lavalamp

Karma: 2,088

lavalamp 16 Apr 2009 18:05 UTC
4 points
on: Welcome to Less Wrong!
Hi, I’ve been lurking for a few weeks and am likely to stay in lurker mode indefinitely. But I thought I should comment on the welcome thread.

I would prefer to stay anonymous at the moment, but I’m male, 20′s, BS in computer programming & work as a software engineer.

As an outsider, some feedback for you all:

Interesting topics—keep me reading Jargon—a little is fine, but the more there is, the harder it is to follow. The fact that people make go (my favorite game) references is a nice plus.

I would classify myself as a theist at the moment. As such (and having been raised in a very christian environment), I have some opinions on how you guys could more effectively proselytize—but I’m not sure it’s worth my time to speak up.

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 18:36 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Paul Crowley’s comment on: Welcome to Less Wrong!
Thanks for the welcome, everyone.

Personally, I pretty much have no desire to proselytize anyone for anything. Waste of time, in my experience. Maybe you all are different, but no one I’ve ever met will actually change their mind in response to hearing a new line of reasoning, anyway.

What I do have an interest in is people actually taking the time to understand each other and present points in ways that the other party will understand. Atheists and Christians are particularly bad at this. Unfortunately, the worst offenders on the christian side are the least likely to change, or even see the problem. Perhaps there’s more hope for those on the other side.

Anyway, I have no desire to debate theism here.

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 18:55 UTC
0 points
on: Anti-rationality quotes
The percentage of American Christians who will even know who all these theologians are is small. Who is your target audience for this list?

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 19:06 UTC
0 points
in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Anti-rationality quotes
...and today his sermons are even harder to read/understand than the kjv.

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 19:10 UTC
2 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Anti-rationality quotes
One could easily take that passage to have said nothing at all about good philosophy. Surely no one here would be defending “hollow and deceptive” philosophy?

They are operating under the assumption that you don’t need to check the context of the verse. God said it, that settles it. Contextual criticism is of the devil; it assumes that the world is not full of simple objective moral truths. So turnabout is fair play.

I have to say I’ve never met a christian who would agree with that; they think they are using things in context, even if they aren’t. Turnabout may be fair play, but it’s not going to win you an argument with them, if that’s your goal...

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 19:28 UTC
0 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Anti-rationality quotes
Ah, somehow I failed to see the link.

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 19:35 UTC
0 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Anti-rationality quotes
I see. I think I got here by clicking on a recent comment.

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 19:43 UTC
0 points
on: Marketing rationalism

ADDED: People are missing the point that the situation is symmetrical for religious evangelists. For them to step outside of their worldview, and use reason to gain converts, is as epistemically dangerous for them, as it is for us to gain converts using something other than reason.

Disagree. Most people know very little of logic and reason, and will not bother to do their homework upon being approached with Christian arguments based on reason.

lavalamp 17 Apr 2009 19:54 UTC
0 points
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: Anti-rationality quotes
They are a minority and getting smaller. You will not be persuading anyone from those churches anyway.

Edit: I agree with you that it sounds grander, though. :)

lavalamp 5 May 2009 6:03 UTC
0 points
on: Return of the Survey
I took the survey, very interesting questions. I guess I should be happy my answer to the calibration question was within his lifetime...

I didn’t check the section boxes.

lavalamp 8 May 2009 16:32 UTC
0 points
on: Epistemic vs. Instrumental Rationality: Case of the Leaky Agent
So the question here is something like, “Would you try to make yourself believe a lie, in the case that believing the lie would cause you to maximize your utility function in a way that believing the truth would not?”

Is this more or less a correct reading?

lavalamp 20 May 2009 21:04 UTC
0 points
on: Positive Bias Test (C++ program)
4 out of 5 people fail this? Seriously? I’m having a really hard time believing that, I’m going to have to administer this test to people.

Visual Studio 2005 reports stack corruption after it exits, btw.

lavalamp 24 May 2009 17:06 UTC
1 point
on: Saturation, Distillation, Improvisation: A Story About Procedural Knowledge And Cookies
I guess I’m not seeing the distinction between propositional and procedural knowledge. I get that people don’t always realize what all the little steps they follow are (or their significance); but things like “Don’t introduce any grease into the batter, or peaks will fail to form” are propositional knowledge, are they not?

(or from my own baking experience: It’s very important to CUT the butter into scones, but a large percentage of recipes will fail to mention that.)

The phrase “non-propositional knowledge” brings to my mind things like Zen Buddhism...

(EDIT: If you’re saying procedural knowledge is a subset of propositional knowledge, then I have no qualms...)

lavalamp 25 May 2009 15:52 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: Saturation, Distillation, Improvisation: A Story About Procedural Knowledge And Cookies
Thanks, that makes your point much clearer.

Perhaps another example is learning to drive a stickshift; it seems no amount of talking will help someone find the sweet spot on the clutch any faster.

lavalamp 28 May 2009 17:23 UTC
2 points
on: Do Fandoms Need Awfulness?
I have a theory that the harder people try to convince me of something, the more it means they’re really trying to convince themselves. (Example: creationism)

This seems related...

More seriously, I’ve seen at least one study in which it was noted that the more stringent religious sects have better retention rates, i.e., the more an ideology demands from its adherents, the more committed they are. This sounds like it could be another manifestation of the same effect.

lavalamp 9 Jun 2009 18:22 UTC
2 points
on: The Aumann’s agreement theorem game (guess 2/3 of the average)
I think it’s entirely rational to submit a non-zero answer.

I would prefer to win outright, rather than tie, and I think it’s safe to assume this is true of more people than just me.

If everyone does the “rational” thing of guessing 0, it will be a big tie.

If anyone guesses above 0, anyone guessing 0 will be beaten by someone with a guess between 0 and the average.

Therefore, a small non-zero guess would seem superior to a guess of zero, to those who value outright wins above ties (EDIT: and don’t value a tie as being much better than a loss).

Perhaps I’ll write a program to simulate what the best guess would be if everyone reasons as above and writes a program to simulate it...

lavalamp 9 Jun 2009 19:04 UTC
0 points
on: You can’t believe in Bayes
“believe x” approximately means “think it is probable/highly probable that x” to me. It would seem you don’t share this definition, as it makes your post into gibberish; what does “believe x” mean?

Certain religions use this word to mean faith or certainty, whichever is convenient at the time. This makes the word somewhat meaningless in those contexts, but this would not appear to be one of those contexts, and neither would the political question you mention.

lavalamp 9 Jun 2009 19:20 UTC
1 point
in reply to: PhilGoetz’s comment on: You can’t believe in Bayes

It’s the wrong question. The question is what steps are worth taking according to your assigned probabilities and expected-value computations.

This appears to be a non-sequitar to me; it seems entirely natural to me that both whether you think X is probable AND what you ought to in the case that you think X is probable are both reasonable (and, depending, necessary) questions.

Or maybe I completely don’t understand what you wrote. Sorry if I came off brusquely.

lavalamp 9 Jun 2009 19:25 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Alicorn’s comment on: The Aumann’s agreement theorem game (guess 2/3 of the average)
No, everyone who prefers to win outright will do the logic you just did and decide that 1/∞ is too small, for the reason you state.

Also, those of us who prefer to win outright will note that someone has to take one for the team and vote high to give the possibility of an outright winner, unless we believe cousin_it...

lavalamp 9 Jun 2009 19:28 UTC
1 point
in reply to: GuySrinivasan’s comment on: The Aumann’s agreement theorem game (guess 2/3 of the average)
Yes, because I would continue to prefer to win without a tie. :)