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Gunnar_Zarncke
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And maybe I should add that I needed 41,5h to read hpmor up to chapter 96 (including detours to http://harrypotter.wikia.com/).
Though she’ll be very boring for several months yet.
Not in the least. In the first month if you look closely you can literally see one brain module come online after the other. And I don’t mean only those as in Hetty van de Rijt “The Wonder Weeks” which I was looking for (and which did not exactly fit with my children). In the first month you will continuously notice new abilities like focuing, turning, griping, smooth motions, detecting sound direction, gazing, interest in sound, lighting, form, …....
Hi. I’m Gunnar. I’m from Germany. I’m lurking lesswrong since July 25th.
How did I become a rationalist? I always was. Or at least I continuously became.
I had a scientific interest as a child. My curiosity was satisfied by my parents with answers, experiments, construction toys and books, math courses and later boarding school (this was in germany when there was a hype on talent advancement).
I must have been eleven or twelve when I had one of the strongest aha moments I remember: The realization of the concept of continuous functions. That a relationship like 2x+1 can not only be applied to single numbers and tabulated but realizes continuous curves. All the possibilities hit me like a hammer: Movements, prices, all kinds of dependencies could be described arbitrarily fine.
That moment had a lasting effect on me. I always find myself wondering what lies between the known points. Between the extremes. In a way this has become part of my philosophy of seeing and valuing the in-between. Some higher level Goldilocks solution.
I read my fathers shelves of science and science fiction as a youth. I tend to absorb and accept ‘facts’ in books too easily. Luckily I have a skeptic friend to get me back down to earth.
During boarding school there was a significant transition from abstract mathematics to computer science which gave me significant insights into modeling, simulation, complex structures. And the feeling of power over the machine. Of course I later fell into the trap of conceiving my own super programming language operating system.
I remember being asked during boarding school (9th grade) about my best talent. I answered: My tolerance. I could understand almost any behavior. I couldn’t necessarily empathize with it or feel it. But I knew it existed, was right for the person/persons acting and was in general part of life.
I didn’t know then that I hadn’t really experienced much of life—only read about it. And that real tolerance means not only to understand and connive but to accept and endure.
During university after absorbing computer science until soaked I finally broadend out to cognitive science (mind opener: ‘explorations in the microstructure of cognition’) and later social sciences (mind opener: ‘judgement under uncertainty heuristics and biases’.
I learned about real life from and with my wife. Strong emotions, child education, hard work and more.
What did I think about all that I learned?
As a child I must have figured that everything can be understood—given enough time and effort.
I thought early and much about God and morality and spirituality.I wondered how God could fullfil his promises. How he could be the way he is – if he is. There was always doubt. There could be a God. And his promise could be real. But it also could be that this is all a fairy tale run amok in human brains searching for explanations where there are none. Which is right? It is difficult to put probabilities to stories. I see that I have slowly moved from 50⁄50 agnosticism to tolerent atheism.
I can hit small targets—especially if they are far away. And my objective is on healing, improvement. I admit that my utility function is centered on me, my family, my friends and ‘social network’ and fades out slowly toward society at large. I am not very altruistic to the public in general.I understand effective altruism. And I value it. But also I cannot go against my affection to my family and especially my four sons. That I got from my parents.
That’s me. What do I expect of LW? What can you expect of me on LW? I’m not clear yet. I already knew much of what is on LW when I came here. But I enjoyed the crisp and detailed posts. Refreshing or deepening rationality never hurts. I esp. like EYs stories. They bring rationality ‘to the masses’. I will definitely read hpmor to my sons when they are old enough.
I think I can enrich lesswrong with critical views on the singularity. I have some strong arguments and even empirical evidence that there might be inherent complexity limits to technology and cognition which essentially render super intelligence infeasible (I see UFAI as a risk nonetheless).
And then I have some ideas on AI which build on a synthesis of logic and neuronal (vague) models which I’d like to share and discuss.
Maybe I will also share life experience. It seems that I am fairly old for this community and can do something about the arrogance risk (which I myself feel too) and about life expectations.
In Hamburg. Und da gehe ich auch nicht weg.
Raising numerate children
Sounds a bit like the What do you see games that we play. And a bit like the Why-game (which always in the end leads to “because of physics” or “because somebody wants it”). But not all games work for all children.
