Jimdrix_Hendri

• Jimdrix_Hendri 25 Jun 2014 21:17 UTC

  0 points

  on: Break your habits: be more empirical

  You might be interested to learn that there is a large literature devoted to quantifying this effect: http://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Multi-armed_bandit

• Jimdrix_Hendri 14 Nov 2015 16:38 UTC

  1 point

  on: What Cost for Ir­ra­tional­ity?

  The example given for status quo bias is not necessarily indicative of impaired rationality. That are such things as hysteresis effects:

  Consider the case of the family subject to frequent power outages. They will learn to adjust. This could be as simple as buying an alternative power source (generator). Or, perhaps they adopt their life to perform activities requiring no power whenever their is an outage. If you have already bought a generator, it might not be worth your while to pay a higher price for a more reliable power supply. Whereas the family accustomed to a stable supply faces capital cost associated with making an adjustment.

• Jimdrix_Hendri 24 Jul 2019 2:10 UTC

  1 point

  on: The Real Rules Have No Exceptions

  A good rule is an objective procedure that can be apply to derive a response to any foreseeable situation.

  A look-up table is not a rule, for the same reason that a detailed table of planetary ephemerides is not a substitute for the law of gravity.

  Nostalgebrist’s suggestion cannot be considered a rule at all. It is not objective.

  In the realm of psychology and politics, rules gain legitimacy when they are adhered to over a long period of time and when they are seen to consistently protect against bad outcomes.

  There is a case for flexible interpretation, but an agent who abandons rules too frequently, and with slight incentive will eventually lose confidence in his ability to abide by rules. This was only hinted at in the original post, but it is a point worth making explicit.

  What links here?

  • Said Achmiz's comment on On “aiming for con­ver­gence on truth” by gjm (12 Apr 2023 5:49 UTC; 10 points)

• Jimdrix_Hendri 24 Jul 2019 2:35 UTC

  4 points

  on: Rea­son isn’t magic

  We should select comparisons aimed at the getting the best result, not to make things easy on ourselves:

  What if the Europeans had thought: “Hmm. The natives are following a procedure we don’t understand with regard to casava. Their explanation doesn’t make sense according to our own outlook, but it is apparent that they have a lot of experience. It may pay to be prudent rather than disregarding their rituals as superstitions.”

  Had the Europeans taken this attitude, they may have discovered the toxicity of yucca, experimented with imitating the leaching procedure or, at least, have introduced it slowly, since reliance on a monoculture exposes a population to other risks as well. In either case, wouldn’t the Africans likely have been better off?

  In case this seems like a special case, consider the impact of the introduction of potatoes to Ireland. As for the long-term, unquantifiable dangers of introducing genetically modified species into the environment on a massive scale; only time will tell.

• Jimdrix_Hendri 24 Jul 2019 21:32 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: The Real Rules Have No Exceptions

  One criterion for a procedure to be objective is that it can be carried out equally by anyone.

  A procedure which includes a codicil: “Sometimes, I will step in and overturn the arrangement”. Fails on three counts:

  1 It fails to explicitly define the criteria for making interventions.

  2 Nothing is said about the range of interventions that will be entertained.

  3 It does not specify the means by which the type of intervention will be determined.

  The name for this is dictat, and is almost always inappropriate and dangerous.

  There are other ways of building in flexibility. For instance:

  In cases many where the environment (causes) is very unpredictable, it is still possible to establish guidelines with reference to effects.

  At the same time, the “rule” can explicitly state criteria for turning off the intervention, thereby reducing the risk that the intervention become a new normal.

  Types of interventions can also be limited to a pre-existing list of alternatives, which can be criticised and vetted before the emergency is triggered.

Oc­cam’s Ra­zor: In need of sharp­en­ing?

• Jimdrix_Hendri 3 Aug 2019 1:56 UTC

  2 points

  on: A Tech­ni­cal Ex­pla­na­tion of Tech­ni­cal Explanation

  EY writes:

  the ordinary or colloquial way of speaking about degrees of belief, where someone might casually say, “I’m 98% certain that canola oil contains more omega-3 fats than olive oil.” What they really mean by this is that they feel 98% certain—there’s something like a little progress bar that measures the strength of the emotion of certainty, and this progress bar is 98% full. And the emotional progress bar probably wouldn’t be exactly 98% full, if we had some way to measure. The word “98%” is just a colloquial way of saying: “I’m almost but not entirely certain.”

  I suspect something like this really is what most people have in mind when they speak about degrees of surety. But that is not to deny there is a simple, intuitive way one can interpret such sentences, and it isn’t necessary to take a rocky detour to consider hypothetical repetitions of “similarly difficult questions”.

