MathiasZaman

Karma: 1,199

MathiasZaman 31 Oct 2013 15:34 UTC
2 points
on: Human Memory: Problem Set
1) Go through the process slowly. Dramatically take out your key. Slowly let it sink into the lock. Turn it as dramatic as you can. After locking it, try to open the door. Finish with a “quest completed” sound in your head.

Alternatively, take a picture of your lock with your key in it.

2) Tell my friend: “Antifragile, eh. Sounds like an interesting book. Remind me to look it up later. Could you maybe send me an email about it later?”

3) Make a “ding” sound in my head every time I do give the door an extra push.

4) I’m generally good at getting somewhere based on vague information, but I’d try and remember at least the first set of directions and ask later on. Also, I’d repeat the direction the person has given me, in order to check my shorter-term memory.

5) Make one small card with only the key points on them. Practice the talk with this card in hand, so that you’ll have them in the same order every time. If at any time during the talk you think you’re forgetting something, take a quick look at the card to reassure yourself.

6) I’d just give up and put the student ID somewhere accessible. It took me over a year to memorize 89201, so there’s no way I’ll be remembering a 12-digit one.

7) A pencil and paper next to my bed so I can scribble on it without turning on the lights. Even a short barely readable “Meeting with Christoph” should be enough to jog my memory in the morning.

9) Summarize, summarize, summarize. Make schematic representations of everything. A 700-page textbook can be reduced to 100 or even 75 pages of schematics and summaries. Apart from that, find a friend that’s also studying and explain things to them. You memorize things a lot quicker if you actually use that knowledge.

MathiasZaman 31 Oct 2013 15:46 UTC
1 point
on: Welcome to Less Wrong! (5th thread, March 2013)
Hello everyone,

My name is Mathias. I’ve been thinking about coming here for quite some while and I finally made the jump. I’ve been introduced to this website/community through Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and I’ve been quite active on it’s subreddit (under the alias of Yxoque).

For a while now, I’ve been self-identifying as “aspiring rationalist” and I want to level up even further. One way I learn quickly is through conversation, so that’s why I finally decided to come here. Also because I wanted to attend a meet-up, but if felt wrong to join one of a community I’m not a member of.

As for info on myself, I’m not sure how interesting that is. I’ve recently graduated as a Bachelor in Criminology at the University of Brussels and I’m currently looking for a suitable job. I still need to figure out my comparative advantage.

I’m also reading through a pdf of all the blog posts, currently I’m on the Meta-ethics sequence. In my free time I’m (slowly) working on annotating HPMOR and convincing people to write Rational!Animorphs fanfiction.

MathiasZaman 1 Nov 2013 16:58 UTC
4 points
in reply to: Douglas_Knight’s comment on: [Link] Lost and Found
I get that, but germ theory during the middle ages wasn’t exactly widespread, was it? If I’m not mistaken, the dominant belief was that diseases were caused by foul-smelling odors, not germs.

Imagine reading Rerum rusticarum libri III as a medieval scholar, or maybe event the relevant source. Could we expect a medieval scholar to jump and shout: “Yes! Yes! Of course! Disease is caused by small invisible creatures, not water that smells bad.”

That’s what Jack is trying to say, I think. With knowledge (and even proof) of germ theory, a find like this is pretty amazing. Without that knowledge or proof, “small-invisible-creatures”-theory has as much evidence as “foul smell”-theory. Maybe even less.

Maybe the lost document contains amazing evidence, but this leaves me wondering, how much evidence could someone in Classical times find to support germ theory.

MathiasZaman 2 Nov 2013 13:25 UTC
11 points
on: How to choose a country/city?
What might help is making a comprehensive list of things you’re looking for a in a country, assign importance to each of those things and then see which country rates highest in the important categories.