Yes. I agree. I initially wrote a much longer post that included more (unfinished) aspects which are more clearly associated with rationality. When shortening I kept focus on ‘numbers’ because that gave a uniform picture and a kind of story arc. I just hinted at these aspects with the lookout at the end. But I see this as part of a larger picture where numeracy is one part of rationality. You can’t have rationality without numeracy or can you? And for me numeracy was the first step toward rationality. For me it really was an important part with an aha insight about continuous functions. I already started to move my sons from numbers to functions. Functions representing states in the world (e.g. a smart five year old can use numbers to quantify how happy he is). I want to write further posts that will follow up on this. I wonder if there is some way to bind these posts together under the heading “How do you raise a child as a rationalist?”
Wow. That is not a comment but a post in it’s own right. I’m somewhat blown away of what to make out of it.
I will try to address the raised points:
1) Our approach to parenting can be classified as authorative/propagative (according to Baumrind’s Three Parenting Styles) but with a non-extreme damand level. It is rather not Concerted Cultivation (which in our opinion puts to much pressure on the child and has it’s own inefficiencies (and doesn’t really lead to rationality). Instead we rather fall into the Natural Growth pattern. We didn’t invent most of the methods we apply. You could say that we did a meta study on parenting and took the best of it. I will provide a parenting bibliography below. The lullaby is my own invention, but singing lullabies is one recommended method, as is reading and discussing bed time stories. Teaching via dialog of wuestion and answer is also a traditional teaching method going back to Socrates I believe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
2) Is parenting a no-win activity? I’m not sure what this is diving at. I wonder if this takes the view that parenting and education should be left to specialists and that doing parenting oneself is inefficient any way it is done. Even if that may be true on average there are the following exceptions (some of which apply to our case):
Availability of professional care (we do use a wood kindergarten for outdoor, musical and social education)
Trust into the quality of professional care (compared to the alternatives)
Personal preferrence (our utility functions rank high on affection to our children)
Personal experience (my wife is a teacher)
3) I though much about 1) even before we had children and we compared multiple options regarding 2). Otherwise I’m not sure what to make out of this paragraph.
4) If with ‘onslaught’ my intense advancement of numeracy is meant, then I have to assume that you imply that I am jumping to conclusions by proposing my specific parenting style as a general model.
I do not. I recount personal experience. You could call my post an opinion piece. But I have to stress that this specific style results from very careful and long time planning, continuous adjustment, success control and it is even controlled in so far as we have basically ‘run’ the same ‘program’ with all our four sons so far. And it appears to be successful for all of them (if one can say that of 2 and 5 year olds).5) When to move to implementation? I goess this is meant as a question for non-parents. For parents the point is usually the birth. And I can assure you that my wife has run this program with her usual productivity scheme she uses for all ‘tasks’.
6) The tangible contributions I am just making, or am I? I was pleasantly surprised by our success. I was prepared to see more or less average achievement by my sons due to regression toward the mean (but I cannot completely rule out filtered awareness due to parental pride). And beside ‘success’ on some popular measureables like IQ or grades I see that my children are healthy, balanced and happy. Our parenting method gives us concrete positive feedback and I assume that it helps making us happy too.
