I believe there should be a subject in school (and text books to go with it) that goes through all the things that adult citizens should know. I believe this was part of what was called Civics but that is dead or changed to something else. The idea is somewhat dated but it included things like how to vote, how to read a train schedule, that different types of insurance actually were, simple first aid, how to find a book in a library and all sorts of things like that. Today it would be a slightly different list. Somewhere between 10 and 14 seems the ideal age to be interested and learn these sort of things.
JanetK
It is my impression that people generally have an epistemic distortion already and Alicorn’s advice would help them overcome it. When we justify our own actions, we place a weight on circumstances and give ourselves a fair benefit of the doubt. When we look for the reasons for other people’s actions we often do not know, care to know or just plain care about what the circumstances were. No benefit of the doubt here. Reversing this bias seems a good and healthy thing to do. Judge others as you would judge yourself may sound simple but it takes the sort of persistence that Alicorn outlines.
I see the differences between this post and the psychological unity of mankind one is akin to two ships passing in the night—not talking about the same thing. In general the arguments do not contradict each other.
I would like to make a few additions:
1) We cannot compare the speed of change in dogs (or pigeons) with that in wild populations. Mongrel and feral dogs are under selection in their normal environment and without control of their breeding therefore they resemble one another much, much more than do pure bred animals. The tame foxes if freed would return fairly quickly to being foxy. Humans on the other hand have continuously changed the environment in which they live (for say 50,000 years). Therefore the selective pressure is not static. So it is not surprising that new genes can arise and flow through populations. Dogs are not relevant here.
2) Genetics is more complex than algebra. In many cases there is an advantage to having two different alleles and both alleles in double dose are disadvantageous. Genes are duplicated (as a mutation) and then one allele can be conserved while another evolves under selective pressure. There are genes that control the use of groups of other genes and mutations in these can effect hundreds of genes. Epigenetic changes to genes can give very complex effects. Environmental control of genetic expression is important. Genetics is probably like an iceberg that we have not glimpsed the complexity of yet.
3) Eliezer was talking about the deep structure of our anatomy and physiology while the 10,000 year explosion book is about fairly surface differences. For example, skin colour is under the control of a small number of genes and responds relatively quickly to differences in environments sunlight (say 20-50,000 years to lighten or darken to ideal when a population moves). But human skin differs in more fundamental ways from that of other animals -amount of hair, sweat glands, amount of fat etc. Human skin is universal while its colour tracks the environment.
So in general there is nothing terribly wrong with either Eliezer’s post or the present one—except nit picking complaints (The dog thing is maybe me nitpicking). They are not opposed unless you have a hangup about whether genetics is important or not.
- 14 Jan 2017 6:12 UTC; 0 points) 's comment on Planning the Enemy’s Retreat by (
- 14 Jan 2017 6:09 UTC; 0 points) 's comment on Planning the Enemy’s Retreat by (
I think that science usually works a little differently. People do not choose what they are going to investigate by what is not boring or is a hot topic. Very often they look for (metaphorically) a chink where they can put a crowbar in and open a crack to see some new knowledge. It was a lot easier to study neurons than glia—they stained well, their activity could be measured (a bit) without opening the skull, their electrical potentials could be measured, in some animals they were extremely large etc. Glial cells were not that forthcoming with their secrets and so they had to wait. That glial cells are not glue or just support has been known for at least a decade but what they might be doing was not (and still isn’t) easy to discover. They are not boring—they involve the regulation of calcium ions and calcium ions are very definitely not boring to anyone interested in cellular communication.
The other big motivator is what the grant money is following.
I am having difficulty with this thread. As I understand biology:
all organisms (not just humans) tend to be able to produce more offspring then the environment can support
those individuals that produce the most living (and reproducing) offspring have their genes in higher frequency in the population
therefore natural selection works and populations evolve
Both Darwin and Wallace crystallized their ideas on evolve after reading Malthus. It doesn’t matter if Malthus was wrong on some minor points—his general idea is one of the foundations of evolution by natural selection. If you throw out Malthus’ general idea then you throw out natural selection. You cannot have it both ways.
Also, the idea that famine did not occur throughout human history is naive.