Going of you post I’d say:
- Ability to complete phd (rated high, let’s say around .80 or .90)
- Rational/secular population (rated moderately high .70)
- Values self-expression (.70)
- Happiness (also rather high, maybe .80)
- Relative closeness to other countries (I don’t know, maybe .50 or .60?)
And I’d also add a couple of more (and if you start thinking about it, you’ll probably come up with a lot more):
- Language barrier
- Socio-economic system
- Political situation
- Public transport
- How good you feel about the country
Apart from doing this, I’d also gather a lot of anecdotal data from people who live in those countries and especially people who moved to those countries or studied there.
What links here?
- How to choose a country/city? by joaolkf (2 Nov 2013 1:48 UTC; 15 points)

MathiasZaman 2 Nov 2013 15:32 UTC
22 points
0
on: “Singularity or Bust” full documentary
Here’s a summary of the video, written while watching it.

Summary
- A positive singularity is possible in about 10 years
- Three ways towards singularity: AI, Nano-technology and computer-brain interfaces
- The person we’re following (Ben Goertzel) works with machine consciousness
- Doesn’t follow a materialistic outlook on consciousness. He sees consciousness as the ground on which things are formed and different structures manifest consciousness in different ways. (For example, a human brains manifests consciousness in one way and a coin manifests it in another way.)
- Introduction of the second person we’re following (Hugo de Garis), who works with Goertzel on the Conscious Robot Project.
- Apparently, there’s a province in China that pours great amounts of money in computer science and software.
- de Garis is trying to tap into that money in order to kickstart a machine intelligence and robots in China and maybe the world.
- de Garis sees China as the next big culture, while America is growing stagnant and “fat”
- Goertzel sees artificial scientists as the big step towards a singularity
- 20 minutes in and we see their robot. It falls over when told to go right.
- Goertzel says building a “thinking machine” shouldn’t be harder than creating the google search engine.
- The mind as pattern-recognition engine
- More robot. It walks a bit wobbly. They talk to the robot a little bit.
- The robot does a couple of dance moves and kicks a ball.
- Goertzel’s motivation to do this research is lessening suffering, removing death, removing limitations of the human body.
- A brief explanation of how AI wouldn’t have to be a copy of a human mind.
- Explanation of how a superhuman mind would lead to a rapid increase in technology and how humans won’t be in control anymore.
- De Garis is more pessimistic than Goertzel. Foresees a great debate as the gap between human and machine intelligences closes.
- De Garis sees the worst scenario as the most probable. He foresees a violent conflict between humans who want super-powerful AI (he calls the AI artelects and the humans who want them cosmists) and those who don’t want such a thing (which he calls terrans). He says he’s glad he’ll be dead before this global war happens.
- Goertzel thinks we can accurately predict the events leading up to a singularity, but not anything beyond that.
- The reason Goertzel works in AI is because it feels natural to him.
- The goal for Goertzel is going beyond the human condition.
- Before Goertzel had kids, he wanted to be immortal, but now he has kids, that drive has lessened.
- White text on a black background tells us de Garis’ lab is dismantled and the Chinese government is reconsidering the profitability of the home robot.
- Goertzel continues working on robots.
After seeing the documentary, I’m a bit at a loss as to who the target audience is. For people who are new to the concept of AI or the singularity this probably isn’t the best way to learn more and for people who are already familiar with those concepts, this documentary doesn’t offer a lot of new insights. I also don’t think it stands strongly enough as a human-interest piece.

The bits with the robot were kinda fun, but they didn’t provide a lot of information. The robot didn’t look like much more than a cleverbot with legs and since we’re not told anything about the robot, I don’t have a particular reason to assume it isn’t just that.

MathiasZaman 2 Nov 2013 16:04 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Emile’s comment on: “Singularity or Bust” full documentary
Ok. Done. Thanks.

MathiasZaman 2 Nov 2013 17:54 UTC
6 points
in reply to: pan’s comment on: Open Thread, November 1 − 7, 2013
Doesn’t this already exist? Or is this not what you meant?

I’m reading that pdf version on my phone and it looks fine.