Our parenting bibliography (sorry for most of it in German; I tried to find corresponding english ones but got few):
Each one starts with a line with the following ratings:
1) applicable age (for which age we do consult these books) 2) practical tips (P0: none; P++: many good tips) 3) theoretical/philosphical explanations (P0: none; P++; proper scientific research) 4) my personal recommendation (P0: do not use; P++: highly recommended) ”?” means I don’t known because only my wife read the book
0-1.5;+;+;+ Oje ich wachse, Hetty van de Rijt et al English: The Wonder Weeks http://www.amazon.de/Spr%C3%BCngen-mentalen-Entwicklung-w%C3%A4hrend-umgehen/dp/3442161444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377957033&sr=8-1&keywords=oje+ich+wachse
0-1;++;?;0 Spiele für alle fünf Sinne, Karin Mönkemeyer http://www.amazon.de/Spiele-f%C3%BCr-alle-f%C3%BCnf-Sinne/dp/3499184621/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377957139&sr=8-1&keywords=spiele+f%C3%BCr+alle+f%C3%BCnf+sinne
0-6;P++;?;R0 Fingerspiele und andere Kinkerlitzchen: Spiel-Lust mit kleinen Kindern von Raimund Pousset http://www.amazon.de/Fingerspiele-andere-Kinkerlitzchen-Spiel-Lust-kleinen/dp/3499606410/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377957194&sr=8-1&keywords=fingerspiele+und+andere+kinkerlitzchen
0-25;P+;T+;R+ Spielzeugland, Verbrauchenzentrale
1-3;?;?;? Kinderspiele, BZgA
1-10;?;?;? Spiele mit kleinen Kindern und Babys, Münchmeier
1-18;P+;T0;R+ Knaurs Spielebuch, Johanna Preetorius http://www.amazon.de/Johanna-Preetorius-Knaurs-Spielebuch/dp/B00ACO76OM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1377957455&sr=8-5&keywords=knaurs+spielebuch Note: Our editions is the original edition of 1968 which contains lots of old childrens games.
3-10;P++;T+;R+ Was Jungen brauchen: Das Kleine-Kerle-Coaching, von Alexander Bentheim und Monika Murphy-Witt http://www.amazon.de/Was-Jungen-brauchen-Kleine-Kerle-Coaching-Partnerschaft/dp/3774288828/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377957647&sr=8-1&keywords=was+jungen+brauchen
3-7;P+;T+;? Spielerische Sprachförderung von Gabriele Fischer, Christine Langner und Ursula Schlieter http://www.amazon.de/Spielerische-Sprachf%C3%B6rderung-Gabriele-Fischer/dp/3403045048/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377957731&sr=8-1&keywords=spielerische+sprachf%C3%B6rderung
3-14;P+;T0;? Das große Ravensburger Natur-Spielebuch: Über 190 Spiele für Kinder von Uli Geißler und Birgit Rieger
0-6;?,?,? Lieben, lachen und erziehen in den ersten sechs Lebensjahren von Steve Biddulph und Shaaron Biddulph English: Complete Secrets of Happy Children: A Guide for Parents http://www.amazon.de/Lieben-lachen-erziehen-ersten-Lebensjahren/dp/3453862244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377957911&sr=8-1&keywords=leben+lachen+und+erziehen
11-16;P+;?;? So macht lernen Spaß, Wolfgang Endres http://www.amazon.de/macht-Lernen-Spa%C3%9F-Wolfgang-Endres/dp/3407380372/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377958125&sr=1-2&keywords=So+macht+lernen+Spa%C3%9F
5-11;P++;T0;R+ Die 50 besten Spiele fürs Selbstbewusstsein von Rosemarie Portmann http://www.amazon.de/Die-besten-Spiele-f%C3%BCrs-Selbstbewusstsein/dp/3769815327/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377958202&sr=1-9&keywords=die+50+besten+spiele+f%C3%BCr+mehr+sozialkompetenz
5-11;P++;T0;R+ Die 50 besten Spiele für mehr Sozialkompetenz von Rosemarie Portmann http://www.amazon.de/Die-besten-Spiele-mehr-Sozialkompetenz/dp/376981729X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377958202&sr=1-1&keywords=die+50+besten+spiele+f%C3%BCr+mehr+sozialkompetenz
5-11;P+;T0;R0 Die 50 besten Spiele rund um Zahlen von Rosemarie Portmann http://www.amazon.de/Die-besten-Spiele-rund-Zahlen/dp/3769817842/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377958202&sr=1-2&keywords=die+50+besten+spiele+f%C3%BCr+mehr+sozialkompetenz
5-15;P+;T?;R? Verrückt spielen, W. Kobl
5-16;P++;T0;R++ Ravensburger Gartenbuch für Kinder. Kleine Gärten im Zimmer, auf dem Balkon und im Freien von Diana Simmons und Elinor http://www.amazon.de/Ravensburger-Gartenbuch-Kinder-Kleine-G%C3%A4rten/dp/3473374059/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1377958456&sr=8-8&keywords=Gartenbuch+f%C3%BCr+Kindern