  What I mean when I say I am 98% sure in the oil question, is that I’d be equally indifferent about accepting either side of the bet about which oil has the greater omega-3 content providing I was given odds 98:2 (assuming risk neutrality).

• Jimdrix_Hendri 3 Aug 2019 2:07 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: habryka’s comment on: Oc­cam’s Ra­zor: In need of sharp­en­ing?

  Help me out here, habryka.

  I’ve read part way through the article. The first paragraph seemed to be carrying on a continuing conversation (John Searle comes to mind). Then it seemed to change direction abruptly, addressing a problem in mechanism design, namely how to assign payoffs so as to incentivise an agent in a certain game to be honest about his predictions.

  These are interesting topics, but I struggle to see the relevance.

  EY’s article is also very long. I haven’t read it to the end. Can you point out where to look or, better, summarise the point you were making?

  Thanks a lot!

• Jimdrix_Hendri 3 Aug 2019 2:24 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Abe Dillon’s comment on: Oc­cam’s Ra­zor: In need of sharp­en­ing?

  The idea of counting postulates is attractive, but it harbours a problem which reminds me of a story. There once was an editor assigned to review an article. The editor was conscientious and raised 15 questions. But his boss thought this was too many and would only permit five questions. Now the editor cared about his points, so he kept them by generous application of the conjunctive: “and”.

  We could come up formal requirements to avoid anything as crude as the editor’s behaviour. But, I think we’d still find that each postulate encapsulates many concepts, and that a fair comparison between competing theories should consider the relative complexity of the concepts as well. So, we are still far away from assigning each theory a numerical complexity score.

  A more serious problem is that a postulate count differs from what we usually mean by complexity, which generally reflects in some sense the heterogeneity and volume of considerations that go into applying a theory. Ptolemy’s and Newton’s model of the solar system give similar results. It’s true that Ptolemy’s theory is more complex in its expression. But even if its expression were simpler, I’d still label Newton’s theory simpler, since the Ptolemaic theory requires many more steps to apply.

• Jimdrix_Hendri 3 Aug 2019 2:41 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Oc­cam’s Ra­zor: In need of sharp­en­ing?

  Raemon, I understand your remark. But I’ve detected another problem. I’ve dropped the ball by posting my reply to the wrong remark. So, I’m going to have to do some cutting and pasting. Please bear with me.

  The EY article really is super long (but interesting) and seems to go all over the place. I’d like to do habryka the courtesy of an answer reasonably promptly. I hope I’m not out of order by asking habryka for guidance about what is on his mind.

• Jimdrix_Hendri 3 Aug 2019 2:49 UTC

  0 points

  in reply to: habryka’s comment on: Oc­cam’s Ra­zor: In need of sharp­en­ing?

  hi habryka,

  It wasn’t my purpose to open a discussion of interpretation of quantum mechanics. I only took this as an example.

  My point is something else entirely: scientists have been leaning very heavily on William of Occam for a long while now. But try to pin down what they mean by a the relative complexity of an explanation, and they shrug their shoulders.

  It’s not even the case that scientists disagree on which metric to apply. (That would just be normal business!) But, as far as I know, no one has made a serious effort to define a metric. Maybe because they can’t?

  A very unscientific behaviour indeed!

• Jimdrix_Hendri 6 Aug 2019 1:20 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Oc­cam’s Ra­zor: In need of sharp­en­ing?

  HI Raemon,

  I’m gratified to see my humble contribution receive attention, including from you. I’m learning. So thanks.

  This is my first independent posting (I’ve commented before) and I didn’t notice it appearing in the front page “latest posts”. I understand you are a LW organisor. Can you help me understand the trigger criteria for an article to appear under “latest posts”? Thanks a lot! JH

Searle’s Chi­nese Room and the Mean­ing of Meaning

• Jimdrix_Hendri 8 Aug 2019 21:16 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: habryka’s comment on: Oc­cam’s Ra­zor: In need of sharp­en­ing?

  I have the impression that Solomonoff Induction provides a precise procedure to a very narrow set of problems with little practical applicability elsewhere.

  How would you use Solomonoff Induction to choose between the two alternative theories mentioned in the article: one based on Newton’s Force Laws, the other based on the principle of least action. (Both theories have the same range of validity and produce the identical results).

• Jimdrix_Hendri 14 Sep 2019 14:13 UTC

  3 points

  on: Schel­ling fences on slip­pery slopes

  I think your idea about a Schelling point deserves further thought. But, why (and how) select the point arbitrarily? Why now presume that rational 100% Gandhi would perform an optimisation, according to his personal utility function, calculating the good the offered money could do against the harm done to the world by becoming less pacific?