- 27 Jul 2010 20:44 UTC; 1 point) 's comment on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution by (
I do not remember believing in Santa or when I stopped. But I do remember the game of everyone pretending there was a Santa and a Tooth Fairy and an Easter Bunny. It was great fun and I had no feeling that I was lied to by my parents or others. When I realized that God was not in this group and I was actually supposed to believe in that being was when my problems with pretense really began. I started to notice how others, by their actions etc., displayed a lack of believe in what they said about God, but they insisted that it was important to believe. End of innocence, now I was being lied to!
I have had drinks with friends and friends of friends in bars, pubs and beverage rooms in UK, Canada and US. I am almost 70 years old. I have never asked for a drink, I have never been asked for one. If I saw this happen, I would assume that the asker either wanted to have a favour done for them because they were feeling low or was out of money. I would not suspect that it was some sort of test. I would expect the response to be buying the drink, making a joke about the request or avoiding further conversation (or maybe all of them). I am used to people buying drinks for one another in some situation but not asking for a drink.
In my experience, people are by and large not testing; they have good will towards others; and they like company. This includes Aspergers and NTs. Why start out suspicious?
Thank you for the invitation. I have lurked for some time but have recently written a few comments and intend to continue.
Expertize: I have worked in medical labs, research (genetic, biochemical, physiological, chemical) labs, computer support and analysis, lab management. I am now retired and on a pension. My hobby is neurobiology theorizing. I have been interested in this all my adult life because I am/was dyslexic.
Critical thinking domains in neurobiology: biological understanding of consciousness, memory, morals, communication.
What do I know: I can contribute a fair amount about how we think as opposed to how we think we think and I can bring a biological perspective to a blog that is heavy on the computer science, physics, economics and math areas. (I am also one of those rare females that do not react negatively to nerds.)
What can I learn: I have never read something by Eliezer and not felt I had learned something.
I have a different way to look at this question. (1) introspection is bunk (2) if someone asks us or we ask ourselves why we did something—the answer is a guess, because we have no conscious access to the actual causes of our thoughts and actions (3)we vary in how good we are at guessing and in how honestly they judge themselves and so some people appear to be clearly rationalizing and other appear less so (4) most people are not actually aware that introspection is not direct knowledge but guesswork and so they do not recognize their guesses as guesses but may notice their self-deceptions as deceptions (5) we do not need to know the reasons for our actions unless we judge them as very bad and to be avoided or very good and to be encouraged (6) the appropriate thing in this case is not to ask ourselves why, but to ask ourselves how to change the likelihood of a repeat, up or down. Although we have only guesses about past actions, we can arrange to have some control over future ones (7) the more we know about ourselves, others, our situations, science and so on the better we can answer the how questions.
It seems a common bias to me and worth exploring.
Have you thought about a tip-of-the-hat to the opposite effect? Some people view the past as some sort of golden age where things were pure and good etc. It makes for a similar but not exactly mirror image source of bias. I think a belief that generally things are progressing for the better is a little more common than the belief that generally the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but not that much more common.
Is accepting multi-universes important to the SIAI argument? There are a very, very large number of smart people who know very little about physics. They give lip service to quantum theory and relativity because of authority—but they do not understand them. Mentioning multi-universes just slams a door in their minds. If it is important then you will have to continue referring to it but if it is not then it would be better not to sound like you have science fiction type ideas.
My objection is not about unconsciousness, nor is it about consciousness—it is about the division of the mind/brain into two systems.
I have a mind (product or function of my brain) and that mind does the things like perception, problem solving, motivation, action, memory, emotion and so on, all the mind-type things. Some of that activity I am aware of and some not. This is not a difference primarily in the activity but in which parts of it rise to consciousness. Nothing much happens in consciousness other than conscious awareness. It is one system. Consciousness seems to be necessary for some functions of memory and focus of attention, to predict the use of skeletal muscles, to facilitate some complex thought that requires a working memory (language and the like). I do not associate my ‘I’ with my consciousness alone but with my whole, single, undivided mind. That is how it feels and a division does not resonate with me.
