Gray

• Gray 1 Mar 2011 23:38 UTC

  −3 points

  on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  I think good research is useful, and bad research is non-useful. Research that the researcher doesn’t find interesting is unlikely to be good. Therefore, it is unlikely that research that the researcher doesn’t find interesting is going to be useful.

  I don’t think that interesting research is likely to be useful because researchers are more likely to be interested in useful things. Most of what mathematicians study, for instance, has little obvious practical value.

• Gray 2 Mar 2011 6:33 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: jsteinhardt’s comment on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  As to your first point, my answer is no. What I mean by “good research” is just research that meets general normative scientific criteria for knowledge, I guess we assume that such criteria tends towards truth. I guess in the back of my mind I’m supposing that true statements are more useful than false ones.

  As to your second point, I think it is based on the misunderstanding in your first point. Or else, I’ve misunderstood your second point. :) But I think my first proposition needs some work. For instance, you could imagine a continuum between good research and bad research, and a continuum between useful research and non-useful research. In this case, it wasn’t my intent to really specify how much usefulness average quality research has, but only that bad research has very little utility. The difference in utility between good and average research I really don’t know.

  Also, this is my second post on the site, so hopefully I’m meeting the standards for posting here. If not, I’ll just lurk more. I also don’t know how much certainty do you guys expect when someone makes a proposition here.

• Gray 2 Mar 2011 18:13 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Simon Fischer’s comment on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  I think you guys are attacking a strawman. I said “good research” and somehow jsteinhardt translated that as “anything labeled as research”.

• Gray 2 Mar 2011 23:37 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: jsteinhardt’s comment on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  I appreciate your post, and I think you’ve been very hospitable, and I appreciate that as well. While I do have the habit of writing concisely, and believe in writing that way, I also have to admit that my original post was shorter because I was uncertain on how I would be received. By the way, I didn’t think that in your post you were being dishonest, in fact rather the opposite. You realized that there was probably some miscommunication and wanted to resolve it, and that’s exactly how dialogue should proceed. I felt that my post was interpreted more simply than I had intended because SimonF thought that my argument was obviously wrong. While it may be unsound, I didn’t think it was trivially unsound. I guess “strawman” is often an accusation of dishonesty, I just didn’t know what better term to use for “a more simple version of my argument is being counterargued than the argument I wanted to present”.

  But I also want to thank you, again, for being hospitable and welcoming to your community. I’m still uncertain how this will go, I mainly joined because I want to learn more about induction, which is something that I shouldn’t have ignored before. I also read through many of the posts in the sequences, and this site comes closest to the “ideal” I’ve had before about my own life, and what I understand to be intellectual virtue.

• Gray 3 Mar 2011 0:13 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: jsteinhardt’s comment on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  I think the main disagreement I have with your translation is that I don’t think that “normatively good research” is the same as “research that the scientific community approves of”. I believe that the standards of the scientific community can and should be criticized on rational grounds. I anticipate you might ask, given the above, on what is meant by “normatively good research” then, I guess I just mean that which corresponds with intellectual and epistemic virtue. My use of “normative” isn’t my own innovation though, it is the same sense in which logic is a normative science. Logic doesn’t describe how people actually think, but how people /​should/​ think; but this normativity shouldn’t be understood exclusively in moral terms. Normativity refers to how well does the subject matter, in this case thinking, relate to it’s end. Normatively good research, then, refers to research that best satisfies the purpose or goal of research.

  I guess, to be fully clear, I should clarify on what the purpose or goal of research is. You could say that the goal is usefulness, in which case my proposition would be a tautology (“Research that is good at being useful is useful and research that is bad at being useful is not useful.”), but I don’t think that’s the answer. Maybe I’m being an idealist, but I think the primary purpose of research is to satisfy curiosity, without disregarding any other ulterior aims and purposes that actual researchers might have. I think curiosity is one of the few actual drives that people have that points to truth for it’s own sake, it represents a person’s “will to know”*.

  Is what satisfies curiosity also useful? I think if my argument is wrong, this is where it is weak and potentially vulnerable. But I don’t think it is obviously wrong. Your concern seems to be that researchers have a responsibility to prefer research that is useful over research that isn’t useful, even if it doesn’t satisfy the researchers interest as much. But I doubt that it is that easy to determine whether research will be useful /​a priori/​. C.S. Peirce uses the example of conic sections being useful for Kepler’s astronomy, which in turn was useful for Newtonian physics. We’re talking about research that had been worked on for generations, and its hard to imagine any of these men “optimizing the usefulness of their research programs”. Yet it is hard to imagine work that has had a greater positive affect on our standard of living than these men.