MathiasZaman 3 Nov 2013 1:09 UTC
0 points
in reply to: pan’s comment on: Open Thread, November 1 − 7, 2013
I can’t speak for anything else, but I’ve read up to the Meta-ethics sequence without encountering any gaps. I can’t vouch for anything after that, but the pdf seems complete. Maybe someone else can shed a light on your question.

MathiasZaman 3 Nov 2013 1:20 UTC
3 points
in reply to: joaolkf’s comment on: How to choose a country/city?

My main problem would be: “what are the things I should be looking for?”.

That’s hard to tell, since some factors will always be personal. What you could do is think about the stuff you like and dislike from your country and the countries you have visited. I wouldn’t have thought of “public transport” unless I noticed how terrible Belgium does it and how much better Germany and the UK do it.

Given all my choices are highly developed countries, I don’t think this is relevant. But I’m not completely sure. What did you mean here?

I can only really speak for parts of Europe, but there’s nuances in each country. The country I live in, for example, has most of its political power tied up in whether or not to split the country, making government less efficient than in neighboring countries. Another factor might be the number of parties, allowing for more nuance in government (the presence of smaller fringe parties might be particularly telling).

But it’s perfectly possible that none of this matters to you, so you can certainly ignore it if it doesn’t apply.

Given I have never visited most of them, is this really relevant? Ideally, how I feel should track all the other relevant factors.

I remember reading somewhere (but I really can’t remember where and a cursory check on google leads me nowhere) that people where generally happier with their car if they liked the way they felt about the car, instead of just going over an objective list of good car qualities. Maybe this plays less of a role with choosing a country (I certainly hope so) but it could be a forgotten factor otherwise.

MathiasZaman 3 Nov 2013 9:46 UTC
1 point
in reply to: hyporational’s comment on: Open Thread, November 1 − 7, 2013

I read somewhere, might have been on lw, that telling what you’re doing might decrease your chance of success, because it provides a way to get compliments without actually having achieved anything yet. I suppose this depends on how you do it, though.

I know this TED-talk says similar things. It’s where I first heard of that concept.

MathiasZaman 3 Nov 2013 21:11 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Antisuji’s comment on: A Workflow with Spaced Repetition

For example, I want to really learn the NATO phonetic alphabet, and I have a card for each letter, but I’m still slow when I spell things out.

This is one of the things that might benefit from social learning. Find a friend that also wants to learn it and play around with it together. I learned the entire alphabet during an internship with a local police force and it never slipped my mind since. It’s something that you need to use in order to memorize it.

MathiasZaman 4 Nov 2013 8:23 UTC
2 points
on: Meetup : Brussels monthly meetup: memory!
I’ve wanting to do one of these for quite some time now. It’s one of the reasons I signed up to Less Wrong. I’m going to check my schedule and see if I’m able to come at that day.

I do have some questions, though:
- What’s the general atmosphere for newcomers like?
- How much familiarity with Less Wrong is expected?
- How does a meetup generally looks like?

MathiasZaman 4 Nov 2013 9:44 UTC
9 points
in reply to: Viliam_Bur’s comment on: Open Thread, November 1 − 7, 2013
Wait, what?! Is “a story where the protagonist behaves rationally” really a new genre of literature?

I think there’s a difference between what I’ve been describing as rationalist!fic (or rationalist!fiction) and fiction in which the -agonists (PCs is the right terminology, I guess) are rational/clever. Rationalist!fic doesn’t just feature rationalist characters, they’re expressively written to teach the audience about rationality.

Examples:
- Doctor Who features a sufficiently advanced alien who is, within the rules of the universe, pretty rational (in that he is good at reaching his goals). The message of the show however, is not: “be clever and rational,” it’s: “humanity is awesome and you should feel some wonder about the universe.” Not rationalist!fic.
- The Conqueror’s Shadow, by Ari Marmell features rationalist agonists and the message the audience goes away with is: “be clever and creative when it comes to reaching worthwhile goals.” Rationalist!fic.