I know that we were all brought up to accept a Freudian or some other such division inside our heads, but I was not able to believe that in the ’50s when I was a teenager and I have never been able to do it since. I do not feel divided and never have.
This is a great idea. But… I think you have to look towards your cultural bias. I am retired after a full career and have a Bachelor Degree. I have no idea what I am supposed to do with questions about SAT, ACT, GRE, GPA, college majors. Is someone who was educated partly in Canada, partly in the UK (and not recently) not welcome? How would you think someone who is from a non-English speaking region and who has English as a second language would view the questionnaire? At least “IQ” and “highest academic level achieved” are somewhat universal ideas. Good luck.
I agree that statements like all As are Bs are likely to be only approximately true and if you look you will find counter examples. But… ‘power corrupts’ is a fairly reliable rule of thumb as rules of thumb go. I include a couple of refs that took all of 3 minutes to find although I couldn’t find the really good one that I noticed a year or so ago.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1298606 abstract: We investigate the effect of power differences and associated expectations in social decision-making. Using a modified ultimatum game, we show that allocators lower their offers to recipients when the power difference shifts in favor of the allocator. Remarkably, however, when recipients are completely powerless, offers increase. This effect is mediated by a change in framing of the situation: when the opponent is without power, feelings of social responsibility are evoked. On the recipient side, we show that recipients do not anticipate these higher outcomes resulting from powerlessness. They prefer more power over less, expecting higher outcomes when they are more powerful, especially when less power entails powerlessness. Results are discussed in relation to empathy gaps and social responsibility.
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/01/power.php from J Lehrer’s comments: The scientists argue that power is corrupting because it leads to moral hypocrisy. Although we almost always know what the right thing to do is—cheating at dice is a sin—power makes it easier to justify the wrongdoing, as we rationalize away our moral mistake.
I find the post not jargony or heavy—it is fine. Type 1 is obviously uninterrupted, unconscious cognition and Type 2 is cognition that rises to consciousness in order to use working memory. This is why Type 2 is slower—it is done stepwise with a trip through consciousness between each major step in cognition rather than continuous cognition. That is why it is restrictive too—it can only deal with the limited number of items that can be held in working memory at least at the point where working memory is used. But Type 2 is more controlled and therefore can be more logical because as steps in the cognition process pass through consciousness they can be accessed by parts of the cortex that were not involved in the cognition but can judge it, like parts of the frontal cortex. I personally like the Type 1 and Type 2 rather than unconscious and conscious because is avoids the implication that unconscious and conscious are both ways to do cognition. Consciousness only is awareness of otherwise unconscious cognition. I am voting up.
I would like to observe that you can divide sciences as follows:
1) physical sciences (Physics and Chemistry are models): investigating the fundamentals using the old idea of the scientific method, ie hypothesis to experiment to accepting or rejecting hypothesis. It is a predict and test method.
2) historic sciences (Biology, Geology, Cosmology are models but not Biochemistry and Biophysics which go it the first group); uses the theories of physical science to create historic theories (like evolution or plate tectonics) about how things became what they are. It is only rarely that a hypothesis can be directly tested by experiment and the method sort of proceeds as observation/taxonomy to hypothesis explaining bodies of observations to simple experiments to prove that proposed processes are possible. It is a collect data and try to organize into a integrated story sort of method and very inductive.
3) inventive Science (Engineering, Medicine are examples): uses the theories of physical and historic sciences to create useful and/or profitable things. Here the method is to identify a problem then look for solutions and test proposed solutions in tests/trials.
Associated with these sciences are theoretical areas (Mathematics, Information Theory are examples): These do not test theories and are not in the business of predicting and testing against reality. Their deductive rather then inductive. They create theoretic structures that are logically robust and can be used by the other sciences as powerful tools.
I have left out the social sciences, history proper, linguistics, anthropology and economics because it is not clear to me that they are even sciences and they do not fit the mold of mathematics either. But they are (like the others) large communal scholarships and I am not putting them down when I say they may not be sciences.