  • I don’t mean to say that curiosity is the drive to learn about anything, we know that different people are interested in different things. But I think that whatever a person is interested in, curiosity wouldn’t be satisfied at learning false things. I don’t mean to imply that curiosity is satisfied at learning anything if it happens to be true.

• Gray 3 Mar 2011 0:42 UTC

  6 points

  in reply to: pjeby’s comment on: Ra­tion­al­ity Quotes: March 2011

  I would say that the quote isn’t about “I’m a puppet of the system” but more a critique of a particular incentive system, and there’s validity to this. If a certain activity is incentivized, then it shouldn’t be surprising to expect that someone would eventually engage in that activity. Perverse incentive systems produce truly horrendous results.

  Also, up vote for analyzing rap music :)

• Gray 3 Mar 2011 2:29 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: jsteinhardt’s comment on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  Well, first, note that there is a difference between intellectual and moral virtue. When you say “inherently virtuous”, I have the awful feeling that you’re talking about “moral virtue”. I would say that “intellectual virtue” and “rationality” are near-synonyms, at least in the way that “rational” is used on this site. They both seem to me to be a sort of meta-cognition, where you are thinking about thinking, and you’re trying to determine what sort of thinking will best take you closer to a given end.

  But I don’t think that usefulness is an aspect of the normative end of research. When research is useful, it just happens to be that way; in the same way that conic sections just happens to have ended up being a useful science, but if it was studied or not studied on the basis of expected utility, it probably would have been passed over. Generally, I agree with C.S. Peirce about the need to separate theory and practice. Practice can make use of theory, but trying to engage in both at the same introduces prejudices into the theory, and makes the practice more difficult than necessary.

• Gray 3 Mar 2011 19:41 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: jsteinhardt’s comment on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  I’m still trying understand the standards of this site, while it’s not a bad thing, it will take me some time to get used to. Your question “Is this correct then?” I think is asking me how much certainty does my proposition deserve. While I believe it is true, mainly because I trust C.S. Peirce’s judgment, I think it fails as a proposition. To me, a proposition is a social thing, I’m not just reporting my own belief, but in a proposition I am suggesting that others reading the proposition /​should/​ also believe it, and that’s why propositions need to be justified. Given that, I should retract my proposition. On other sites the standard was to try out ideas to try to find out which ones are better, so this is different.

• Gray 4 Mar 2011 6:52 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: jsteinhardt’s comment on: Are In­ter­est­ing Prob­lems Use­ful?

  Oh :) In that case, I think you’ve summed up my position well. I guess in my mind I have the idea of a researcher trying to “obey two masters rather than one”, that is utility and truth. It seems to me that being weighed down by utility concerns would cause someone to ignore certain perfectly rational possibilities because they aren’t productive.

  Testing the proposition, I think, would be through a historical survey, don’t you think? I’ll see about summarizing C.S. Peirce’s thoughts on this matter for the site.

• Gray 6 Mar 2011 23:20 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: Unnamed’s comment on: NASA sci­en­tist finds ev­i­dence of alien life [link]

  I agree the comment seems somewhat off-topic, but I’m glad it was posted here anyway only because I’m new and was considering posting things similar to what you say is discouraged. But I would like to ask, is the consensus that the topic itself is discouraged, or that if you are to post on that topic, the bar should be set much higher? If anyone has advice on what you guys want to see, or not see, here, it would be appreciated.

• Gray 7 Mar 2011 18:39 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Unnamed’s comment on: Bring Back the Se­quences?

  I think this is a great idea. I’ve been reading through the sequences and, while I would like to comment, it seems silly to participate in a conversation that occurred two years ago. So the point would be just to have a “fresh” conversation about an old post. I think this is a good idea in general; for some reason the internet likes to pretend that anything written about more than a week ago doesn’t exist or isn’t relevant.

• Gray 8 Mar 2011 20:22 UTC

  1 point

  on: How best to show dy­ing is bad

  Let me respond to each point that your dad offers:

  Our not wanting to die is a bit of irrational behavior selected for by evolution. The universe doesn’t care if you’re there or not. The contrasting idea that you are the universe is mystical, not rational.