MathiasZaman 5 Nov 2013 9:27 UTC
0 points
in reply to: katydee’s comment on: New vs. Business-as-Usual Future
What metrics are you using for this assertion?

MathiasZaman 5 Nov 2013 9:55 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Ishaan’s comment on: Open Thread, November 1 − 7, 2013

So, the question becomes, how do you recognize “rationalist” stories in non-fan-fic form? Is it simply the presence of show-your-work-smart characters? Is simply behaving rationally sufficient?

Every genre has a theme...romance, adventure, etc.

I’d say the difference between “rationalists” stories and “non-rationalist” stories lies in the moral of the story, of the lessons the story teaches you.

I don’t think it’s a genre in the same way romance or adventure are. It’s more of a qualifier. You can have rationalist romance novels or rationalist adventure movies.

Although you could argue that it is a genre. While discussions about “genre” are often hard, since people don’t tend to agree on what makes something a genre.

But rationalist fiction already has a couple of genre conventions, such as no-one being allowed to hold the idiot ball or teaching the audience new and useful techniques for overcoming challenges.

MathiasZaman 20 Nov 2013 12:25 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Bayeslisk’s comment on: Open Thread, November 15-22, 2013
I occasionally go airsofting, which is quite similar to paintball. The organizers mainly borrow from First Person Shooters for their rules, but if you adapt the rules to something similar to Quirrell’s games in Methods of Rationality and throw in ways to do easily conceal information, you might be able to make it work.

First of all, have more than two teams. Two teams don’t allow for interesting scenarios such as teaming up, betraying, bluffing… Adding an extra one does.

Don’t have “respawns”. Failure should be meaningful and you can have “wipe out the enemy” as an objective. It also lowers the time needed to complete an objective.

Give incomplete or inaccurate information to your players about the goals or the layout of your arena. This forces them to quickly process new information they encounter on the battlefield.

There are other things you can do, but I’ll have to give it some more thought.

MathiasZaman 24 Nov 2013 13:55 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Emile’s comment on: Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013
Looks kinda interesting. When I was 18 or so, I tried setting up a similar system, but it failed for a couple of reasons. I’ll give it a try. Since I’ve noticed that small (online) notifications (such as upvotes or reblogs) make me feel good, this to-do list might trigger a similar response.

MathiasZaman 24 Nov 2013 13:59 UTC
18 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013
I feel this is a stupid question, but I’d rather ask it than not knowing: Why would anyone want that? I can understand opposing things like: democracy, secularism and multiculturalism, but replacing them with a traditional monarchy just doesn’t seem right. And I don’t mean morally, I just don’t see how it could create a working society.

I can fully understand opposing certain ideas, but if you’re against democracy because it doesn’t work, why go to a system of governance that has previously shown not to work?

MathiasZaman 24 Nov 2013 16:56 UTC
16 points
in reply to: jaime2000’s comment on: Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013
That question is kinda obvious. Thanks for pointing it out.

From what I remember from my History classes, monarchies worked pretty okay with an enlightened autocrat who made benefiting the state and the populace as his or her prime goal. But the problem there was that they didn’t stay in power and they had no real way of making absolutely sure their children had the same values. All it takes to mess things up is one oldest son (or daughter if you do away with the Salic law) who cares more about their own lives than those of the population.

So I don’t think technology level plays a decisive factor. It probably will improve things for the monarchy, since famines are a good way to start a revolution, but giving absolute power to people without a good fail-safe when you’ve got a bad ruler seems like a good way to rot a system from the inside.

MathiasZaman 24 Nov 2013 17:01 UTC
8 points
in reply to: JoshuaZ’s comment on: Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013
Thank you. I’ll read the FAQ, it seems exhaustive and informative.

And as I hope I made clear, I can certainly understand the notion that “democracy isn’t awesome”. But I don’t get the jump from there to “a monarchy will be better.”