts with the hypothesis, are afraid to take a step out of their reality. Taking in new information as an observation with no hypothesis or theory attached, which is what is available to them from the exploration stage, would be taking a step out of their reality.

the response you get of “why should I believe x? He doesn’t have a PhD” is fundamentally the same as the response “prove it. Until you prove it, why should I listen to you?”. These people don’t want to observe or theorize. They don’t want to explore. They don’t want to work toward the goal I want to work toward. They want to stay in their world until they have a reason to involve something new in their world. The result of that isn’t an improvement, either, because they still have the same problem of living in their own world.

This objection is a fallacy coming from false assumptions. The thing I have observed to be a/the source of this fallacy is the false start of the scientific method cycle.

FYI, “pseudo-scientists” have a related problem where they are either unable or unwilling to leave the exploration phase (often because the theory they are exploring is wrong, but sometimes because they’re just looking in the wrong direction). Religions have another related problem where they are unable or unwilling to enter the exploration phase; which is not entirely unlike the problem I described about normal science, which is why many people call science a religion.

epigeios Jan 31, 2012, 7:11 AM
−12 points
0
in reply to: RobinHanson’s comment on: Is That Your True Rejection?
I object, and am going to reply in a way that I’m pretty sure will get me lots of negative points, but I’m going to do so because I see that you’ve gotten lots of positive points:

Why are you trying to convince people? What makes you think anyone can be convinced of anything? Do you really want people to be able to convince you? Do you really think you can be convinced of anything? Trying to convince people is counter to trying to encourage unbiased thought.

The experts that make that false objection are not really capable of building on his work; especially not at the time of that objection, because they are obviously holding a belief that hinders their ability to think rationally. They certainly can endorse his work, but is that really desired if they are hindered by their beliefs? (it might be desired, I don’t actually know) What makes you think average Joe’s can’t/won’t build on or endorse his work? Why would that not be desired?

I understand you’re coming from a statistical perspective, but it seems to me to be based on a false premise.

epigeios Jan 31, 2012, 6:47 AM
2 points
0
on: How I Ended Up Non-Ambitious
If you’re having trouble changing, one easy thing I have found to work for me is: Take it upon myself to do the things I would normally do out of habit, and do them on purpose. Take it upon myself to do the things I would normally do as a reaction, and do them independently.

This, for me, sets my mind on the path of being conscious of and in control of what I was previously unable to change. So, I think you should do the opposite of the lesson you’ve learned from this. I think you should, for a short period of time, purposefully act the way you are currently acting.

and while doing so, keep in mind: It’s none of my business what other people think of me. It’s none of my business what other people want from me. It’s none of my business how other people react to me. The only thing that’s my business is my business.

epigeios Dec 1, 2011, 10:55 AM
−2 points
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in reply to: deconigo’s comment on: A Much Better Life?
I, personally, tell the difference by paying attention to and observing reality without making any judgments. Then, I compare that with my expectations based on my judgments. If there is a difference, then I am thinking I am interacting instead of interacting.

Over time, I stop making judgments. And in essence, I stop thinking about interacting with the world, and just interact, and see what happens.

The less judgments I make, the more difficult the Turing Test becomes; as it is no longer about meeting my expectations, but instead satisfying my desired level of complexity. This, by the nature of real-world interaction, is a complicated set of interacting chaotic equations; And each time I remove a judgment from my repertoire, the equation gains a level of complexity, gains another strange attractor to interact with.

At a certain point of complexity, the equation becomes impossible except by a “god”.

Now, if an AI passes THAT Turing Test, I will consider it a real person.

epigeios Dec 1, 2011, 10:37 AM
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on: Poll results: LW probably doesn’t cause akrasia
When I was a kid, I didn’t have a problem with procrastination. I procrastinated on purpose. Now, I have a problem with procrastination. I did it so much as a kid that I ingrained it into the depths of my mind.

Fortunately, I just now realized this. And now that I know it exists, it’s really easy to fix.

epigeios Oct 12, 2011, 9:01 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Scott Alexander’s comment on: Morality is not about willpower
My interpretation of the post in this case is: it’s not that you’re not employing willpower, instead you’re not employing personal morality. So, while TORRENT vs BUY fits into the societal ethics view, it does not fit into your personal morality.

From the personal morality perspective, the bad feeling you get is the thing you need willpower to fight against/suppress. You probably also need willpower to fight against/suppress the bad feeling you might be getting from buying the album. These need not be mutually exclusive. Personal morality can be both against torrenting and against spending money unduly.