  Others have questioned the use of the term rationality here, which is a good point to make. In my mind, there’s a plausible distinction between rationality and wisdom, such that rationality is mastery of the means and wisdom is mastery of the ends (the definition of rationality offered on this site, of systemized winning, supports this—it isn’t elaborated on what you should win, and on whether you shouldn’t win one thing rather than another thing) . The above suggests to me, by analogy, that it would be irrational to eat when you’re hungry, since hunger is an evolutionary bias. Given that hunger has produced in you the desire to eat, all else being equal, it is rational to eat. Similarly, all else being equal, if you fear death—live. But there are cases where other desires have greater priority.

  Also, it is mystical to say that we are the universe, but not mystical to say that we are part of the universe. Nature itself seems indifferent and apathetic about our desires and needs, but given that we are natural beings, it must be true that our desires and needs are a part of nature. Even if immortality was an option for all of us, it might the case that another desire, for instance our love for another being, makes it more important that we die rather than live. But I think this calculus of ends belongs to wisdom and not rationality; rationality prescribes the best way to die, given that it is best to die. Sometimes dieing is winning.

  The idea that you are alive “now” but will be dead “later” is irrational. Time is just a persistent illusion according to relativistic physics. You are alive and dead, period.

  Does relativity really say that time is an illusion? I think the proposition that the duration of an interval time is relative to one’s frame of reference isn’t the same as claiming that “time is just a persistent illusion”. When I fear my own death, I don’t care about other frames of reference, only my own.

  A cyber-replica is not you. If one were made and stood next to you, you would still not consent to be shot.

  Ditto a meat replica

  Truth.

  If you believe the many worlds model of quantum physics is true (Eliezer does), then there already are a vitually infinite number of replicas of you already, so why bother making another one?

  This is a different argument, that we are already effectively immortal. The desire for immortality should have already been satisfied. But obviously, our desire for immortality has not been satisfied, otherwise we wouldn’t still desire it. Similarly, making another replica of myself wouldn’t satisfy my desire for immortality, unless I thought it was me by some kind of a hive mind with my replicas. This is clearly not the case between quantum worlds. Therefore, we are not effectively immortal.

• Gray 13 Mar 2011 12:24 UTC

  3 points

  on: What other causes are rele­vant to LessWrong?

  Here’s my plug, for the cause I spend lots of my time and energy on, Wikimedia/​Wikipedia

  Hear, hear!

  None of this implying that anything found on Wikipedia should be uncritically accepted as true, but I can’t think of any better testimony for the collective win of rationalists everywhere than the product of Wikipedia. For one, we benefit directly from the resources on Wikipedia; secondly, we benefit indirectly whenever other people benefit from Wikipedia.

  The more difficult matter is reclaiming Wikipedia from the barbarians :D

• Gray 15 Mar 2011 19:54 UTC

  21 points

  in reply to: David_J._Balan’s comment on: Ap­plause Lights

  Actually, that seems to be an extremely empty statement. “Having little political power” seems to imply, and is implied by, “being ignored”. I wouldn’t doubt that the two predicates are coextensive. Since people with little political power are, by definition, ignored; saying that people with little political power should not be ignored makes as much sense as saying that squares should be circular.

  But maybe I’m not being very charitable here. You can make the shape that was once square more circular, only as long as you note that the shape isn’t a square anymore. Similarly, people with little political power can, over time, gain more political power, which is a positive thing. But even if everyone has an equal amount of political power, the proposition that “people with little political power are ignored” would still be true, even if the predicates contain the null set.

• Gray 18 Mar 2011 3:13 UTC

  23 points

  in reply to: CuSithBell’s comment on: Ap­plause Lights

  Eeek, I think the differences in interpretations are due to the de re /​ de dicto distinction.

  Compare the following translations of the statement “people without political power should not be ignored.”

  De dicto: “It should not be the case that any person without political power is also a person who is ignored.”

  De re: “If there is a person without political power, then that person should not be ignored.”

  If the two predicates in the de re interpretation (“person without political power” and “person who is ignored”) are coextensive, and thus equivalent, we should be able to substitute like terms and derive “If there is a person without political power, then that person should not be without political power.” Given that I wanted to use the more charitable interpretation, this is the interpretation I should use, and so you’re correct :)

  But look what happens to the de dicto interpretation when you substitute like terms. It turns into “It should not be the case that a person without political power is a person without political power.” This is the sort of thing I was objecting to, to begin with. But it was the wrong interpretation, and thus my error.