6-13;P++;T+;R++ Denk dir die Welt: Philosophie für Kinder von Brigitte Labbé, Michel Puech, Jacques Azam und Anne Braun http://www.amazon.de/Denk-dir-die-Welt-Philosophie/dp/3785571666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377958535&sr=8-1&keywords=Denk+dir+die+Welt
8-25;P++;?;? Spielen Denken Lernen. Duelle auf dem Papier von Walter Diem http://www.amazon.de/Spielen-Denken-Lernen-Duelle-Papier/dp/3897174111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377958639&sr=8-1&keywords=duelle+auf+dem+papier
6-10;P+;T+;R++ Kinder können mehr. Anders lernen in der Grundschule von Fee Czisch http://www.amazon.de/Kinder-k%C3%B6nnen-Anders-lernen-Grundschule/dp/3888973872/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1377958714&sr=8-4&keywords=Anders+lernen+in+der+Grundschule
9-16;P++;T0;R++ Wie man einem Außeririschen begegnet, ein Floß baut und in der Wildnis überlebt …, von Johnny Wilkens http://www.amazon.de/einem-Au%C3%9Feririschen-begegnet-Wildnis-%C3%BCberlebt/dp/3407743718/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377958808&sr=8-1&keywords=wie+man+einem+au%C3%9Ferirdischen+begegnet
7;P+;T++;R+ Weltwissen der Siebenjährigen: Wie Kinder die Welt entdecken können von Donata Elschenbroich http://www.amazon.de/Weltwissen-Siebenj%C3%A4hrigen-Kinder-entdecken-k%C3%B6nnen/dp/3442151759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377958918&sr=8-1&keywords=weltwissen+der+siebenj%C3%A4hrigen
5-16;P0;T++;R+ Das kompetente Kind von Jesper Juul und Sigrid Engeler English: Your Competent Child: Toward A New Paradigm In Parenting And Education http://www.amazon.de/Das-kompetente-Kind-Jesper-Juul/dp/3499614855/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1377958996&sr=8-2&keywords=das+kompetente+kind
4-14;P0;T++;R0 (outdated) Die Entwicklung des Zahlbegriffs beim Kinde von Jean Piaget und Alina Szeminska (1972) English: Child’s Conception Of Number by Piaget Jean http://www.amazon.de/Die-Entwicklung-Zahlbegriffs-beim-Kinde/dp/3129264108/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377959099&sr=8-1&keywords=die+entwicklung+des+zahlbegriffs
0-3;P+;T+;R+ Warum Babys weinen: Die Gefühle von Kleinkindern von Aletha J. Solter und Karin Petersen http://www.amazon.de/Warum-Babys-weinen-Gef%C3%BChle-Kleinkindern/dp/3466308313/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377959220&sr=8-1&keywords=warum+babys+weinen
3-14;P+;T+;R++ Leitfaden für faule Eltern von Tom Hodgkinson und Heike Steffen English: The Idle Parent: Why Laid-Back Parents Raise Happier and Healthier Kid http://www.amazon.de/Leitfaden-f%C3%BCr-faule-Eltern-Hodgkinson/dp/3499626721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377959269&sr=8-1&keywords=leitfaden+f%C3%BCr+faule+eltern
8-12;P+;T++;R+ Praktisches Philosophieren mit Kindern: Konzepte, Methoden, Beispiele von Thomas Ebers und Markus Melchers http://www.amazon.de/Praktisches-Philosophieren-mit-Kindern-Beispiele/dp/3825884791/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377964876&sr=8-1&keywords=praktisches+philosophieren+mit+kindern
(somewhat incomplete; these are the ones I found in our shelves today)
Relevance of the STEPS project to (F)AI teams
Oh I didn’t stop at “because people want it” on the first round. I did continue answering that people feel this and that way. But you cannot explain psychology too deeply to a five year old—there is just not enough terminology you can build on (and using to detached words will not do). So you are bound to appeal to empathy (which children have) and the second time around the answer is really “don’t you feel that way too?”.
As for the physics. The answer is not litereally “physics” but physics at a level where you also have no more words you can build on. There is a point where analogy to waves can get you only so far. Sure sometime the correct terminology has to be used. And a why game can be such a point. But then this really leaves the “and why that” chain and goes into story mode or experiment mode or physical phenomenon mode.