  Since you’ve already posited a third party, in your example, engaged to destroy Gandhi’s prized possessions for deviations, why not just have Gandhi charge the man to shoot him as soon as he shows any sign of going on a murderous rampage? That sounds pretty 100%-Gandhi-like to me.

  In fact, it is never hard to boost global utility by engaging an robot enforcer. The trick is to do without or, sometimes, to include the enforcer’s own utility function (can he be subverted?) into the calculation!

• Jimdrix_Hendri 21 Sep 2019 12:06 UTC

  −3 points

  on: In­tel­lec­tual Hip­sters and Meta-Contrarianism

  1. The average IQ of visitors to this site is 145 squared? Impressive!

  2. Are you trying to be subtly meta-contrarian with your idiosyncratic orthography, or are you just really glad to see me?

Is there a sci­en­tific method? Physics, Biol­ogy and Beyond

• Jimdrix_Hendri 5 Dec 2019 18:05 UTC

  6 points

  on: The Virtue of Silence

  Hmm. I suppose the NY Times could run a column on the ethics of open discussion of violating medical confidentiality. No?

  Certainly this sequence can be continued. With each new meta-iteration we are further removed from the original issue but might hope to benefit (?) from the silence-equivalent effect of increased incomprehensibility.

• Jimdrix_Hendri 5 Dec 2019 19:01 UTC

  1 point

  on: Circling

  Hey unreal!

  I came to your article never having heard of circling before, and your first iteration at describing put me into the mind: “well, it’s just another name for a party”. But later you explained how the group gives explicit attention to feelings, especially feelings of the moment. This bring to mind and experience I would like to share with you.

  I typically operate in a very masculine oriented environment and I’ve sometimes heard women complain they find the approaches taken, say, to reaching a decision, are unnatural for them. This worried me. I’m a man and I’m aware of the danger that as a member of the dominant group I might have uncritically accepted the standard approach as the only viable approach. But I didn’t really understand the complaint until years later, upon finding myself in an all female environment. How different the woman’s way of dealing with problems! Whereas the male approach is to present possible solutions, weighing their likely impact in terms of company objectives, the women hardly confronted the problem at all. Instead they spoke at great length about their feelings; then closed discussion (seemingly without resolution) by performing some joint activity reinforcing group solidarity.

  At first, this feminine approach struck me as childish. But then, I began considering the drawbacks of the approach I had been used to. The masculine approach eschewed any discussion of personal feelings: possible solutions were supposed to be judged solely against the criteria of company objectives, although what really went on was a competition to disguise personal interests in the cover of company goals. At the end of the discussion some approach would be agreed upon. But, since the selection was determined by power, it was rarely the best either from either the company or personal standpoints. And, inevitably, there would be losers who, by the ethos of the group were forbidden from expressing their feelings. No thought at all was given to group solidarity, and the participants left the meeting bitter or intent on “getting even” next time.

  So now, which of these two approaches is really the most childish?

  The impression I get from your article of circling is that it is aimed at correcting some of the defects of what I have been calling the masculine approach to decision making. Not everyone needs this equally (my woman’s group certainly didn’t) but for some people, if they went into it with an open mind, could certainly benefit.

  As for how a group can best reach business decisions, I see advantages in combining the two approaches. We need the rationality of what I’ve been calling the masculine approach, but (in the masculine environment) it should be up to the leader to explicitly adopt behaviours enforcing the notion that personal feelings are a legitimate concern for expression and consideration as part of the chosen solution.

• Jimdrix_Hendri 6 Dec 2019 16:39 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Mary Chernyshenko’s comment on: Is there a sci­en­tific method? Physics, Biol­ogy and Beyond

  But this is not what is done. Instead, journalists write, pretty much universally, about “the scientific method”, which is supposed to be an iterative procedure made up of observation, hypothesising and testing. This raises two questions:

  1) Why don’t journalists instead write about the life or physical or social science method? I suppose this is one of the widespread misunderstandings about science. There is also a gross public misperception about the validity that can be to attribute to scientific results. It is true that some of these points are subject to disagreement among philosophers of science, but I think all would agree that the public notions, upheld by journalists, is lazy, naive and incorrect.

  2) You could also say, Ok, so there are multiple approaches taken in the various scientific disciplines. But what is wrong with iterative application of observation, hypothesising and testing as a truth finding method? Well, I’d argue, this isn’t a method at all. Instead it’s a description. I.e., it is not an approach that can be set into operation to uncover the truth.

  In case that is confusing, I’ll make the point in another way. Let’s say you are interviewing the manager of a sports team and you ask him what is his strategy for defeating another team. Suppose he were to answer: “My strategy is to outscore my opponent”. This is not a strategy at all. It is merely a restatement of the victory condition.