  (Yeah, I decided to go into an extensive analysis here mainly to refine my logic skills and in case anyone else is interested. Mathematicians, I suppose, would probably not have studied the de re /​ de dicto distinction; mainly because I don’t see much relevance to mathematics.)

• Gray 18 Mar 2011 18:22 UTC

  8 points

  in reply to: CuSithBell’s comment on: Less Wrong NYC: Case Study of a Suc­cess­ful Ra­tion­al­ist Chapter

  This seems disingenuous. It looks like you’re saying, essentially, “Ah, but nothing has inherent meaning!”. Are you unable to understand the concept of “manipulation” in non-technical terms?

  I think it is useful to compare/​contrast the terms manipulation and influence. Barry Cotter did talk about a “continuum of influence”, and I think this is the point that you’re missing. Between two people, if one person is far more influential in their relationship than the other, then we call it manipulative. But there is an area in the middle of the continuum where their influence on each other isn’t one-sided.

  I don’t know a whole lot about the whole PUA thing, but of the things I’ve read here and there online, one interesting point is that sexual attraction isn’t this innate thing that you either have or don’t have. So yeah, you can influence other people by presenting yourself in a more appealing way. But this shouldn’t be seen as “manipulation”, unless you’re doing something underhanded.

  But if we’re going to exaggerate all influence by calling it manipulation, then we have an extremely inhibited view of society. A society where members didn’t influence each other could hardly be considered a society at all.

• Gray 20 Mar 2011 5:08 UTC

  24 points

  in reply to: Vladimir_M’s comment on: A Ra­tion­al­ist’s Ac­count of Ob­jec­tifi­ca­tion?

  This sounds like saying that you should keep reading authors who share a given ideological standpoint until you’re successfully propagandized by them. I don’t see how this approach could lead to an unbiased understanding of any subject.

  You don’t limit bias by restricting what you read, but by exactly the opposite—by reading more, and from more varied, ideological perspectives. Alicorn didn’t say to reading nothing except feminist ideology; and you completely missed her conditional, “If you are willing to do your consciousness-raising by reading stuff”.

  She is obviously speaking to the people who desire to understand the concepts involved. If you want to evaluate feminism, you need to understand the concepts, and to do that you need read things written by actual feminists. I think Cyan is right, you’re arguing in a way that you wouldn’t if this was about about something that wasn’t feminism.

• Gray 22 Mar 2011 0:35 UTC

  0 points

  on: “How to Have a Ra­tional Dis­cus­sion”

  That’s kind of neat. Seems to be designed as an image that you can hotlink into a discussion thread somewhere.

• Gray 22 Mar 2011 16:41 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Perplexed’s comment on: Costs and Benefits of Scholarship

  One interesting thing I want to point out about this thread is the interesting distinction between making use of scholarship, which is what seems to be usually referred to on this site when you guys talk about scholarship as a value; and doing scholarship. Obviously, in order to make use of scholarship, the scholarship must already exist.

  The way you reduce scholarship to being merely a way of impressing other people belies, I think, a misunderstanding of what scholarship is, or at least what it should be. To me, scholarship should be the best means for any given inquirer to get to the answer, as simply and easily as possible.

  Of course, scholarship can be good or bad, and I like to think that doing scholarship is something that rationalists ought to do. If you’re pursuing a line of inquiry, and run into a dead end, it makes absolute sense to post a sign at the beginning of that road you’ve already taken that says “Dead End”—and here’s why.

  It makes sense to cite Jeremy Bentham because he was the first one who pursued that line of inquiry. Of course, as it happens, people generally find it difficult to critique their own, established views, so it took someone else to post the “Dead End” sign for him. But citing the intellectuals is an important part of the map of scholarship that creates a common language for the rest of us to find our way, and not follow dead ends.

  But I’m not speaking strictly of Academia. Wikipedia is as much a work of scholarship as the official journals, in my view. Of course, if it’s bad scholarship, a bad map, it will inevitably lead people down bad paths. Lets hope that people take the time to improve it.

• Gray 22 Mar 2011 16:50 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: lukeprog’s comment on: Costs and Benefits of Scholarship

  I know who Bentham is. Anyone familiar with utilitarianism should know who Bentham is, in my opinion. That doesn’t mean I know much about his thought, nor have I read any of his works.