My definition of a science is a communal scholarship that
a) is not secretive but public using peer reviewed publication (or its equivalent) in enough detail that the work could be repeated,
b) is concerned with understanding material physical reality and doing so by testing theories in experiments or their equivalents ie no magical or untestable explanations,
c) accepts the consensus of convinced scientists in the appropriate field rather than an authority as a measure of truth. The method by which the scientists are convinced may be anything in principle, but scientists are not likely to be convinced if the math has mistakes, logic is faulty, experiments are without controls, supernatural reasons are used etc. etc.
AI would definitely fall into the inventive sciences. An appropriate method would be to identify a problem, invent solutions using knowledge of physical and historic science and the tools of math etc., see if the solutions work in systematic tests. None of these is simple. To identify a problem, you need to have a vision of what is the end point success and a proposed path to get there. Vision does not come cheap. Invention of solutions is a creative process. Testing takes as much skill and systematic, clear thinking as any other experimental-ish procedure.
I am not sure that I understand the exact difference between a threshold unit and a miniature computer that you want to shine a light on. Below are some aspects that may be of use to you:
The whole surface of a neuron is not at the same potential (relative to the firing potential). Synapses are many (can be thousands), along branching dendrites, of different types and strengths so that the patterns of input that will cause firing from the dendrite end of the neuron are varied and a large number. This architecture is plastic with synapses being strengthened and weakened by use and by events far away from the neuron. At the axon root synapses are fewer and their effect more individual. If the neuron fires it delivers its signal to many synapses on many other neurons. Again this is plastic.
The potential of the neuron surface is affected by many other things besides other neurons through the synapses. It is affected by electrical and magnetic fields generated by the whole brain (the famous waves etc.). It is affected by the chemical environment such as the concentration of calcium ions. These factors are very changeable depending on the activity of the whole brain, hormone levels, general metabolism etc.
It is fairly easy to draw possible configurations of 1 or 2 neurons that mimic all the logic gates, discriminators (like a long tailed pairs in old fashioned electronics), delay lines, simple memory and so on. But it is unlikely that this is the root to understanding how neurons act. Networks, parallel feedback loops, glial communities, modules, architecture of different parts of the brain and the like are probably a better level of investigation.
I hope this is of some help.
Your idea that the subjects are not taking the question seriously is a good one.
I had a discussion with someone about a very similar real life ‘Linda’. It was finally resolved by realizing that the other person didn’t think of ‘and’ and ‘or’ as defined terms that always differed and was quite put out that I thought he should know that. To put it in ‘Linda’ terms: he know that Linda was a feminist and doubted that she was a teller. This being the case the ‘and’ should be thought of as an ‘or’ and b was more likely than a. Why would anyone think differently? It kind of blew my mind that I was being accused of being sloppy or illogical by using the fixed defined meaning for ‘and’ and ‘or’. I have since that time noticed that people actually often have this vagueness about logical terms.
Or the other way around—sometimes the ‘book smart—street smart’ is a put down of the geek as well, not just used against the non-geek.
People said of my brother ‘How can someone so smart be so dumb?’. He was both book smart and street smart. In fact he lived to 60 without having a wife, a house, a car, a permanent job, more belongings then he could carry and so on. He was never an alcoholic, addict, gambler or anything like that. He spent his life as a nomad and came to no harm. He knew his streets. He was almost saintly in the way he treated others. I never heard him say something unkind in his whole life. He had a very high IQ and knew a great deal fact-wise. His memory was good. He played an excellent game of chess. What he didn’t have was any sense of perspective or way of making plans that would work out or way of accurately judging others and so on. He had no way of using his book smarts or his street smarts. I have often wondered if there was a word for what his was missing in his makeup. Anyone have a word?
I do not know you and I do not know Alicorn. I do not know who I would have the most sympathy for if I did know both of you. I find this whole discussion off topic. Alicorn gave some advice and I find the advice interesting whether she follows it or not, whether she even believes it or not.
It is very good advice (if and only if you may want from time to time to like someone that you have come to dislike). I personally have tried to develop ways to not start to dislike people in the first place and not worry about whether liking them is to my advantage. However, it has not always been the case that I could like someone and it was sometimes to my disadvantage - so I appreciate the advice.
I suggest that you judge the advice and not the person who gave it. The ‘others of us’ are not interested in this fight.