In time I may. For now I will continue with short pieces to get a feel for the expectations and style. These can be wrapped up or restructured later. Or is that discouraged? The ‘bibliography’ is really not as deep as it looks. Most of the books listed are parent guide books which are often shallow on theory. I posted the list to show that I did my homework and as recommendations for other parents.
There are lots of reasons why an optimizable OS and tool chain are relevant:
control over the lower level OS allows for significant performance gains (there have been significant algorithmic gains in process isolation, scheduling and e.g. garbage collection on the OS level all of which improve run-time).
access to a comparatively simple OS and tool chain allows the AI to spread to other systems. Writing a low level virus is significantly more ‘simple’, powerful, effective and possile to hide than spreaing via text interface.
a kind of self-optimizable tool chain is presumably needed within an AI system anyway and STEPS proposes a way to not only model but actually build this.
Because I do not really stop at that point. I may stop in the chain of a why game. But the topics will come up again and again in different locations. For example when my sons ask how many is “million times million times million times million” I will not just answer “septillion” (*) but e.g. try to illustrate this with an example like “water particles within a spoonful of water”. Or if we heat sugar in a pan to make caramel I might note that the sugar partical hpentagons break up or form new structures. Or if we speak about respiration I will (building on oxidaition in fire) to explain that the lung equalizes oxygen and CO2 levels of air and blood.
Note that in German this is “Quadrillion” nicely verbalizing exponentiation via ‘quad’=‘four’ times multiplication of million.
It is easy. For example Avogadros number is roughly 10^-24 (for the purpose of estimating numbers of particles in natural phenomena) thus 24=4∙6 thus million^4 thus “Quadrillion” in German. And one googol is 10^100 and 100 = 16∙6+3+1 thus 10 “Sedezilliarden” (from 16=sedecem) albeit all this doesn’t work in English at least not so easily.
It may be irrelevant in the end but not in the beginning. I’m not really talking about the runaway phase of some AI but about the hard or non-hard takeoff and there any factor will weigh heavily. 10^3 will make the difference between years or hours.
Bed time stories with clear concepts
Hi, I’m new here and have some questons regarding editing and posting. I read thru http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Help:User_Guide and http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/FAQ but couldn’t find the answers there so I decided to ask here. Probably I overlooked something obvious and a link will suffice.
How do I add follow up links to a post? Most main and sequences posts have them but I’m unable to add them to my post. Note: I posted in Discussion as recommended because these were my first posts. I didn’t any feedback to change that but I’d nonetheless cross-link them and I intend to post more of the same kind. How can I add these follow-up thingies?
How do I create a user profile? It appears the some users do have profiles even with pictures and some like EY real pages. There is no button to create/edit one. I suspect it is somewhere in the Wiki but can’t find it.
Is there a guide to tags? I’d like to use a common tag for my posts on “parenting”.
Failing to achieve any kind of goals is a very common topic of dreams.
I track all my time on my PC with 15m granularity. I have done this for 3 years since I started freelance work. I have my own highly hierachical structure of cost centers from which I generate TeX invoices. I could give you a lot of common task times. But these obviously are mostly about surfing, reading, office work, invoice...
Examples:
write invoices: 1h/month
time tracking: 15m/day (including all time tracking for principals)
web surfing: 9h/month (not including research-like browsing which is 5h/month and not including lesswrong which has had a significant impact recently that I added a new cost center for it)
family budget: 2h/month
paperwork: 1h/week
I also track private projects. One example is a trading card game with scientific facts which I created for my children—this took 110h in all including research, images.test games, talks to teachers.
My wife is a living timetable and drives a very elaborate time management regime (which is helpful if you have four children). She seems to exactly know how long ‘common tasks’ take. We plan the following times:
laundry: (6m plus 10m/person)/day
cooking: 1h/day
fruit basket: 2m/person/day
daily house cleanup: 20m/day
prepare breakfast: 15m
meal preparation and cleanup (2x/day): 30m/day
bath a child: 15m
bed ritual: 15m/child
and then there are lots of planned times for educational topics, events, courses, …
Note that that these times are the result of discipline and routine and you shouldn’t assume that you can reach or beat them easily.